Our Year in Review

As I sit here reflecting on the past year, my thoughts are dominated by the passing of mother-in-law, Joy.  It seems somehow fitting that she passed away at the start of the season of joy.  Every time I see the word “joy”, I think of her.  But it’s sad too.  We have a Christmas gift sitting under our tree, that was there before she passed.  I can’t bring myself to remove it. 

There will be a memorial service for her at the Frederick Seventh-day Adventist Church in the chapel, on Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 4:30 pm.

For those of you who didn't know Dwight's mom, she was a sweet and gentle person. She was a devoted mother. She was also an amazing mother-in-law. Dwight was always her perfect little boy but she welcomed me into his life and very quickly made me feel like one of her own. When we started having our own children, she was supportive and encouraging. She never had anything but kind words for me. She never suggested that I do things a different way. In fact she would quietly tell me that I was doing a great job. I feel so grateful to have had her approval and most importantly, her love. But with that very recent loss, it’s hard to write my usual lighthearted letter - as she herself would have said, “Uffda!”

Sadly, we had several losses this year. Dwight’s grandmother, “NeeNee”, passed away at the start of the year. We gathered with the Wold family for a graveside service, in January. In August I flew to Florida for a memorial service for my Aunt Charmaine (my mom’s sister) with my Van Belle family.

Fortunately there were many happy times as well. We went on several trips – I love trying new things and going new places so I’m hoping to foster that same passion in my family – particularly my husband.

• At the end of February we took our kids out west for a ski trip. We joined up with my father-in-law’s family for the week and my brother Jonny and his girlfriend, Julia, spent the weekend with us as well. Taking the kids to Colorado was very special for us.  Ever since our family started to grow, Dwight and I dreamed of being able to ski with our kids. It’s not something we’ll be doing every year (Yike$!) but it did live up to our expectations. The kids loved it and their skills improved rapidly. Oskar even managed to go down a black diamond before we left.
• At the start of the summer, my Grandma Prouty flew down and spent a little time with us – which was a wonderful treat. The Prouty family is huge (there are twenty-seven of us in my generation and all I can tell you about her great grandchildren is that she passed the twenty–seven mark a while ago). As I was saying, the Prouty family is huge so I’m incredibly honored that we managed to get some of her time.
• Dwight and I spent the first weekend in June, exploring Raleigh, NC.
• A few weeks later, the kids and I drove to Tennessee where we spent time with the Prouty family and then we had a quick visit with Bruce and Rita, in North Carolina.
• We celebrated Dwight’s 40^th birthday with a big surprise party. It required way too much subterfuge so I’m officially retiring from throwing surprise parties.  But it was a ton of fun and he loved it so I’m glad I did it this once.
• The following month, we also had a fun couple of days at Ocean City with just our little…ahem…large family of six (and a day trip to meet up with Dad’s family in Delaware, which was awesome).
• After nearly fifteen years at his previous position, Dwight started a new job, with Oracle. (On a side note, he started his new position one week before the kids started school. This is the first year the kids are all in school during the morning, five days a week. So naturally that’s when Dwight starts working from home. He is getting entirely the wrong impression of how my life has been, these past nine years! Not to mention, I’m not sure why the Universe apparently has a problem with me having time home alone. *hehe* But it’s actually been wonderful having him home. And I think he would agree.)
• We celebrated ten years of marriage with an overnight getaway to Alexandria. I'd never really been before, which is crazy since we live so close.  Dwight and I had fun wandering around and going for a nice, long jog together.
• We enjoyed an extended Labor Day weekend with the extended Engen family, at the Outer Banks (in the 4wd only section, which was an interesting experience).
• In October, the Wolcott family gathered here in DC where we participated in the ALS Walk, in support of Dwight’s aunt, Carolyn.

And through all this flutter activity, the kids continue to grow up at a startling rate. This morning I realized that Kardynn is now older than Oskar was, when she was born. 

Oskar is in 3^rdgrade.  He’s become obsessed with math – particularly pi. I’m so fascinated by this little boy whose brain operates NOTHING like mine. Right now is favorite book is one about math, called Go Figure!, that he checked out from the school library. He pores over it for hours at a time.  And then he’ll come quiz me on the formula for the area of various shapes.  It’s a little odd…and very amusing at the same time.  I just hope he somehow retains some of this enthusiasm until when he starts actually learning about this stuff in school.  He’s also become interested in programming.  Clearly he has 100% Dwight Engen DNA.

And then we have Annika, whose brain operates EXACTLY like mine (which has been very humbling – apparently I must have a rather challenging personality). She’s completely my little clone. But on the up side, she is a very happy child. She does everything with exuberance and enthusiasm. She has energy in spades. She loves to run. She’s a complete tomboy and even cut off her hair into an adorable little pixie cut this summer. She’s a wonderful organizer and list maker. She’s also going to be a fantastic babysitter.  She's in second grade.

Kiersten is a sweetheart. She has my mother-in-law’s personality.  This year she went into first grade. I was worried about how she’d transition to being there for a full-day but she’s thriving.  Having said that, this Fall has been a struggle for her because she somehow ended up with a nasty autoimmune disorder called Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP).  We’ve now been dealing with this for almost five weeks.  I hate to see my little girl in pain and it’s frustrating because there’s not a whole lot we can do for her.  But we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the worst of it is behind us. 

Kardynn is keeping things balanced and takes after her oldest sister.  Those two are either thick as thieves or fighting – there’s no in between with them.  Kardynn is enjoying one last year of preschool and loves being at the same school as her little cousin, Autumn.  Every day she gives me an update on her cousin. She always tells me what Autumn was wearing and how her hair looks.  (Based on those daily updates, I can tell you that my niece is one stylin’ little girl!) Kardynn is growing up especially fast. I think she loves her afternoons with me and Dwight, while the other guys are still in school. She’s a perpetual source of amusement and says the absolute cutest things (I’m not the least bit biased). She makes us laugh all the time and I’m a little sad that my baby is no longer a baby.

---

This letter took me a long time to write. The slideshow has been ready to go for days but I just couldn’t get the words together. It probably doesn’t help that we’ve had a lot going on, this last little bit. Five out of the last six schooldays, I was at the elementary school or preschool for various events. We’ve also been spending extra time with family and friends these last couple of days. Our lives are very full, which is a wonderful thing but time-consuming, all the same.  Next year brings lots to look forward to.  Ted's first baby - a little boy - is due to arrive in May. We're already making plans for trips we might like to take (including a trip out to Arizona for this auntie, to meet said little boy). We hope the coming year brings more of the good stuff and less of the bad.  We wish the same for you!

If you’d like to refresh yourself on how we all look, check out our virtual holiday greeting (a mere 2 and a half minute commitment).


Happy Holidays 2012! from Heather Engen on Vimeo.

(If you have any problems with the video, trying going to Vimeo and viewing it full screen).

Much love,

Heather, Oskar, Kiersten, Kardynn, Annika, Dwight

P.S. I’ve been a little nervous about writing this letter ever since my friend Sharon posted a link on Facebook to the Humble Brag letter 2012, a few weeks ago.  I assume people would prefer to read about the good stuff in our lives but I definitely don’t want anyone punching me in the throat! *wink*)

Dinner Conversation

Overheard last night at the supper table.

Annika and Kiersten were discussing a boy in Kiersten's class, who has apparently told both of them that they're pretty.

Annika, "He said that I'm hotter than Kiersten."
Kiersten, to Oskar, "What does that mean? That she's like, cooler than I am or that she's sweatier than me?"

DNA

Kids are great for keeping things light. Last weekend, when Dwight, Joy and I were talking to the kids and explaining that Grammy had passed away, at one point it was pointed out to them that Grammy lives on inside of each of them because she's a part of them - we pointed out some specific similarities - and that they all have her genes.

So yesterday I was talking to a friend and mentioned my mother-in-law's passing, in our conversation. Kardynn plugged her ears which I thought was coincidence but once we were back in the car, we had this conversation. "Mommy, do you know why I plugged my ears? I don't like to hear you say that Grammy died. It makes me very sad." Her little lip was quivering and tears were welling up in her eyes. I told her that it makes me very sad too. She attempted to comfort me and said, "It's okay Mommy. Her body parts are in all of us. But mommy, are her pants in us too?"

Canning Soup

A few years ago my younger brother taught me how to can soup. He had learned the recipe from someone else and had made it so many times that he no longer needed to follow the recipe.  He just knew what to do.  That made it a little tricky for me to recreate it later on my own.  But I googled and found something similar and now I've done it so many times that I too can make *my* version without looking at a recipe.  Plus it's never exactly the same, even if I try.  Inevitably I forget something, or I decide to try something new, so every time it's a little different.

Two of my friends had expressed an interest in learning how to can soup so I invited them over for a canning session.  Unfortunately life happens - stuff came up -and we had to postpone our canning date.  But this morning, when it turned out that my little one was a little bit sick and would be staying home from preschool (life happens, remember?), I decided to take advantage and can some soup...even if I was doing it solo.  I documented it thoroughly so that I could share it with my friends.  Although I do hope that we'll still get together in the next couple of days for a canning session.  I mean, pictures are great and all but they can't compare with doing something in person with someone. But hopefully the photos will be a handy reference AFTER that!

I love this tomato based vegetable soup. In fact, I've shared the recipe before.  I'm not actually going to repeat the recipe now. This post was really just intended as a demonstration of how to can the soup. And even though I'm sure no one needs the photos of the soup-making part, I just went ahead and documented the whole deal.

Let's make some soup!

My brother puts a little vegetable oil and a little olive oil.  Sometimes I do that or I do one or the other.  Today I just used a little olive oil.  I threw the onions in first.

I didn't actually saute the onions, per se.  I just threw them in there and let them start to heat up while I cut up the cabbage.

I like to cut the cabbage in nice big chunks.  Those white parts from the stalk are my favorite part of the soup.  Yum!

I added all of the following to my soup.  I'm a vegetarian so I add some "fake meat". Sometimes I use Morningstar crumbles but I prefer the Boca crumbles. I think maybe they're a little bigger than the Morningstar crumbles, which I apparently like.  I also like to add some chunks of a soy product called "Vegetable Steaks".  I'm sure it's not the healthiest - with all kinds of preservatives and sodium - but they're yummy so I try to not think about it too much.  I like to throw in some dark AND light kidney beans.  I also typically add diced tomatoes and tomato paste.  Unfortunately I couldn't find tomato paste in my pantry so I grabbed a can of tomato sauce instead.  I happened to have vegetable broth so I put in two boxes of that as well, though usually I just add water.  I also added what was left of my Marmite, to add some flavor.

Typically I add the cabbage right away but today I added other stuff first.  I don't think it really matters what order you choose to add things. 

Let me put in a quick plug for my Pampered Chef garlic slicer.  I love having slices of garlic in my soup, as opposed to just mincing the garlic.  I use more garlic than my recipe called for, because the garlic isn't as strong this way, but it's oh so yummy! 

I added some green pepper.

 I added some celery.

At this point I tasted the broth and found it lacking so I added a cube of vegetable bouillon, to give it a little more flavor.

When my grandmother was alive, she loved to make soup and she always added bay leaves.  So now I always add bay leaves.  I'm not even sure what flavor they contribute and you wouldn't want to actually eat any of the bay leaves you encounter, but they make me think of my Grandma so they go into every soup I make.  And I have no doubt it wouldn't taste right without them.

I typically don't add a lot of seasoning - I think the veggies are tasty enough all on their own but I was being fancy for the camera so I threw in a bunch of stuff - parsley, basil, Italian seasoning...I'm not even sure.  I just sniffed spices and if it smelled like it would be good with my soup, I added it. 

I also added enough water to come up to the top of all the stuff in the pot.

After mixing all of that in, I took another taste of my broth.  I was feeling sad that it wasn't quite thick enough for my liking, so I looked around in my pantry and TADA I found the box of tomato paste.  I knew I had tomato paste.  So I added a can of that. (I always add some water to it first because I think it's easier to mix in that way.)

I put the lid on to help it get boiling.  At which point I realized that I never actually did add the bay leaves - just took a picture and then put them back away.  Oops!  I also remembered that I had some grape tomatoes I had wanted to use up...so I added both those things.

At this point it had already been sitting on the stove for a while but I set the timer for 45 minutes.  I just wanted to make sure that it didn't sit there too long without my realizing it. 

While my soup was simmering, I filled up an 8 qt pot of water.  You have to figure out how much water to add to the pot of water so that when it's full of jars, the water will come up to about an inch below the top of the pot.  Typically I just hold down 4 jars while I fill up the pot with water.  But since I was being all fancy and taking pictures, I actually filled them with water too to keep them down in place.  Once you have the right amount of water, remove the empty (or water-filled) jars and get that pot of water boiling.

One the soup starts boiling, I turn the heat down to about medium...maybe medium high.  I always crack the lid because otherwise it gets super messy as the lid bobs around and tomato soup sprays everywhere.

In a third pot of water, you will boil the lids.  You do this to a) sterilize them and b) soften the wax to seal the lids onto the jars.  I think you're supposed to boil the lids for at least 10 minutes (when using this method of canning).

These are the supplies I use.  At some point I purchased a canning kit from Amazon and I think it's totally worth the $12.  A couple of them items are pictured below.

(Sept 13, 2013 note: Not all of the items pictured are from the kit but not all of the items in the kit are pictured...just in case that wasn't obvioius.)

As the soup simmers, I watch for the cabbage to soften.  In this case, I started canning after about half an hour.  And really I should have started before that but I had forgotten to start my other pot of water boiling so I had to wait on that for a couple of minutes.  You want to get started while it's still a little undercooked because the soup will heat some more when you place the jar full of soup into the pot of boiling water and of course when you reheat it at some later point. 

There's my big pot of soup (I think that's a 12 qt pot), the small pot of boiling water for the lids and the 8 qt pot of boiling water for the cans, after I fill them up with soup.

My first jar is filled with soup and ready to move to the pot of boiling water.

I use this handy dandy tool to move the jar.  My brother drilled into me what a bad scene it would be if one of those jars fell while doing this so I'm always super careful about moving them.  The thought of hot soup and broken glass about my feet is enough to keep me hyper focused every time. 

I actually bought some new jars for this canning adventure.  In the past I've always used regular size jars but I had always regretted not having purchased wide mouth jars.  I was certain that they would be easier to work with.  Well, guess what?!  Almost immediately I realized that I'm not actually crazy about the wide mouth jars. The wide-mouth jars probably *would* have been helpful my first couple times canning but then I bought that kit from Amazon, which came with that great funnel.  With the funnel, the wide mouth jars were equally easy as the regular jars to fill.  Unfortunately that wide rim made them a pain to move.

(Nov 19, 2012 note: one of my kind, discrete relatives quietly pointed out to me that I was using this tool upside down.  *ha*  Which totally makes sense and I think it will work much better in the future.  So you can disregard all subsequent grumbling about how my tool didn't work with the wide mouth jars.)

If you're not using a funnel, make sure you don't have any food up around the rim of the jar, that could potentially cause a problem for the seal.

Here are four of my jars in the boiling water.  You can see here why it's important to get the water measured correctly ahead of time so that it's not spilling out of the pot when you add the jars of soup.

I can't remember when my brother told me to add the lids but I typically do it when the jars are still in the boiling water.  I have this fancy shmancy magnetic tool to move the lids from the pot of boiling water to the jars.  Once again, the wide mouth jars messed me up because these lids were bigger and therefore heavier so they didn't work too great with my little magnetic tool.

I used my same grabber tool to remove the jars from the pot.  (I do not have a clue what it's actually called, but I'm guessing not a grabber tool.)  I was again regretting the wide mouth jars because it was hard to get my tool in there without sliding the lids around on the other jars.  But it still worked.  I get a rotation going.  I take a jar out and then move a new full jar into it's place, before taking the next jar out.  That keeps the water up nice and high on the jars to keep everything sterile.

When I so remove the jars, I use this tool to hold them while I tighten the rings onto the jars. This helps get a good seal.

Since the wide mouth jars were giving me trouble, I eventually stopped even trying to use my little magnet tool and I just used tongs instead.  (These tongs also came with the canning kit I purchased from Amazon.)  The tongs worked fine.

Here are the finished jars of soup.  As they're cooling, you'll hear the lids pop when they seal.  Once that happens, the lids won't have much give to them - if at all.  These jars all had great seals so they didn't budge at all, when I pushed on them. 

After the jars were cool, I wrote the date on the lids. Now they just need to get put away on a shelf for a rainy day...or tomorrow.

One quick note about this particular soup.  It seems to be quite forgiving but the one thing that I learned is to  not add pasta.  My husband and kids love it when I add noodles but if you're going to do that, add the pasta when you re-heat it.  The time I tried canning it with pasta, I think the pasta pickled so it did not taste right and I ended up dumping a couple of the jars.  I don't think they had actually gone bad but they didn't taste right to me and I wasn't about to take chances.  Not to mention, the pasta soaked up all the liquid.  This pasta thing is probably some known fact and experienced canners are probably chuckling at my mistake but I learned through trial and error.  So yeah, take it from me, don't add pasta to this soup before you can it.

If you do give this a try, tell me how it goes.  I hope you enjoy your canned soup! My kids love to add gold fish crackers so now we call it "Goldfish Soup"...because we're creative like that.

Post Script: If you read the comments below, you'll see that my brother called me out on my broth and called this one a "crime".  (*hehe*  He's passionate about his soup!)  He doesn't approve of my adding the seasonings.  And honestly, I have to agree with him.  This tasted fine but I do prefer the garlicky-tomatoey goodness of my usual simple broth. He actually adds a de-veined jalapeno pepper as well.

Boys and their Toys

On the way home from Oskar's allergy shots, I was having a conversation with the kids about their strengths and skills.  Oskar piped up from the back, "I'm good at playboy toys."  Me, "WHAT?!"  Oskar, "I'm good at playing with boy toys."  Ohhhhh. 

White Balance

I'm late with my post this week.  Sorry!  Instead of sitting here at my computer, giving you lots of helpful photography suggestions I was

• supervising playdates (three of them, to be exact)
• enjoying a mother's day festivities at Kardynn's preschool
• reading books to Annika's first grade class
• babysitting Autumn
• traipsing around the National Zoo with Kiersten, Kardynn and a bunch of Kindergarteners 
• learning how to do flip turns in the pool

This week will be spent recovering from last week!

A few weeks ago, my friend Julie asked me about white balance.  I meant to write about it in my last post but when I started to delve into 18% gray and gray cards, I got all caught up with metering and never wandered back to explain white balance.  Sadly this is how my brain works these days - there's a lot of wandering.  *sigh*

So back to white balance.  It's not difficult to understand how I got sidetracked by metering because there is a connection.  The sensors on your camera expect a scene to be a certain amount gray for metering purposes AND for white balance purposes...and they do a pretty good job.  But you can certainly improve the results in one of several ways.  First of all, your camera has some presets: daylight, shade, cloudy, fluorescent, flash, et cetera.  Typically there's also an option to create a custom setting. This is where the gray card comes in  handy.  You can take a picture of the gray card (make sure the card fills the viewfinder) in the lighting situation where you're about to take pictures, and then the white balance will be correct.  If you don't have a gray card, filling the frame with something white, to get a custom reading will also work. You can also take a picture of the gray card and use it to adjust white balance on your computer after the fact, but that's a lot more work.  Having said that, it might be preferable to accidentally leaving your camera with the wrong settings, which I've done a time or two.

If you want to get really fancy with color correction, here are some tips for correct skin tones. I have a little cheat sheet that I use for adjusting the magenta, yellow and cyan.  Caucasian's are 5-20% more yellow than magenta.  A fair-skinned caucasian might be 20% magenta and 25% yellow, whereas a bronzed person could be 45% magenta and 62% yellow.  Asians and Hispanics have 10-20% more yellow than magenta.  On black skin, the yellow and magenta are close. And what about cyan?  Cyan is 30-50% of magenta.  (I got this very useful information from this Smugmug help page.) I also got the free OnOne presets for Lightroom, which work great.  Unfortunately I don't typically use Lightroom but when I do, those presets are lifesavers.

Career Day

Annika's class is doing something special every day until the end of the school year.  They're working their way through the alphabet with various special activities each day.  Today was "Career Day" - for C.  Annika had told me that she wants to be a firefighter when she grows up so was intending to wear our fireman costume.  Unfortunately we both forgot about it this morning so she went to school wearing a brown shirt and brown striped pants. 

When she got home she reminded me that today had been "Career Day.  I said, "Oh no!  What did you do?"  She pointed to her clothes and said, "It's okay. I'd also like to work at a Hershey Chocolate Factory."  

I love that she rolls with the punches.

(Ahem...next time I will move the rug before taking photos from this spot.)

Let There Be Light

My first two tutorials have been a light look at some technical aspects of photography.  I gave you a quick explanation of the different modes on your camera and we addressed aperture. Hopefully you had a chance to play around with your camera and try out some of the things I attempted to explain.  If so, I'd love to see some of your photographs - please feel free to link to them in the comments.

Today, let's get artsy!  Let's talk about LIGHT.  Perhaps you're scratching your head trying to figure out how this will help you understand your camera better, but I promise you, this is the key to good photography. I don't care what kind of camera you have, if you know how to use light to your advantage, you can make your photographs stand out.   

We all understand that light is necessary for photography but good light is what makes it magical.  This is where photography becomes an art.  There's not really a right or wrong but I can give you some things to think about.  In general, when shooting portraits, we want to avoid direct light. It's harsh and unflattering; it can create distracting shadows. This is why photographers love cloudy days, because the clouds are diffusing the light for you. So what to do on a bright, sunny day?  Find shade.  Find buildings or fences or trees or anything that you can put between you and the sun.  The trick is to make sure that light isn't mottled or splotchy.  Also, bear in mind, if there's an area of direct sun in the background, that will blow out in your image - which may or may not bother you.

You'll also want to pay attention to the light in someone's eyes.  Do you know about catch lights?  If not, catch lights are the reflections of light in a person's eyes.

Catch lights give sparkle to the eyes, and that sparkle gives your photograph life.

The best time of day for photos is a magical time that happens twice a day. Photographers refer to it as The Golden Hour.  It's the first hour of sunlight and the last hour of sunlight.  The warm light is generally considered pleasing. The long shadows can help give dimension and depth to landscape photography.

Now typically when you're shooting outside, you play this complicated dance with the sun. The rule of thumb is that you want to keep the sun behind you. If you're taking photographs of people, you want to make sure they're not squinting into the sun. If you need to put the sun behind your subjects, you might want to use a flash fill.  Basically this means you're going to force the flash to fire, which will make sure there are no funky shadows on their face. But sometimes you may want to embrace the back light.

Before I go, let me give you a quick crash course on metering. Camera designers have done extensive research (seriously) and discovered that the average photograph is is a certain percentage gray. 18% gray is the number commonly thrown around.  Some people say it's actually 12% gray, but personally that difference isn't affecting *me* too much.  The point I want to make is that there are probably a lot of times when your photograph *isn't* 12% gray so you need to know how to compensate for this.  If the photograph has a lot of light - like snow, or a sandy beach - then the meter is going to want you to underexpose so you need to know to compensate.  Having said that, camera meters have gotten quite sophisticated and they do a pretty good job getting it right.  My camera has several different metering options; matrix metering, center-weighted metering and spot metering. Spot metering allows you to select a point on your camera and the camera will use this for it's metering calculations.  Center-weighted metering is essentially the same thing except that the "spot" is the middle of the frame. But I usually leave it on matrix metering. I've read up a little bit on matrix metering and the engineering that went into it but I can't claim to be an expert.  What I can tell you is that it does a remarkable job at figuring out the correct exposure. Of course when you're trying to be artistic, you might need to outsmart the meter but in general, it works very well.

I'm not sure that I've done a very good job explaining this stuff so please ask any questions you might have.

ASSIGNMENT:
This week's assignment is all about the catch lights. Find some willing subject (or in a pinch, a less cooperative subject will do) and try taking a portrait in good light with nice catch lights. If the light isn't good, find a way to make the light good.

Sanitize

On nights like this, I'm so grateful for Sanitize mode on my washing machine...

Little Girl

Kardynn and I pulled into a parking space at the gym.

Me: Are you going to put on your sweater, little girl?
K: Yes, big mama!

Um...point taken...I will now stop calling you little girl.

What the F...F-stop, that is

When I took my very first photography class (gosh...was it really twenty years ago?!), one of the things that made a huge impression on me was aperture. It was exciting to learn that I could achieve the look I desired by changing the aperture. 

Per Wikipedia, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels.  In photography this is obviously the lens.  You've probably seen this diagram before - it's a great illustration of what happens to your lens as the aperture changes.  When your lens is "wide open" (i.e. f/1.4), it's letting in a ton of light.  Or you can "stop down" to a higher f-stop (i.e. f/11) and there's less light getting through.
 

The thing to remember about aperture is that the more open it is, the shorter the depth of field.  Someone once used an illustration to help make sense of that.  Have you ever squinted when you're trying to see something far away?  That's how your camera works. When the aperture gets narrow, more of the image is in focus; the wider the aperture, the less of the image in focus.

Now, you can make your camera's sensor more or less sensitive to the light by increasing or decreasing the ISO.  Back in the day of film cameras, you would control this by the type of film that you purchased.  I typically bought 200 or 400 speed film, depending on whether I thought I'd be taking the pictures primarily inside or outside. The wonderful thing about digital is that you're not locked into a particular ISO for a set number of prints, like we used to be back then.  Now you can change the ISO whenever you want.  The thing to remember is that the higher the ISO, the less light you need, but the grainier your final image will be.  I have an example of an image that I love, but it's quite grainy because I shot it at a high ISO (for the camera that I was using).  There are lots of problems with this photo - it has a crazy color cast and like I said, it's grainy, but it's an authentic shot of my husband so I love it.

ISO 3200

One final note about ISO: did you catch my little caveat up there when I said "for the camera I was using"?  Not all cameras are created equal.  The above shot was taken at 3200 with my Nikon D40.  If I were to take the same shot at the same ISO with my Nikon D7000, it'd be a completely different story.  One of the reasons my Nikon D7000 was more than twice as expensive as my D40, was because it's much better at handling low light.  So the point is, know your camera.  Play around with it at high ISOs and get to know what it does.

Okay, moving on, the final variable is how long the shutter stays open. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light that gets through the lens.  So if you have a slow shutter speed at f/1.4 then a ton of light is getting through the lens.  If you have a fast shutter speed at f/16, not much light is getting through the lens, right?  So of course the trick to getting a nicely exposed photo is finding the right balance between these two things.  Fortunately for us, modern cameras make this pretty easy for us.  On an SLR camera, there's an exposure meter inside the camera.  In my Nikon camera, at the bottom of the viewfinder, there's something that kind of looks like this:

+  | | | | 0          -     or maybe like this     +         0 | | | |   -

That's the exposure meter.  In theory, those lines to the left of the "0" mean that the image is over-exposed and those lines to the right of the "0" indicate that the image is under-exposed. I say "in theory" because there are a few other things that can throw the exposure off but for now let's just leave it at that - we can get into the exceptions later.  Understanding how your camera is metering and how much light your subject is reflecting back will help you expose your image more accurately.

There is one point I want you to consider.  Even though your camera shutter can stay open for a very long time to let in a lot of light, you have to remember that if the camera moves at all, it will make the image blurry.  If you're hand-holding the camera, you can only hold the camera so steady.  I've always had it in my head that you shouldn't really expect to hand hold the camera for more than 1/60th of a second.  But that's probably because I started out using a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens.  It's actually relative to the focal length.  In other words, if you have a zoom lens, it's easier to hold the camera steady when it's wide open, as opposed to when you're zoomed in.  Have you already noticed that?  And let's be honest, you as the operator plays a big factor.  I think I can hold the camera steadier than some people can.  I will frequently brace the camera on myself or on stationary objects around me.  This is something you have to kind of figure out for yourself and just be aware of it.  I recently attended a class by a renowned but elderly photographer and he admitted that he can longer hold the camera as steady as he once could.  So you just have to understand your limitations and what you and your camera are capable of.

If you want to learn more, you can start at Digital Photo School's article about shutter speed.


ASSIGNMENT:
For this week, I'd like you to flip that mode dial to Manual, if it's not already there.  Practice exposing the image using the camera's light meter.  Change the ISO from something low like 400 to whatever is high, for your camera.  Pay attention to the difference in shutter speed and/or aperture as well as the clarify of the images.  If you're using a zoom lens, notice the change in shutter speed as you zoom the lens in and out.

Camera 101

Over the years I've had many a person joke that they were going to have me show them how to use their camera.  And I always say that I would be happy to do that - and I'm very sincere about that.  It would make me feel great to know that I had helped someone improve their photography. But no one has ever taken me up on it.  I think it's because my friends all know that I can be a bit chatty.  So I suspect that they're probably terrified that once they get me started on a topic I'm so passionate about, I will never stop. *ha* So I thought it was safer for me to write some photography tips. That way, if you get overwhelmed, you can just stop.  Plus, if your life is anything like mine, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of time. So I'll do my best to keep this short.  We'll just tackle one thing at a time...maybe have a weekly assignment.  ??  What do you think?  And you can take one photo or 10 or even 100.  It's totally up to you.  I just want to help you understand your camera better - the more you know about the tools on your camera, the easier it is to get your pictures the way you want them.

I've been trying to think of a good place to start and I think the most logical place is the mode dial.  Most cameras have a fairly similar mode dial. There are usually some letters and some pictures. I think most people start out with "Auto" mode (it's probably the green one).  Auto mode basically just means you're letting the camera make all the decisions.  Fortunately today's cameras are pretty smart so you can get pretty good snapshots this way.  They may not always turn out the way you want, however. So if you want to have more control over the results, you can switch out of Auto mode.  Most cameras have some scene selections - portrait, landscape, babies, sports and macro.  Those all seem fairly intuitive so I'm not going to explain what they do. But the great thing is that once you understand how your camera works, you can accomplish these same results by controlling the aperture and shutter speed yourself.

Let me share a quick story. When I first got my dSLR I put that puppy on Auto and just let it do it's thing.  I marveled at Auto mode because that's something my first SLR certainly didn't have. Another thing my first SLR didn't have was an on-camera flash.  Auto mode and flash made my life so easy. I could take pictures anywhere...and I was perfectly happy with my snapshots.  I was documenting our lives with gusto.  It didn't take long for my husband to start criticizing my "deer-in-the-headlights" flash shots.  I think he was primarily motivated by his dislike for having the blinding light go off in his direction. But in my heart of hearts, I knew he was right. I had a fancy, shmancy dSLR but I was using it exactly how I had used my point-and-shoot camera. I wasn't really taking advantage of my camera's capabilities.

So I switched my camera mode to no flash mode.  (The flash symbol is the one that looks like a little lighting bolt.  Therefore, "no flash mode" is the one that looks like a lightning bold with a line through it.)  When I stopped using the flash, I became a little fanatical and stopped using the flash altogether. Eventually I realized that Program mode (P) gave me a few more options and therefore more control, but the camera would still take care of the aperture and shutter speed for me. 

Now, I'm a sucker for shallow depth of field (which means that I like it when the background is blurry) so I quickly went from Program mode to Aperture Priority (A on Nikons and Av on Canons).  In Aperture Priority mode, I could tell the camera to stay down around f/4 and let it pick the correct shutter speed.  (If your eyes have started to glaze over now that I'm talking about f stops, don't worry, I'll get to that in the next installment.) 

Shallow depth of field

I also love panning so in that case, I would switch to Shutter Priority (S on Nikons and Tv on Canons) and pick the shutter speed, and just let the camera find the correct aperture.

Panning, to capture the motion

Another example of panning

Eventually I decided I wanted even more control over the exposure so I switched to Manual mode (M).  Sometimes I still wander back to one of the other modes.  I'm not as speedy with Manual mode because the exposure is constantly changing.  But in general that's where I shoot.

Okay, that's all we're going to talk about for today.  I just want you to have a basic understanding of the different modes on your camera and what they do.  Eventually we'll get into more details like ISO, and metering and aperture but for now we're keeping it simple.

ASSIGNMENT:
This week's assignment is to switch that camera out of Auto mode and play around with it.  I'd suggest switching to Aperture mode and play around with different apertures and see what a difference it makes.  Compare the background at f/3.5 to the background at f/9 and f/16.

The Odyssey

Here's a typical day in my life. I woke up at the usual time and got the kids up. We actually started off pretty well and Annika finished her breakfast a few minutes early so she offered to help me pack lunches. We were all in good moods and joking around with each other. I happened to glance at the clock and my stomach flip-flopped when I saw that the time was 7:17.  We're supposed to be walking by 7:17! They started stuffing things into their backpacks and we all threw on shoes and coats and ran for the car. When the garage door opened and I saw Dwight's car blocking my car, I should have realized that was a sign of the day I was about to have. We quick jumped out of my car and into his car and fortunately I did manage to get them to the bus before it left.

A few hours later we had a small playdate mishap. Kiersten's friend got a little homesick but we couldn't reach her mom (which was very understandable since her mom had been sick). I managed to cheer her up but when it came time for the bus, I immediately realized that wasn't going to work. Her friend typically drives to school and today was not going to be a good day for a change in routine. So we all jumped into the car to head for school.  The only hitch was that Kardynn's buddy was supposed to be headed to our house before we would get back from driving the other two girls to school. But that was nothing a quick phone call couldn't solve. I got a little mixed up about the new plan with Kardynn's buddy, which resulted in us being a little late driving to elementary school. Fortunately we made it before they closed the "pony express doors"...but it was close.

By this point we were in a rut and it's not surprise we were also a little on the late side getting to preschool. But we managed to make it in time for car line. I picked up my friend for lunch. Before we actually made it out to eat, we had a little adventure at her son's school but it seemed quite eventful after the crazy morning.

Oh...and did I mention that all morning I had also been exchanging phone calls and e-mails with friends about a) the possibility of a Van Halen concert this evening b) going to the gym tomorrow morning at 5:30 am and c) having a wrap-up party with my Odyssey of the Mind kids either at 3pm or 4 pm in the afternoon?!

After a very nice and relaxed lunch with my friend, I drove her back home and then ran to pick up some paint swatches at Home Depot and some cupcakes for the now-confirmed 4 pm OoTM party. I did feel quite lucky when I got back into the car just as big, fat raindrops were starting to fall.

I drove to the bus stop and picked up my kids.  We went home so that I could order pizza for the party and so that they could drop off their backpacks.  As we all piled back into the car to pick up Kardynn, Annika said, "Mom, shouldn't you take your umbrella? It's raining. What if we run out of gas?"  I assured her we would not run out of gas and we set off for preschool.

We got about 3 minutes from my house when the car suddenly started making crazy noises.  It sounded like we'd gotten something caught under the car. I immediately thought that we must have run over a branch or something although it was odd because I hadn't seen anything in the road. But I pulled over to check.  I was concerned when the noise didn't stop when the car did.  So I turned off the engine and immediately called my husband.

Then came another flurry of phone calls.  I called the preschool to let them know that I was going to have to find someone else to pick up the kids and that person would likely be late. I called the mom of our preschool buddy to see if she could pick up the kids. I called my neighbor to see if she could pick up the pizzas that were due to arrive at my house. I called all the OoTM parents to let them know that the party was now off. Dwight arrived and called a friend to get suggestions on where to take the car. I called the Honda Dealership. We called a tow truck company. I called Papa Johns to ask them if they could deliver the pizzas to my neighbor's house. And so on and so forth.  I think you get the idea. While we were waiting for the tow truck I went to pick up Kardynn and we got back to the car just in time to follow it to the Honda dealership.

I believe it's the the drive belt that was starting to fall apart but I'll know more tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!  Oh, and I also thought it was interesting that not a soul stopped to ask if everything was okay. I was crawling around on all fours in the rain and car after car just cruised on pass.  At one point cars started lining up for a bus but no one so much as rolled down a window. Personally I would definitely ask someone if everything was okay but I've been told many times that I don't quite fit in here so I guess those people might have been on to something.

I wish I could say this was unusual but you know what, two days ago I was posting about getting glurch out of my carpet so I think this is just how it's going to be for a while. *sigh* And now I'm off to send an e-mail to Oskar's teacher to explain how Oskar's homework ended up in the back of a minivan which is now sitting in a parking lot at the Honda dealership.

Check out the pretty rainbow in the background.  I really hoped that was a good omen, at that point.

Glurch vs. Vinegar

The other day my daughter brought home "glurch" from preschool.  You might know it as oobleck or slime or flubber or gloop or goop and countless other names, no doubt. If you didn't already know what I'm talking about, you can probably get a pretty good visual from those various names!  Specifically, this glurch was a mixture of glue, borax and food coloring.  The kids love it but as you can imagine, I've always been a leery.  It just seems like that glurch could do some damage.

So when my daughter brought home her glurch, I was a little paranoid and kept close tabs on it.  But I did let her play with it a little bit, at the table.  Unfortunately, when I went away for the weekend, I never thought to mention to my husband that there was a dangerous item within her reach...a rookie mistake...and a mistake I would pay for.

Within minutes of returning home yesterday evening, the kids informed me that the glurch had made a bit of a mess.  As it turns out, there was a large stain in the family room and an even nastier stain in my daughter's bedroom.  To give you perspective, here's a picture of part of the mess in my daughter's room.  It might look wet in the photo but that's dried glue, folks - crusty and solid...and blue.

I was not happy. 

After a quick Internet search, I discovered that supposedly vinegar would dissolve the glurch.  The stain on Annika's floor was pretty bad.  Could the vinegar actually get that stuff out?!

I hauled my supplies up to Annika's room: vinegar, a paper towel, my stiff brush and the steam cleaner. I poured the vinegar onto the paper towel and let it sit for a bit.  I'm not sure how many days the glurch had been there but I'm guessing it was a few.

 

The vinegar helped a little but there was still a lot of crusty glurch - particularly around the edges.  So I just went for it and poured the vinegar out of the bottle onto the stain and this time I let it sit for even longer.

Unfortunately I think the borax bleached the carpet.  Or maybe the borax and the bleach sitting together for a while bleached the carpet.  I can't tell if the pink was already there in the previous pictures.  I don't see any pink but there was a lot more glurch on the ground too.  Who knows?  But one this *is* for sure and that's that the glurch is definitely dissolving.

I poured more vinegar onto the remaining glurch areas. Several times I poured water from that cup, as well.  I also used my stiff wire brush.

On a side note, it is *quite* satifsying to see the water getting sucked out of your carpet by your steam cleaner.  A little bonus tip here: if you're going to be crazy enough to have lots of children and white carpets, then a steam cleaner is a must.  Although in my defense, when we settled upon the color of these carpets, we had no children.  Now I would totally know to get some sort of multi-colored, speckled carpet! *hehe*

I vastly prefer this stain to the original one.  I'm still bummed that her carpet got stained at all but these things happen when you have kids.  I think maybe if I could have gotten to the stain right away, the carpet wouldn't have gotten bleached.

In the end, I declare vinegar the winner, wouldn't you agree? Oh, and if you were wondering about the stain in the family room - it's completely gone.  I never thought to take before pictures but there's no trace of it now.  Yippee!