Hi Folks:
I was at an informal gathering of photographers recently where we were sharing and discussing our work. I displayed a sunset image that I had made (this one)
Author Archives: Mike Nelson Pedde
Being Green – Celebrating Abundance
Hi Folks:
Friday once again, and time for this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post. I usually decide on a weekly topic based on something I pick up during the week past, and for this week’s post I had a few ideas… all of which evaporated when I received a note from a fellow forum user this morning (thanks, D.!) He pointed me to a Youtube video of William McDonough giving the opening keynote address for “Global Forum 2009: Business as an Agent of World Benefit“. The video is a little over an hour and I haven’t listened to it all yet, but I will. I really like the reference near the beginning of the talk to the green roof on the Ford plant instead of asphalt (‘ass fault’, as two words denoting blame). I’ve been a fan of William McDonough and his work for a number of years now, both in the work of his architectural firm and from his founding partnership with MBDC, the people behind the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ certification. In his opening for the TED talk he did in 2005 he lamented how a ‘rubber duck’ sold in the state of California needs to carry what amounts to a biohazard label. There’s just no reason for that. Continue Reading →
Being Free…
Hi Folks:
Just a quick thought…
In his book “Illusions: The Adventures of a Relucant Messiah“, Richard Bach wrote:
“In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.”
It’s a very good book, BTW. Anyway, it’s his quote and I’m not going to change it, but it seems to me that ‘boredom’ doesn’t always look like boredom. Sometimes it comes dressed in different clothes, like adversity, pain, loss, poverty, illness, depression or loneliness…
So, rather than providing my answers to this question (although I probably have, somewhere in the ‘Mike’s Writings‘ section of our blog), I thought I’d ask you instead. Do you want to live free and happily? In order to do so, what must you sacrifice? As Bashar would ask, “Are you willing to believe it’s that easy?” (not “Do you believe it’s that easy?” but “Are you willing to believe it’s that easy?“)
Those who guide me once said, “The only thing we’ve ever asked you to change is your perspective.“
Love,
Mike.
Cell Phone Cameras
Hi Folks:
One of the gifts Mrs. Claus gave me for Christmas was a Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant GT-i9000M Android-enabled cell phone. The name is actually longer than the phone itself; I’m not sure who comes up with this stuff! The GPS feature combined with Google Maps makes navigating the sleigh a lot simpler, but that’s another story. The phone also has a 5MP digital camera, and that’s the topic for today’s blog post. BTW, I checked the Apple Canada site and the iPhone 4 also has a 5MP camera, so I’m assuming they’re in the same ball park as far as comparisons go.
The reasons for this post are two-fold. For one, up until now I’ve never really had the chance to experience making photographs with a cell phone camera. For the second, there have been a couple of posts on Mike Johnston’s ‘The Online Photographer‘ blog recently that say that the sales of ‘point and shoot’ cameras have been steadily falling. His suggestion is that point and shoot cameras are single-use devices while cell phones with cameras are multifunctional… so more people are simply using their cell phone cameras rather than purchasing a separate camera as well. Continue Reading →
Being Green in 2011
Hi Folks:
Friday once again, and time for this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post. In the links below you’ll find several posts from people talking about the best ‘green’ topics of 2010 and predictions for the green future of 2011, so I won’t repeat them all here. I will say that 2010 brought a number of wonderful new technologies and ideas, several insightful conferences, and is further proof that we as humans have the capacity to make our world better. As to what 2011 will bring? Personally I’m going to adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude, but I am looking forward with anticipation to more new ideas, new technologies and new projects that will bring us, both individually and collectively into a ‘greener’ future! This being my first ‘Being Green’ post of 2011, I should probably reiterate what you can expect to find on this section of our blog. On Fridays (almost always!) I write a short post on a topic related to green living in some capacity – this started out as a section devoted to green building specifically, but has expanded to include issues of sustainability in a larger context, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and other topics related to living in harmony with this little blue marble of ours. For the most part I write about solutions rather than problems, and I tend to focus on positive innovations rather than negative news as the latter is well covered elsewhere. I don’t generally profile specific products or services unless I think they’re really innovative, but there are few hard and fast rules here! I also add a list of links to other sites of interest that I’ve come across in the previous week. Most of these come from links I’ve encountered through Twitter, and some come from e-newsletters I receive. I trust you will find some benefit in what you read here, and invite you to leave a comment on anything ‘green’ you’ve encountered, sites you think others would like to know about, etc. Continue Reading →
Photo of the Month – Winter Storm
Hi Folks:
Today is the last day of December, and that means it’s time for the ‘Photo of the Month’ post. Being December 31, it’s also the last day of 2010. There’s an old story about spring coming in like a lamb or a lion, and if that also applies to winter, this one could be interesting!
I was walking back from the grocery store on December 20, and when I got to Dallas Road the wind was just howling and the waves were crashing into the beach. Despite this, the sun was still shining. I later discovered this is known as a ‘King Tide‘ event, a biannual event caused by the alignment of the sun and moon that creates extremely high tides. All I knew at the time was, “I’ve got to shoot this!” Continue Reading →
He Says, She Says… How to Be Santa Claus
Hello, Dear Reader:
Being Christmas eve and all, it seemed like an appropriate topic for today. This ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post is going to be primarily a ‘He Says’, and it’s likely to be our last blog post of 2010, so I’ll add in a greeting from Marcia as well: However you celebrate it, we wish a joyous Holiday season to you and to those near and dear to your heart.
When you look like me, a lot of kids call you Santa Claus. I’m also very fortunate to have my own Mrs. Claus. Being called Santa may be partly because of the white hair and beard, but I still remember one day over 15 years ago when I was standing at an ATM outside (in July) wearing a headband, sunglasses, denim jacket and jeans, and a girl passing by called out, “Look mom, it’s Santa Claus!” “No, I don’t think so.” was the reply. “Yeah, it is!” Mom was thinking ‘Hells Angels’ was more likely, but the little girl could see through the disguise. I also remember the first time a little one, too young to talk, walked by with his dad in hand. As they walked away the little one began saying, “Ho Ho Ho. Ho Ho Ho…” His dad didn’t know what he was going on about, but we did.
However, this isn’t a post about how to look like Santa Claus, it’s about how to be Santa Claus, no matter what you look like. And that’s something anyone can do, no matter your faith or beliefs. The ‘father’ of the modern day Santa Claus was St. Nicholas, a Grecian man who lived in Lycia in the 4th century. Born to wealthy parents, they died when he was young and he was raised by his uncle. As he grew up St. Nick was a pious man, and very generous with what he had. He also encouraged his associates to be generous as well. There are a number of stories about his life; this is one of my favourites… Continue Reading →
2011 Photo Calendars
Hi Folks:
Update: If you’re looking for 2014 calendars, please click here.
As one year closes and another begins, a popular present this time of year is a calendar for the coming year. One of the things on my ‘to do’ list this year was to create a set of background calendar templates that I could use with Lightroom to create a 2011 calendar. Before I could get to them, however, John Murray was kind enough to create a set of .png files of his own and to make them available for download: 2011 calendar templates. Thanks, John! On his website, John suggests using the .png files with Lightroom’s ‘watermark’ feature in the Print module; I’ve always used them as a graphical identity plate, but either way works.
That done, I got to thinking about people who don’t have (gasp!) Lightroom or Photoshop or another equivalent software package, and that got me thinking about Microsoft Word. I started with a letter-sized (8½” x 11″) page and set the margins to ½”, then created a table with 10 rows and 8 columns and added in the dates, like this (the outlines are there only to show the borders in this example):
Being Green – Celebrating the Holidays
Hi Folks:
Been a little quiet in our corner of the ‘net lately for several reasons, but partly because of the holidays. There are so many different traditions and celebrations this time of year it’s hard to count them all, from the Islamic New Year (a different calendar, but corresponding to Dec. 7 this year) to Kwanzaa to Hanukkah, Solstice, Saturnalia and Christmas. I’m sure there are others. Here in the northern hemisphere we’re coming up on the shortest day of the year, while our neighbours south of the equator will be celebrating their longest. All in all, however, while it’s certainly possible to get caught up in the mad scramble for presents, holiday deadlines, office parties, too much traffic and too many people crowding into too many stores, I also see more people being kind, open, polite, generous and giving. It’s something that was written very well in a story called ‘Patience Pants‘. This time of year we are reminded that no matter where we live or how we live, we are all part of a larger brother/sisterhood of humans and beyond that to being a part of the intricate web of life on this little blue marble we all share. Continue Reading →
Should I Get Lightroom or Photoshop or…?
Hi Folks:
One question I see a lot on Twitter is, “Should I get Lightroom or Photoshop?” It seems to me that people who ask that question aren’t familiar with the limits, features or capabilities of either program so I thought I’d do a quick post on that. Now, there are entire libraries of books, tutorials and instructional videos available on using these programs, so this blog post couldn’t hope to compete with them. This post is not intended to be a series of instructions on how to use these programs, but an introduction to a few of the ways in which they differ and how they can be used together. Continue Reading →