Our good friend (and amazing poet) Wendy Morton can sometimes be found at the various branches of the Greater Victoria Public Libraries, ‘poeming’ people.  Basically, she engages the individual in conversation for a few minutes and then she writes a poem about him or her.  We caught up with [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Our good friend (and amazing poet) Wendy Morton can sometimes be found at the various branches of the Greater Victoria Public Libraries, ‘poeming’ people.  Basically, she engages the individual in conversation for a few minutes and then she writes a poem about him or her.  We caught up with Wendy at the main library downtown on April 28 and had the chance to be ‘poemed’ by her.  We thought we’d share what she wrote about us, with you…

Marcia

Now that I’m retired
I have more time to write,
more time to watch the golden finches
fly from the branches of the cherry trees.
And time to walk
time to be quiet.
I go to art galleries,
go to art walks.
What we love most,
is giving away Free Hugs -
we go down to the inner harbour,
give away hugs to people at random.
I’m learning slam poetry.
I’m learning everything!

Wendy Morton
April 28, 2012

Mike

We live in a world where people are
so afraid of touch.
How can we live without contact?
We went to the inner harbour.
Two guys on standup paddleboards
came up for free hugs, then
paddled off.  Once a guy got hugged,
went back and got his whole family.
We’ve hugged the whole world.
We’ll keep doing it.

Wendy Morton
April 28, 2012

Thank you, Wendy!

Hugs,
M&M

Spring has been well under way in Victoria for a while now, even though we did have THREE WHOLE DAYS of winter this year… BRRR…  Victoria is often described as having a ‘Mediterranean climate’, but Marcia and I prefer to simply tell people that we live on an island [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Spring has been well under way in Victoria for a while now, even though we did have THREE WHOLE DAYS of winter this year… BRRR…  Victoria is often described as having a ‘Mediterranean climate’, but Marcia and I prefer to simply tell people that we live on an island in the Pacific.  Victoria is in somewhat of a rain shadow so we don’t get as much rain as those areas north or west of us, and with the ocean all around us our climate is wonderful pretty much every time of the year.  Okay, okay, I will admit that my first purchase when I moved to Victoria (in a late October) was an umbrella, but I was able to leave the snowblower behind.  It’s a worthwhile trade as far as I’m concerned!

Victoria is a beautiful city all year round, and since Marcia and I are living (mostly) car-free at the moment, we like to walk where and when we can.  We’ve walked the southern/eastern shore from the west end of Esquimalt, over the Blue Bridge, down past the Inner Harbour, Laurel Point, Ogden Point and along the Dallas Road walkway, and from Clover Point past Ross Bay, Gonzales Bay, McNeil Bay, and up Beach Drive past Cadboro Bay, Gordon Head and Cordova Bay (admittedly, not all at once).  We’ve walked downtown from our home in the Royal Oak neighbourhood, from the Tilicum Mall back home, and one particularly adventurous day I walked from our place to View Royal and back.  We’ve walked in Colwood, in Langford, in Oak Bay, and in Saanich.  If one was feeling up for it it’s possible to walk the Galloping Goose trail from the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay all the way out to Sooke – but we haven’t managed that quite yet.

Each of the ‘cities’ that make up Greater Victoria and the Saanich peninsula have their own trail networks, and pretty much all of them have maps online showing the trails.  Check out each of their websites, usually under ‘recreation’, or simply search their sites for ‘trail map’.  We live in Saanich, so for example one can see a .pdf file of the Saanich trail network here.  Some cities have paper brochures as well and many of the trails also connect with various regional parks.

One word of warning is that some of the trails are marked better than others, and in some areas the ‘trails’ incorporate city sidewalks as part of the trail network.  It’s best to carry a GPS (our Android phones have both GPS and My Tracks software from Google) or a map with you if you’re traveling in unfamiliar areas.  It’s not possible to get truly ‘lost’ (one is still in a city, after all), but it is possible to make a wrong turn and end up making a very large loop without realizing it (voice of experience here).  Washrooms can also be infrequent on some trails but Victoria does have an amazing collection of coffee shops and cafés.

Some of the trails are definitely more ‘urban’, but the Lochside Trail for example goes past both Swan Lake and Blenkinsop Lake.  From Mill Hill Regional Park in Langford there’s a trail that leads north to Thetis Lake.  Along the way one can meet up with other walkers (with and without power poles), joggers and families with strollers.  Some areas allow dogs on leash, some off-leash, and some not at all.  Some trails allow cyclists and some don’t – be kind and share the trail with others.  There are wonderful views and in some areas a lovely sense of peace.  We’ve seen everything from cottontail rabbits and diverse numbers of songbirds to dragonflies, river otters and Barred Owls.  In season there are berries to sample (Himalayan blackberries are highly invasive so we always do our best to reduce seed distribution by eating as many berries as we can), and flowers to smell.  There’s the sound of the wind in the trees and the sound of ducks/geese on the ponds.  Biologist Edward O. Wilson coined the term ‘biophilia’ to describe the instinctive bond between humans and other living beings, but it’s not necessary to get so technical.  Go outside, simply because it feels good.

Hugs,
M&M

P.S.  Remember when you go out to bring some bottles of water with you, no matter what time of year.  Walking is great exercise, but your body uses water to metabolize fat, and by the time you’re feeling thirsty you’ve already lost too much water.  You’re more likely to notice perspiration in warm weather, but when it’s cold outside your body is using energy to keep warm.  Stay hydrated!

P.S. II, the sequel. These might also be of interest:

Capital Bike and Walk Society
Walk Victoria
Bike/Walk Victoria – John Crouch has a series of three guidebooks called ‘Walk Victoria’, ‘Hike Victoria’ and ‘Bike Victoria’ that might be of interest to some.

Something a little different for April’s photo of the month post.  We’ve had this little cough syrup bottle kicking around for a while now – after it had been emptied I washed it out, removed the label and started using it to grow a stem of bamboo.  Since the [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Something a little different for April’s photo of the month post.  We’ve had this little cough syrup bottle kicking around for a while now – after it had been emptied I washed it out, removed the label and started using it to grow a stem of bamboo.  Since the bottle had water in it and was sitting on a sunny windowsill I became intrigued by the raised Chinese characters on the side of the bottle so I invested a little time one afternoon making some exposures of the jar.  This one’s my favourite:

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

A friend recently asked me about the minimum handheld shutter speed for cropped sensor cameras; the old adage for 35mm cameras was known as ’1/focal length’ and he was wondering if he should apply a 1.6 crop factor for a cropped sensor.  I saved my reply and thought I’d [...]]]> Hi Folks:

A friend recently asked me about the minimum handheld shutter speed for cropped sensor cameras; the old adage for 35mm cameras was known as ’1/focal length’ and he was wondering if he should apply a 1.6 crop factor for a cropped sensor.  I saved my reply and thought I’d post it here…

The correct answer is… There is no correct answer.  Let’s start with the obvious, which is that a camera mounted on a sturdy tripod, with the mirror locked up and a shutter delay of several seconds after the mirror has locked up will achieve as close to zero camera movement as possible.  Having said that…

The’inverse’ rule has been around for a long time but it’s no more a rule than the ‘sunny f/16′ rule for exposure. In his book, ‘The Camera’, Ansel Adams found in his test that using a 35mm camera and a 50mm lens, when making photographs of leafless trees he could see a difference between 1/125th second and 1/250th second. His ‘rule’ then was 5 times focal length. In the film days we generally had 1 size of film for 35mm, 1 size for medium format (6 cm x ___cm) and a few sizes for large format. Those days are gone.  For example, in his recent field review for the Nikon D800/D800E, Michael Reichmann recommended 2x – 3x the 1/focal length rule as a minimum handheld shutter speed.

There are a few different issues, all of which come into play. One is the sensor size. Another is the pixel density. Another is the field of view of the lens which relates to focal length in comparison to image size. Then there’s the quality of the glass and the resolving power of the lens. Then there’s the f/stop, which impacts not only depth of field and shutter speed but also diffraction at smaller f/stops. Don’t forget sensor noise, introduced at higher ISO values. Then there’s the difference between mirrored DSLRs and mirrorless cameras in what is often called ‘mirror slap’ – the movement of the viewfinder mirror up out of the way to expose the image, followed by it crashing back down into place. We haven’t touched on image stabilization – either in-camera or in-lens and last but not least the user – who contributes time, experience, health, technique, stance, etc.

Take the Leica V-Lux III, a mirrorless 12.1mp (2011) camera with a 25-600mm ‘equivalent’ lens and compare it to a Canon 1Ds MII, a 16.7mp (2005) camera with a Canon 600mm lens f/4.0 lens and tell me which one will yield a better image handheld. Even though they offer ‘equivalent’ focal lengths in relation to sensor size, to start with one weighs 15-20 lb more than the other. Make one image with each and carry them down a trail for four hours and make one image with each.

We haven’t discussed CCD vs. CMOS sensors, the absence of the antialiasing filter on the Nikon D800E vs. the Nikon D800 for example, the definitition of ‘sharpness’ in terms of line pairs/mm vs. local contrast and that just gets us to the input resolution side of things. Now we have to consider the logic engine in the sensor, whether or not it’s using pixel binning to lower the pixel count but increase resolution, whether we’re comparing mathematical MTF charts or visual acuity, what is an ‘observable difference’ in terms of CoC, at what output resolution, on what device (monitors only display about 100ppi for example) and at what distance… The list goes on.

One technique often described is to take a laser pointer and attach it to the barrel of the lens with rubber band or something and point the light at a wall say 10 m away. Make a series of exposures at different f/stop, shutter speed and ISO combinations, handheld and tripod-mounted, with and without mirror lockup if you’re using a mirrored camera. Now decide how you’re going to compare the results – on screen, on screen at 100% magnification, in a 4×6 print at 180dpi, a 20×30 print at 720 dpi or on a billboard from 300 feet away.

One series of articles that’s very good is: DSLR SENSOR SIZE AND PIXEL DENSITY

Aren’t you glad you asked?

Hugs,
Mike.

Now go out and make some photographs!!

Sometimes you come across a story that leaves you (almost) speechless.  I am a writer, after all.  Although this story appeared in the April 1, 2012 edition of ‘The Indian Times‘, it’s no April Fool’s joke.  One man, two hands, two feet and thirty years created a 550 ha [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Sometimes you come across a story that leaves you (almost) speechless.  I am a writer, after all.  Although this story appeared in the April 1, 2012 edition of ‘The Indian Times‘, it’s no April Fool’s joke.  One man, two hands, two feet and thirty years created a 550 ha (~1360 acre) forest in rural India.  By himself.  Jadav ‘Molai’ Payeng began by planting bamboo when he was 16, then when that had grown he began planting, watering and pruning tree seedlings.  He brought in red ants from his village to help the soil.  Nature built the rest.  The full story is in the Indian Times article.

I salute him.

He’s not alone in his work, though. Wangari Maathai began the ‘Green Belt Movement‘ in Kenya, and it’s now become an international organization.  Although Ms. Maathai is no longer with us, the GBM continues its goal of planting one billion trees internationally.  In Indonesia, Willie Smits and the Masarang Foundation are helping local communities, wildlife and the rainforest, and the people of Vakan’Ala (‘Pearls of the Forest) are doing similar work in Madagascar.  Amazing.

Hugs,
Mike.

P.S. You can read Jean Giono’s fictional story, ‘The Man Who Planted Trees‘ and a similar one, ‘Where the Sun Spilled Gold‘, by following the links.

Although Marcia and I have both been writers for most of our lives, our introduction to ‘slam poetry’ is somewhat recent – only since Shane Koyczan performed at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.  Like all forms of poetry there are a few rules to follow, and since slam poetry [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Although Marcia and I have both been writers for most of our lives, our introduction to ‘slam poetry’ is somewhat recent – only since Shane Koyczan performed at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.  Like all forms of poetry there are a few rules to follow, and since slam poetry is spoken, most of those rules relate to presentation.  Poetry slams are ‘competitive’, but competitive in the true sense of the word – from the Greek, meaning ‘to strive together’.  All work must be original.  Poetry may be spoken individually or in ‘teams’.  Each poet has up to 3 minutes to perform his/her piece, with a 10-second grace period following that.  Any longer and the poet begins losing points for going over time.  The time begins when the poet first engages the audience.  The poet may not use props or musical accompaniment, and may not wear a costume.  That’s the essentials of it.

Last night marked the 3^rd annual ‘Victorious Voices‘ final – Victoria’s Secondary School Slam Championships.  The semi-finals were on Monday night, but unfortunately we missed that event.  Eight teams from local secondary schools made the semi-finals, and the final four teams performed last night.  The students were from Esquimalt High School, Pearson College, and Reynolds Secondary (Junior and Senior).  The event was held at the Victoria Event Centre, on Broad Street between Johnson and Pandora.

So… how was it?  Incredible.  Amazing.  Outstanding.  Enough superlatives yet?  The Event Centre holds some 250 people, and it was packed, with a standing-room-only crowd.  Aside from the competing teams, there were other students, parents, teachers, coaches, supporters, and people who simply came in off the street.  As the saying goes, the joint was ‘rockin’.

There were five ‘celebrity judges’ who did the scoring (0-10 for each performance), including Victoria’s poet-laureate Janet Rogers and Victoria’s mayor Dean Fortin.  There were opening performances by Ms. Rogers, Jeremy Loveday (Jeremy is one of the founders of the event and an amazing poet too) and Victorious Voices’ first  ‘Alumnus of Honour’, Keenan Proud.  Missie Peters (director of Victoria’s Spoken Word Festival) then took over the microphone as MC for the evening.  The first presentation was by the Glenlyon Norfolk team, who apparently missed the finals on Monday night by ½ point.  Their presentation literally ‘set the stage’.  The ‘sacrificial poet’ for the evening (the one by whose work every other score is judged) was also a member of the Glenlyon Norfolk team.

And then we began in earnest.  There were four preliminary rounds, each round showcasing one member from each team. The final round was the ‘team’ event, with all four (or five) members of each team performing as a group.

And what did they choose as topics for their work? Well, let’s just say they were open, honest, and blatant in their addresses.  Topics included world politics, economics, gang-related violence, dreams, disasters, sex, dementia, stress, friendship, love, those who try, those who fail and those who keep going.  People slammed about drugs and about religion, about miscarriages and about ‘labels’ (and how they can follow one through life).  They presented fear, anger, joy, and so much more.  Some of the work enervated and some of it nearly brought tears.  Through it all, though, the one uniting thread, was honesty.  There was one young man who slammed about being a middle-class white kid with nothing earth-shattering to say, but that he had a voice and nobody could deny him his right to use it.

And that is, to me, the essence of the event.  I spoke briefly with Mayor Fortin at the break, and asked him what he thought of the evening.  He was astounded by the quality of the work, and said so.  We agreed that the underlying message here is that these young men and women are learning to recognize the power of their individual and collective voices.  As Mayor Fortin said, in a democracy the one true power that everyone has is the right to use his or her voice, to be heard and to be respected.

In the end, one of the four teams came in last and one of them came in first. One team will go on to the provincial championships, and they are to be congratulated  But to the poets, the organizers, the coaches, teachers and supporters, ‘winning’ isn’t the highest goal.  It’s about sharing, about speaking, and about listening.  As Missie Peters said repeatedly throughout the event, “Applaud the poet, not the score!”  Thanks to everyone who was on stage last night, and for everyone who brought it into being.

Victoria is an amazingly diverse community of artists from all different walks of life.  There are at least three spoken word events (including poetry slams, open mic nights and poetry/prose readings) held monthly in this area (that we know about) – feel free to add more in the Comments.  They are:

• Pen in Hand Poetry/Prose – Serious Coffee, Cook St. Village – 3^rd Monday of every month
• Planet Earth Poetry – Moka House, 1633 Hillside Avenue – every Friday (once monthly during the summer)
• Tongues of Fire Poetry – Solstice Café, 529 Pandora Avenue – 2^nd and 4^th Thursday of every month

 Maybe we’ll see you there!  Bring yourself, a friend, an open mind/heart, and something you’ve written!  If someone was to ask me how many attendedess last night were poets I’d have to answer ‘all of them’.  I’m reminded of the story of a mother who told her child she was learning how to draw.  Astonished, her child asked, “When did you forget?”

Hugs,
M&M

]]> http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/04/victorious-voices/feed/ 0 http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/04/earth-hour-2012-in-victoria-bc/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=earth-hour-2012-in-victoria-bc http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/04/earth-hour-2012-in-victoria-bc/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:00:01 +0000 Mike Nelson Pedde http://www.wolfnowl.com/?p=5868 Hi Folks:

As you probably know, Saturday night from 8:30-9:30 local time was ‘Earth Hour‘.  Originally conceived by the World Wildlife Fund and the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney, Australia in 2007, it has since become a world-wide event.  Marcia and I were wondering how much participation there would be in [...]]]> Hi Folks:

As you probably know, Saturday night from 8:30-9:30 local time was ‘Earth Hour‘.  Originally conceived by the World Wildlife Fund and the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney, Australia in 2007, it has since become a world-wide event.  Marcia and I were wondering how much participation there would be in Victoria so we headed up to the top of Christmas Hill to find out.  Christmas Hill is part of the Swan Lake/Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary here in Victoria, and being a large rock outcrop in about the middle of the city, it affords a spectacular view of the city and beyond.  We were pleased by what we saw.  Although street lights and outside lights for some businesses needed to stay on for safety reasons, much of the city was otherwise dark.  I made a quick video with my cell phone camera, a 360° panorama, which you can see below.  NB: I’m a photographer not a videographer, and there places where it was so dark that the camera had to hunt for focus.  That however, is the point!

Our thanks to everyone in Victoria and around the world who participated in Earth Hour.  It’s a way of saying that you care about this little blue marble we call ‘home’.

Hugs,
Marcia and Mike.

This being April 1, I thought the image below would be appropriate for the photo of the month for March.  Back in the film days I used to do things like create photo montages by sandwiching two slides together into a single frame, but when I first got into [...]]]> Hi Folks:

This being April 1, I thought the image below would be appropriate for the photo of the month for March.  Back in the film days I used to do things like create photo montages by sandwiching two slides together into a single frame, but when I first got into graphics programs (CorelDraw 3) I started being more creative with a few of my images.  One technique is to take an image, cut it in half either horizontally or vertically, take one half and mirror it, then stick the two halves together again.  The results are always unknown and often unexpected.  I did a blog post a while back on ‘Making Mirror Images With Lightroom‘ that showed one way of making such images while making them look realistic at the same time but ‘realism’ isn’t always a necessary goal.

For the final image in this post, I simply used my cell phone camera and an app that did everything automatically (a subject of a future blog post).  I created ten mirrors using this technique that I was happy with; you can find them on our Flickr and 500px pages (see the links at the right of the page).  The initial image is of a wonderful garry oak tree at Rithet’s Bog, an area that’s a local favourite of ours.  The image started out as this:

It was the moon behind the branches that I really wanted to capture, but with a cell phone camera it turned out ‘nice’ but nothing extraordinary.  I took the top half of the frame and flipped it upside down and it came out looking like this:

This image received the most popular response of the ‘mirrors’ I’ve done so far.  I named it ‘Fun With Mirrors – Lake Reflection?’ because it looks somewhat like a tree growing in water, taken on a still day.  Garry oak couldn’t grow in water, but one must have some artistic license…

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

P.S. You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.

It’s Pi Day! (3.14), so in honour of that most famous of all mathematical constants we thought we’d do something completely irrational and post a couple of recipes.  Pi(e) recipes, of course.  And a story or two.

There weren’t a lot of male cooks around in the [...]]]> Hi Folks:

It’s Pi Day! (3.14), so in honour of that most famous of all mathematical constants we thought we’d do something completely irrational and post a couple of recipes.  Pi(e) recipes, of course.  And a story or two.

There weren’t a lot of male cooks around in the circles where I grew up (BBQ aside), but from the time I started Boy Scouts when I was 10 I’ve learned how to cook.  Okay, not always well, and a fire doesn’t have a dial for temperature control, but like everything else, it takes some time to learn.  By the time I started college I could cook and bake fairly well, despite the fact that my mother lovingly weighed me down with packages of freezerable food every time I went for a visit.  When Marcia and I first moved in together I told her the kitchen was mine and she told me I was welcome to it (Marcia’s actually a very good cook herself, and one of our many shared activities is cooking together).  Anyway, I digress.

I could make just about anything… but pastry.  I tried a lot of different pastry recipes over the years; they all failed me.  I also tried the advice of several different people… that failed me too.

Finally, one year for my birthday (a few years after graduating from college for the third time) my mother gave me a copy of ‘More Food That Really Schmecks‘, by Edna Staebler.  Filled with both many wonderful, easy to make recipes and many wonderful anecdotes about her friends, family, and life in Mennonite country, this cookbook remains one of my favourites on a shelf now overflowing with cookbooks.  I love it.  In the middle of that book was… you guessed it… ‘Barbie’s Perfect Pastry’.  I wasn’t hopeful, but I tried it.

It was great!  It rolled out smoothly, held together well, and baked up perfectly.  I was transformed.  In fact I was so excited about it that I copied out the recipe and shared it with my sister Liz.  She took a quick look at it, replied, “That looks just like Grandma’s old recipe.” and handed it back, nonplussed.  What??  All those years and nobody told me… Oh well.

Here then is ‘Barbie’s Perfect Pastry’*

BARBIE’S PERFECT PASTRY
(makes about 4‑5 shells)

1 lb. (454 g) lard
6 cups (1.5 l) flour (3 cups all purpose & 3 cups cake and pastry if possible)
2 tsp. (10 ml) salt
1 tsp. (5 ml) baking powder
1 egg
1 tbsp. (15 ml) vinegar
water

Blend the lard, flour, salt and baking powder with a pastry blender until the mix is fairly fine. In a measuring cup beat the egg with the vinegar; add enough water to make 1 cup. Add this to the flour mixture and blend gently with a fork. Don’t work it any more than necessary. Dough will be easier to work with if you refrigerate it at least an hour, preferably overnight. This also gives it a chance to `rest’.

That’s it.  So simple, and yet so good.  I’ve taught several people how to make pastry over the years, all of whom had trod a path similar to mine, and all of them had said the same things – they’d tried making pastry, it was too hard, etc.  Don’t believe it until you’ve tried Barbie’s recipe.

Another recipe in ‘More Food That Really Schmecks’ is for ‘Mrs. Addison Eby’s Sour Cream Elderberry Pie’*  But first, another story.  If you’re not familiar with elderberries, they grow on a bush that can be 6′/2m or more high.  When we lived in Ontario we had red elderberries and black elderberries; out here in BC we have blue elderberries.  You can substitute blueberries in this recipe, but the elderberries have a delicious tang all their own.  It’s worth the time it takes to separate the (tiny) berries from their stems.

Anyway, the first time I made this recipe was for a charity event at work: they were having a ‘bake sale’ in the lunchroom and different people brought in different treats every day.  So far, so good.  It happens though that at the time I was working for the Rabies Research Unit of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Wildlife Research Branch, and at that time we were working on a project to protect urban raccoons and skunks in a section of Toronto from rabies by live-trapping them, giving them vaccine injections and then releasing them back into the wild.  One section of the area I was covering contained a large cemetery, and since it was surrounded by houses it was a perfect place to set out some cage traps.  Well, at the back of one yard and overhanging the fence into the cemetery grounds was a large black elderberry bush, full of berries.  Nobody else was interested in them, so one day (with many thanks to the owners of the property and the elderberry bush) I gathered a whole bagful of berries and took them home.  People loved the recipe, and I just never mentioned where the berries came from.  It was growing in someone’s back yard, after all.

MRS. ADDISON EBY’S SOUR CREAM ELDERBERRY PIE

Pastry for 9 inch pie ‑ double crust
1 cup (250 ml) sugar (white or brown)
1 cup (250 ml) sour cream
2 cups (500 ml) elderberries
2 Tbsp. (30 ml) flour

Mix the sugar and flour; blend in the sour cream, then gently fold in the elderberries so they won’t break while you are doing it. Pour into the pie shell, cover with pastry, cut ventilation holes and bake at 425°F (230°C) for 15 minutes, then at 350°F (180°C) for another half-hour. This works well with a lattice pastry top.

Okay, one last recipe for now.  This one is my own concoction so I call it, appropriately enough, ‘Mike’s Pumpkin Pie’.  It’s best to make it in the fall when pumpkins are plentiful, but you can freeze your cooked pumpkin and make this recipe any time of year.  If you’re one of those people who use canned pumpkin, well, there may be salvation for you in the next life.

COOKED PUMPKIN

Wash pumpkin and cut into quarters; clean away the seeds and stringy fibres. An ice-cream scoop works great for removing the seeds and fibres.  Place the quarters in a low-sided baking dish containing ½” (12 mm) of hot water.  Bake at 350°F (180°C) for about 40 minutes or until tender. Remove pulp from rind and mash or rub through a sieve or food mill. Alternately, you can add the pulp to a blender and blend on high, stopping occasionally to stir.  Pour the purée into a large colander and let drain – preferably overnight.  Pack 2 cups (500 ml) at a time into freezer packs, leaving ½” (12 mm) headspace. Seal and freeze. Keeps for 1 year.

MIKE’S PUMPKIN PIE

1 un‑baked 9 inch pie shell
2 large eggs
½ cup (125 ml) sugar
2 tbsp. (30 ml) molasses
½ tsp. (2 ml) salt
¼ tsp. (1 ml) baking soda
1 tsp. (5 ml) ginger
1 tsp. (5 ml) cinnamon
½ tsp. (3 ml) cloves
½ tsp. (3 ml) nutmeg
2+ cups (500 ml) of cooked pumpkin, mashed and drained
1 cup (250 ml) sour cream
½ cup (125 ml) milk

Prepare the pie shell with a fluted standing rim, and preheat oven to 450°F (230°C). Mix the eggs, molasses, sugar, salt and spices in a blender or mixer until well mixed. Add the baking soda, sour cream, milk, and pumpkin and blend well. Turn the mixture into the prepared shell, and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 400°F (200°C) and continue to cook for about 30 minutes more.

So there ya go – a reason to celebrate this unique day of the year.  Maybe next year we’ll talk about ‘peachzza’ or something like that.

Happy Baking!

Hugs,
M&M

*In lieu of permission for posting two recipes from Edna Staebler’s book (which I sincerely hope she doesn’t mind), I can only offer my gratitude and a further suggestion that you buy a copy of her book for yourself.  Buy two and give one to a friend.  You’ll both love it.

P.S. Some pie recipes call for a pie shell to be baked empty, with the filling added later.  Lemon meringue pie is a good example of this.  If you’ve ever tried this you know that without filling the pastry will shrink considerably when baked.  While it’s possible to purchase steel ball chains or porcelain beads to serve as ballast while baking the shell, all I’ve ever used is a large bag of dried white beans from the bulk food store.  After the shell has been baked and cooled, simply pour the beans back into the bag and keep them for next time.  Paper, cloth or a perforated plastic vegetable bag is best. Also remember before baking to poke the base of the pastry a few times with a fork.  Otherwise the gas released while baking can collect and blister the pastry, pushing it away from the dish.

P.S. II, the sequel.  One last story.  It happened one day that I was at a kitchen supply store at a shopping mall, looking for a new pastry blender.  When I asked the clerk however, (and I dearly hope it was her first day) she replied, “Sorry.  We don’t sell anything electric.” I tried again, describing the shape of the device and its use, but she just shook her said and suggested, “Maybe the Shaver Centre down the mall?”  At least she was trying to be helpful.  She gets points for that.

I recently answered a question for someone on Twitter about using the Crop Tool in Lightroom so I thought I’d embellish that a little bit and post it here as well…

There are two related issues here, so let’s forget about computers for a moment and deal [...]]]> Hi Folks:

I recently answered a question for someone on Twitter about using the Crop Tool in Lightroom so I thought I’d embellish that a little bit and post it here as well…

There are two related issues here, so let’s forget about computers for a moment and deal with paper. If you have a sheet of paper that 1″x1″, that’s a specific size. A sheet of paper that’s 4″x4″ is also a specific size, but they both have the same aspect ratio (1:1). Similarly, a sheet that’s 4″x5″ and a sheet that’s 8″x10″ have the same aspect ratio but obviously one is four times the size of the other. Now, if you have a print that’s 8″x12″ and you cut two inches off the long edge to create an 8×10 you’ve both created a specific size and cropped it to a specific aspect ratio.

With digital images, however, things aren’t quite so simple.  First of all, as I’ve mentioned before, we need to consider that a digital image is not really an ‘image’ as we think of it.  A digital file, every digital file is a string of 1s and 0s put together to represent information.  For digital images, part of that information is a grid of pixels, and each pixel has colour information attached to it.  You can read more about this in our other photography tutorials or elsewhere online.  Now, every digital image has a specific ‘size’ in terms of pixels (say 3000 x 2000 pixels for example), but if you want to translate that binary information into a digital image that can be viewed on a screen or you want to create a print you need to consider a third factor: pixel density or resolution.  Images viewed on a monitor for example don’t need to be much more than 72 pixels/inch (ppi); although some monitors can display higher resolutions, anything much over 100ppi is wasted resolution and therefore wasted disk space. My laptop screen is 13.5″ x 7.6″, which works out to a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen resolution is 1366×768 pixels, so 1366/13.5″ works out to 101ppi.

If you want to make an inkjet print that’s 16″x20″ at a resolution of 300 dots/inch (dpi), then you need an image that has a pixel dimension of 4800×6000 pixels. There’s also bit-depth to consider (8-bit vs. 16-bit or 32-bit, but you can read more about that in our Photography and Colour Management post).

Now in a pixel-editing program like Photoshop, when you edit an image you’re actually making changes to the pixels themselves. To get around this the folks at Adobe introduced layers to make the editing somewhat non-destructive, but when you save the file you’re overwriting the existing information (unless you use ‘Save As’, of course). Lightroom, however, uses a non-destructive workflow. No matter what changes you make to a file in Lightroom, the original image file is not altered. Lightroom is essentially a database management program, and what it does is keep a list of the changes you make in the Develop panel for example as a History file. Therefore, when you crop in Lightroom it’s not throwing away any of the pixels, it’s just writing a note in the History file that says, ‘Change to X:Y aspect ratio’. The original file is untouched.

When you export an image from Lightroom or when you create a print it takes that History information and applies the changes to the output. It still doesn’t alter the original file.

There’s one other factor that comes into play here and that’s what’s known as ‘up-rezzing’ or ‘down-rezzing’. If you have an image that has 4000×5000 pixels and you want to create an output file that is 8000×10000 pixels at a resolution of 100ppi or a print of 8″x10″ at 720dpi then the original file doesn’t have enough information to cover that. What the software does in up-rezzing the image is ‘invent’ pixels based on the surrounding information to fill the gaps. This artificially increases the dimensions of the original image. How far you can ‘stretch’ an image in this way depends on a number of factors.

So, in Lightroom, when you crop an image in the Develop panel you’re simply setting the aspect ratio. When you export an image or when you create a print you tell Lightroom the output dimensions and the resolution.  Now, the OP mentioned that s/he wanted to create a banner for the ‘net of 359×733 pixels.  My answer was that to do so in Lightroom would take a couple of steps, depending on the aspect ratio of the images the camera captures and the output. Using this example, 359×733 pixels is an aspect ratio of 1:2.04178.  It’s unlikely that any camera shoots in that aspect ratio (more likely 3:2 or 4:3) so in the Develop module it will be necessary to define a custom crop ratio.  We’ll use an image I made recently at Victoria’s Butterfly Garden as an example. I’m using Lightroom 4, but it works the same in Lightroom 3.

1) Open the image in Develop and either click on the Crop icon in the top of the right panel or press ‘R’ to enter the crop module.

2) Between ‘Aspect’ and the little lock icon it says ‘Original’, with a drop arrow beside it. Click on that and while Lightroom provides several standard crop aspects, below that it says it says ‘Enter Custom’. Under Aspect Ratio type 359×733 and click Okay. Lightroom will create a crop overlay on your image, and since it’s a banner it will max out to the long side of the image. Now, if you put your mouse inside that crop window anywhere and click and hold the mouse button while dragging the mouse you can move the image up and down within the crop window to select the exact image crop you want. Various overlays are available to help with composition. You can turn the Tool overlay on/off at the bottom left of the screen and pressing ‘O’ (oh, not zero) will toggle through the options.

If you click and drag on one of the bounding boxes (the corners or middle-top/bottom/side buttons) of the crop box you can make the box smaller or larger. If you press the ‘X’ key you can rotate the box from horizontal to vertical or vice versa.

If you place the mouse outside of the image area in the gray surround and click and drag you can rotate the image. You can also rotate by using the angle slider (or typing in an angle) or by using the Straighten tool – if you hold down the Ctrl/Cmd key, click a point in the image and (still holding down the Ctrl key) click on a second point in the image LR will rotate the image to make the line between those two points either horizontal or vertical. It’s handy for horizons in landscape shots for example. Remember Ctrl/Cmd-Z will back you up one step just about anywhere in LR

As long as you don’t click on the little lock icon to unlock it, moving the image within the crop box, rotating it or reducing/enlarging the bounding box won’t change the aspect ratio of the crop. When you’re done, click the Crop icon again or click Done at the bottom. You now have a cropped view of your image.

(this image has been cropped but not otherwise 'processed')

If you want to apply the same crop to more than one image you can select them all in the Library module, apply the crop to the ‘most selected’ image in the Develop module, and then press the ‘Sync’ button in the bottom right panel of the Develop module. Uncheck all, then just select the Crop box and click Synchronize.

3) Now to create the output image(s). With the file(s) selected in either the Library or Develop module, go to File/Export. You’ll have to tell LR where you want to put the new image(s) (folder on the hard drive, upload site or whatever), you can rename them if you want, and since (for this example) you’re uploading them to the web, under Image settings you’ll want to set JPG, sRGB, and choose a quality setting: 75 will probably be sufficient, maximizing image quality without creating overly large files, but you can experiment.

Under that, in Image Resizing, select Resize to Fit, Width and Height, 359×733 and you’ll need to set a resolution. As I mentioned, for the ‘net anything over 100ppi is a waste of file space; most people use 72 ppi. The other options for sharpening, copyright, etc. I leave to you. If you’re going to be using these settings frequently you can create an Export preset by clicking ‘Add’ on the left side of the export window. Make sure the name you give the preset makes sense to you – call it Banner or 359×733 or whatever you want.

Click Export and LR will create a new file(s) in the location you’ve specified, applying all of the Develop and other settings you’ve stipulated, at the crop ratio and pixel dimensions you’ve specified.

NB: you may wish to crop an image but not reduce the image size, i.e. you may have an image that’s 4000 pixels x 5000 pixels, and want to create an image that’s 2500 pixels x 5000 pixels instead (1:2 aspect ratio).  This preserves the full dimensions of the image but changes the aspect ratio.  Creating the crop is the same as above, but when you go to File/Export under Image Sizing you can enter 5000×5000 pixels as the width and height.  Doing so will not change the aspect ratio as these are the ‘maximum’ dimensions Lightroom will use for the export.  You could even enter 10,000×10,000 pixels, and as long as you click the ‘Don’t Enlarge’ box, Lightroom will create an output file that’s as large as possible without uprezzing or ‘inventing’ pixels.

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

P.S. You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.