| How a hobby became my real focus
I am one of the first at the church. A few friends and relatives of the wedding party are here, putting the finishing touches on decorations. The bride, groom and their families have not yet arrived. But any minute now they will walk through that door, and then it will be showtime. I can feel the sweat building up underneath the wide strap holding my camera - unusually heavy today, with its borrowed zoom lens - around my neck. My hands grip its small black body as I run once again through my mental checklist of settings I must remember to watch. ISO. Aperture. Shutter speed. Don't forget. I try to relax - I know everything will go more smoothly if I do. But I have a hard time silencing the voice that's screaming in my ear - this is it. You are it. If you screw up these pictures, nobody is going to bail you out.
Home Selling Goes High Tech
February 7th, 2007---Statistics show about 70-percent of home buyers begin their search online. Some metro realtors are trying to take advantage of that. With a video camera and some Internet savvy, home listings are going from people's lawns to the world wide web. "I figured if I could extend my reach that way then I could have a better opportunity....and selling my place faster" says realtor Sean Crow. Crow says he hopes to sell faster using the Internet. About three weeks ago, Crow posted a Des Moines condo on YouTube using a video camera and some Internet savvy. For Crow, it's risk free because it's free to post video on YouTube. Crows says the benefit for buyers is they can see every room of the home without having to leave their own home.
Winter photography tips
Working in cold weather presents problems for both photographers and their equipment. Though some photographers used to more tropical climates might think freezing (32 degrees F or 0 degrees C) is cold, neither the photographer or their gear should really experience any problems at that temperature. Just about all cameras, lenses and batteries are rated for use down to freezing (32 degrees F, 0 degrees C). However at lower temperatures there are a few things that may cause problems. ..Though most digital cameras are specified by their manufacturer only for operation down to a temperature of 0 degrees C (32 degrees F), most will work perfectly well at much lower temperatures. They aren't rated for lower temperature work because they aren't tested to fully meet all specifications at those temperatures and because there are some problems that can occur as detailed below 0 degrees C but most of those problems can be avoided.
Voice of the lost and discarded
It's called a "mid-career retrospective," and Robert Bean's show "Metamorphosis" portrays the photographer as an accomplished artist collected by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, and respected as a historian and lecturer at Nova Scotia's NSCAD University. Fine. But "Metamorphosis" – now on at the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art – is probably going to secure his reputation as "the typewriter guy." There's a slew of reasons for this; some obvious, some less so. For starters, four of six distinct sections in this survey of more than 10 years of Bean's work have their beginnings in the rows and rows of typed words from a distinctly old typewriter. Folds (2005-'06), a series of 24"x24" archival jet prints, shows a number of single typewritten sheets of paper, each crumpled in some particular way – random, spewed-out ideas turned into objects by the artist.
Best sellers, February 9
Like any media-savvy author, Daniel Tammet has hit the TV talk shows hard, hawking his new book, Born on a Blue Day. Unlike others, though, Tammet has more to overcome than simply being camera shy: He's autistic. Tammet writes about his life struggles in his book, which sits at No. 3 on the Times list this week. THE NEW YORK TIMES • Fiction 1. Plum Lovin' - Janet Evanovich. St. Martin's, $16.95 2. For One More Day - Mitch Albom. Hyperion, $21.95 3. Cross - James Patterson. Little, Brown, $27.99 4. The Hunters - W.E.B. Griffin. Putnam, $26.95 5. Exile - Richard North Patterson. Little, Brown, $27.99 • Nonfiction 1. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama. Crown, $25 2. The Innocent Man - John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 3.
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