Monthly Archives: June 2013

About 6 months ago, I wrote a blog post about how we need to be kinder to ourselves and, because I didn’t have a picture that demonstrated that principle, I stuck in a photo of a goose eating a pumpkin. The pumpkin-eating-goose had nothing to do with the post, or with my reminder to practice self care– it was just on my desktop at the time and made me laugh.

Since then, Goose Eating a Pumpkin (or GEAP) has become our very own slang. It can mean, “Hey! Stop treating yourself like garbage!”. Or “Just say ‘thank you’ and accept a compliment.”. Or “I understand that things appear to be coming apart at the seams right now, but I am here for you. Take my hand and lets get through this together.”

So you see, a goose eating a pumpkin can be a very powerful thing. So powerful that it has it’s own t-shirt.

I have a friend who is going through some rough stuff right now. She is one of the people who knows me best in this world, family to me in all the ways that matter. I want to fix everything for her, to make everything okay, but I can’t.

So here is what I am going to do instead. I am going to be a little bit kinder, a little bit more patient with everyone I interact with today. I am going to cut everybody some slack, starting with myself.

And I’m asking you to do the same.

I herby declare today to be an officially sanctioned GEAP Day.

Act accordingly.

In the comments section of the sunflower post I did last week, a couple of you asked what kind of camera I use. This is also the question I am emailed most often. I don’t think of myself as a photographer, but I am learning and I’m happy to share what I know.

My current DSLR is a Nikon D5100 . I’ve been shooting exclusively with Nikons since I made the switch to digital. I don’t really think there is much difference between Nikons and Cannons– both have their die-hard fans — but once you buy one you will probably want to stick with that brand. That’s mostly because once you’ve learned the ins and outs of a particular system you probably won’t want to start over, but also because the lens aren’t interchangeable.

I have always been really happen with my Nikons and this is my fourth DSLR. The 5100 has about a million features, most of which I will probably never use. I shoot in Aperture Priority mode most of the time, and I almost never use all the full auto bells and whistles.

Even more important than your camera is the quality of the lenses you use. The lens that come with the camera are generally pretty crappy. In fact, I strongly encourage you to buy the “body only” option of the camera and buy your lenses separately. An exception to that would be if you’re planning to use the camera primarily for taking family pictures and don’t really have any interest in capital P Photography.  (Then again, if that’s the case, you may be just as happy with a point and shoot camera.)

I primarily use a Nikon 50mm f/1.4G . I love this lens so much that it would be one of the things I grabbed if my house were on fire. It’s just a beautiful piece of equipment and it takes gorgeous pics. It can be hard to get used to using a lens with a fixed focal length if you have been using a zoom lens, but you eventually get a pretty good feel for the framing and learn to zoom with your feet.

Almost every photographer I know uses their 50 mm 1.4 almost exclusively and I predict you will too. The only other lenses I occasionally use are a Nikon 12-24mm f/4G  and a Nikon 60mm f/2.8G. The 12-24 is a wide-angle lens, and I got a screaming deal on it by buying it used. I think I paid around $400. All the sunflowers were shot with the 50 mm  and the wide-angle. The 60 mm is a macro lens and I use it occasionally for food shots.

The most important thing to know is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on camera gear to take good pictures. I highly recommend finding a photography class in your area and learning what your current camera can do before splashing out on one with lots of fancy features. When you understand shutter speed and aperture, you can make lovely pictures almost every time. And I say this as someone who took four or five classes before I understood shutter speed and aperture.

If you live near Charlottesville, VA, I highly recommend Jen and Robert’s Take Better Pictures workshops. (They are the ones that finally made all that aperture mumbo-jumbo make sense to me.) If you live near Fort Worth, TX, Edgar at Fort Worth Camera teaches one-on-one classes that have made me into a much, much better photographer really quickly.

If you live near anywhere else, check with a reputable camera store in your area or even the community college. Once you know the basics, you’ll be amazed at what you can do! Today, is the first day of our Fall/Winter photo shoot and I am going into to this shoot with a lot more confidence than I’ve ever had before.

We’ll post some sneak peeks on Saturday.