Photo stories

A picture is worth a thousand words, as the old adage puts put it, and it’s meant to describe how much easier it is to convey information (and, by extension, meaning) through images rather than words. The advertising industry alone certainly suggests that’s true. At the same time, though, images can also have their own stories. This post is about exactly that.

I’ve said many times that most of my photos have stories behind them, something I mentioned most recently back on March 5 . Sometimes, though, the story is about the HOW of the photo, how I took it, whether technically or even just what I was going for.

The photo up top is an example of that. On the surface, it’s just a photo of Leo being cute, something that was underscored by the caption I gave it when I shared it on social media: “Leo promises he’s not judging you—he’s just basking in the sun.” That was true—he really was basking—but the first part was because he looked kind of like he was judging me. The story behind it is that I got down on the floor to take the photo from a low angle—his height—rather than from above as I ordinarily might do. Choosing the best angle for a photo often takes experimentation—like, for example, taking several photos from different positions. I mean, Leo’s cute regardless, but taking the photo from a more equal position that improves it, I think, like we’re entering his world for a moment.

Next is a photo I took a couple days earlier, but never shared online:

In this photo, Leo was laying on the back of the sofa, his favourite spot in the daytime because he can look at the world outside. For this photo, I used the “Portrait” setting on my phone which adds background blur (probably by reducing the depth of field). Technically, this is known as bokeh, and it’s kind of difficult to do on phones, which for the post part are “point and shoot” cameras (there are exceptions, and manual configurations are possible if one wants to learn the techniques). I never shared this photo on social media because the Portrait setting produced a photo in which Leo was quite dark—in shadow, actually—because of the window behind him. I had to adjust the light balance, something I find much easier to do on my Mac using Photoshop rather than the Photos app on my devices.

Finally, two more photos of Leo that I shared on social media on Sunday, March 17:

When I shared the two photos, I described them as “My boy and one of his toys,” and I said that Leo has for or five toys five he plays with the most often, and his toy bone is one of his top three. For the first of the two photos, just above, I again got down on the floor, this time on one knee, and lowered the phone until the bottom of the photo was just a bit below the top of the sofa cushion Leo was laying on. I liked the way his paw was on his toy bone, and the way the midday light from the window shone on him. There really wasn’t anything more to it than that.

The other photo I shared on March 17 (at left in the two-photo montage below) is one I actually took the previous evening, and in it Leo is standing on the sofa arm and I was sitting in my chair—roughly at the same level as him. I took it because I’d never seen Leo hold his toy bone like that before, going backwards from his mouth. It was a straightforward photo—and one I took vertically, not square as I normally do, so I could be sure to get the whole picture. However, I also took another one in Portrait mode (at right in the montage below), and that didn’t work: The photo focused on part of his toy bone, leave the rest of him blurry. This is why I don’t rely on Portrait mode—or any other automatic setting, for that matter. Instead, I try take several versions and I pick the best of them to share—if I share any at all.

What all this really means is that getting photos WE’RE happy with is about trial and error, using different techniques, different camera settings, different angles, etc., and see what we get. Fortunately, modern digital photography makes this extremely easy to do.

I’m definitely not qualified to comment on the technical or artistic merits of anyone’s photos (including my own), but I know this one thing: When it comes to our personal photos, what matters is that we like them. If we choose to share them online, and others also like them, too, that’s a bonus—but we have to please ourselves first.

I often share what I did to get a particular photo that I liked for the very same reason I share all sorts of things online: Because it may help someone else working on the same things (in this case, getting better photos). Seems to me that’s one of the best uses for the Internet. And in this case, it's a great reason to take more photos, too.

Non-odoriferous

The Internet can teach us many things. While some of them are merely entertaining, like how to play a game, some are particularly useful, like how to remove odours, for example. Recently, a technique I tried before came back to help me again.

Back in February, I wrote about using a technique I’d read about on the Internet, specifically, using white vinegar to try to remove the fake coconut oil stench of sunscreen from clothes. It worked, and I decided to try it again.

The first task was the most urgent. I discovered that Bella had peed on a mat in the bathroom (Not entirely her fault: She was locked inside all day, and since she doesn’t have a litter box, she was caught short). So, I put the mat in a bucket of hot water and white vinegar, as might be expected, the resulting smell was, um, unique.

I drained the water, gave the mat a little rinse, and then washed it as usual. Being heavy, it took forever to air dry, but the smell was gone. I vaguely remember doing something like that years ago, with a different cat, but forgot all about it until recently (partly because Bella doesn't usually do that).

A week or so later, I had two t-shirts that smelled sour, like a kitchen cloth or sponge left too long without washing and disinfecting. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it could be I washed them during one of our many rainstorms and then hung them up to dry in the airing rack in the house. That could have meant they were damp for too long. In any event, merely washing them wasn’t removing the smell.

So, I soaked them, too, in a bucket of hot water with white vinegar and then washed them like usual. They came out smelling fresh and clean.

I know that I might find something that this method doesn’t work with, but I haven’t yet, which is the main thing. But the other thing is that this gave me a passing thought that I ought to try more of these things the Internet told me about, and report back on what happened.

I actually thought that after I’d already tried something completely different that wasn’t as successful.

Something I found through Pinterest told me that a soft cloth with rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) would remove water spots from stainless steel. We have a stainless steel water pitcher that, I think, had been washed in the dishwasher and ended up with water spots. I’d washed it and re-washed it by hand several times, but the spots remained. So I tried the alcohol method, and it helped—didn’t completely fix it, but it’s much improved. Sadly, I didn’t think to take a “before” photo, so an “after” photo was kind of pointless (and in that way, a topic for a blog post was lost…).

The larger point here is that as long as the Internet advice isn’t clearly dangerous—like combining household chemicals that must never be combined—there’s often no reason to NOT try methods, even if they seem unconventional. I will, and I'll continue to share what I learn.

Right now, though, I can affirm that soaking clothes in white vinegar does indeed remove most unpleasant odours.

I wonder what would happen if there was a white vinegar rainstorm over the White House…

Related posts:

Weekend Diversion: Learning stuff (2010) – The first post, I think, where I shared a technique I learned on the Internet. I still use this technique.
Weekend Diversion: How to fold a shirt (2013) – I still use this technique, too.

Learning YouTube tricks

I’ve always thought that a day without learning something new is pretty much a waste of a day. It doesn’t have to be a big or important thing, just something new that I didn’t know. Today, I learned ways to make YouTube better and easier.

The video above is from Hank Green, one half of Vlogbrothers, one of several YouTube Channels I subscribe to, and one of the ones I watch the most (usually within a day of a new video being released). In this video, Hank talks about all kinds of tips and tricks that make YouTube much easier to use.

I didn’t know about the things he talked about, but I’ve tried all of them and they’re very useful. Once I memorise them, I’ll probably use them all the time—but, until then, I may need to make myself a sort of reference card.

A day without learning something new is pretty much a waste of a day. Today wasn’t wasted. Whew!

How to see my FB Page

In my previous post, I said that I set-up a Facebook Page for my blog and podcast, and that I’d post about how to follow that—or any page—on Facebook so that it shows up in your newsfeed. It’s not necessarily obvious, and it’s easy to miss out on seeing things we want to see.

The problem is that clicking “Like” on a Facebook Page doesn’t necessarily automatically make items posted to that page show up in our newsfeeds. The solution is, first, to click “Like”, then click on the “Liked” tab and you’ll get a drop down menu with three options, each of which has a specific function.

The top one is “Get Notifications”. Select this if you want to get notifications, however, be aware that if you have your Facebook set-up to send notifications by email or push-message to your cellphone, then every time the page publishes something, you’ll get an alert. You can adjust that in your Facebook settings.

The next item is “Following”. This was added sometime in the last year, and is the way to make sure you get updates from a page. It’s similar in function to selecting “Follow” for a person, but there are some differences.

You can Follow a person you’re not friends with, if they permit it, though you’ll only see what they post publicly. Many of us share only with Friends, which is my default. Posts on all non-personal Pages are, by definition, public.

The main difference is that you have to “Like” a Page before you can “Follow” it—it’s not automatic—but when you become a Friend on Facebook, you automatically Follow that person. However, you can turn that off, which is a good option for Friends who post too much, too frequently, or whose stuff you don’t want to see, but you don’t want to “Unfriend” them. Just go to the Friend’s page and click on the “Following” tab to turn that off, and you won’t see their posts in your news feed, but you can still interact with them in every other way, and they’ll still see what you post (assuming they haven’t unfollowed you…).

The next item, “Add to interests list…” is a way to filter Page content. There’s a similar function on Twitter, and the basic idea is to make it easier to see similar content in a single feed. Facebook’s is a bit complicated, though, and has some privacy implications if you allow everybody to Follow you.

The final item in that menu is “Unlike”, the way to stop seeing updates from a page, similar to “unfriending” a person. It’s something I’ve seldom used myself, and then usually because I accidentally “Liked” a page. Obviously no one would “Unlike” my page.

Now, this advice is accurate at the moment, but could change at any time. I last talked about seeing stuff from Pages in one’s Facebook newsfeed a year ago—almost to the day—and things have changed since then.

Even so, if you set-up the Pages you want to see in your newsfeed, they may continue to do so even if (well, when…) Facebook next changes the way it handles newsfeeds and the like.

Good luck!

Smartphone Photography

I believe that one of the best ways to learn photography is to simply take photos. But rather than investing in expensive equipment, I think that one of the best tools to learn how to take good photos is a smartphone.

The video above, “7 Smartphone Photography Tips & Tricks”, teaches some things one can do with a smartphone. Some are more advanced than others, but none of them require any special tools or equipment, which is the point.

Years ago, after my mother died, I bought a fancy 35mm SLR film camera and experimented with taking photos. I enjoyed it, and took a few good ones (amid a lot of rubbish ones). That camera was stolen a few years later, and I just never got back into it—until recently, and it was mainly with my phone.

For the past year or so, most of the photos I’ve posted on this blog have been taken with my iPhone. That won’t necessarily be as true next year, since I’m determined to learn how to use our fancy digital camera that, so far, I’ve used mainly for copying old family photographs that don’t have any negatives.

But the camera itself isn’t the issue as much as learning what makes a good photo. In general, I’ve been pretty happy with the photos I’ve published here. I guess that’s obvious: Who would share a photo they hated? But the truth is, I like some of the photos I’ve taken, and that makes me want to take more.

Using a smartphone has some distinct advantages. Most people have a phone with them all the time, they’re discreet and they’re easy to use. The camera lenses included with phones are getting better all the time, but they’re all fine for learning.

The flash on a smartphone isn’t very strong or precise, and the light responsiveness isn’t great. But these restrictions aren’t important when the goal is learning how to take good photos, and they can actually force one to be more creative. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, well, chalk it up as a “learning experience”.

These days, with decent cameras on smart phones, some time, some patience, and all the free tips and tricks available, anyone can learn to take decent photographs. That’s all I want.

My phone just makes learning to take better photos much easier.

Weekend Diversion: How to fold a shirt

It’s possible to learn how to do almost anything on the Internet, and, in fact, I’ve learned quite a few different things. Many of them have actually been really practical, too. Today I have another—along with some more serious opportunities.

Some three and a half years ago, I posted about learning how to fold a fitted sheet. It was a chore that frustrated me before I found the video. I learned the technique—basically—but I’m not exactly fanatical about getting it right (even if I do sometimes start over).

When we were in Paeroa last week, someone mentioned a challenge to learn one new thing on YouTube a week, and mentioned folding a t-shirt. I’d only recently learned the technique from the video above, so I shared what I’d learned. To be honest, it’s far easier to do than to fold a fitted sheet neatly every time. One tip: It’s usually better to make the middle point a little lower than halfway down the shirt so that the bottom of the shirt doesn’t show above the shoulders once it’s all folded.

There are far more serious learning opportunities on the Internet, too. My nephew recently posted on Facebook a link to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware (OCW), which “makes the materials used in the teaching of MIT's subjects available on the Web.” Best of all, it’s FREE. There are several universities in the world that are part of the OCW Consortium, which together offer some 13,000 courses in 20 languages.

Other interesting efforts include the development of textbooks that will be released as ebooks under Creative Commons licenses. The idea is that they will be cheaper for schools, instantly updatable and avoid the, er, um, difficulties associated with the fact that Texas determines the content for most primary and secondary school textbooks in the USA. In other words, the information won’t have to be run through an ideological filter first.

When you add this formal learning to the huge amount of informal learning opportunities (like the YouTube videos that taught me to fold fitted sheets and short-sleeve shirts), well, it’s amazing we don’t know everything, right?

Seriously, thanks to the Internet, it’s possible for us to learn so much more, and to be so much better informed, than was even remotely possible in previous generations. We can choose that whenever we want—and I think we should.

Remember that the next time someone tells you the Internet is all about porn, gambling, and photos of cats and people’s meals. You can tell them confidently, “No, you can also learn how to fold a shirt in under 2 seconds.” And then tell them how much they can really learn.

Get Through, 3

A week ago, I wrote about using social media in the event of an emergency. I specifically mentioned using one’s cellphone to send an update to Facebook or Twitter by text message. Today, I’ll tell you how to do that.

Facebook

1. Log into Facebook.
2. Click on “Account” and go to “Account Settings”
3. Click on the tab that says “Mobile”.
4. Select your network from the menu.
5. Text the code the give you to the number provided. Don't close Facebook on your computer!!
6. Facebook texts back a confirmation code.
7. Enter that confirmation code and you’re done and good to go.

Sending a text to Facebook’s number will update your status, but you can also send a message to someone in particular, search for someone, etc., by typing a specific letter at the start (that's all in Mobile Help). But I figure, if I wanted to do that, I'd go on the web or use a mobile app, not do it by text.

All texts sent to you are turned off by default, which is a good thing. Keep in mind that if you have updates turned on, you could get a text at any time of the day or night, which isn’t pleasant.

Also, in New Zealand only Vodafone NZ and Telecom NZ are supported by Facebook (it’s Facebook’s decision what carriers to add, apparently, and isn’t up the cellphone companies). 2Degrees is not included by Facebook, however, 2Degrees has something they call Facebook Zero, which is free to use.

Twitter

These instructions are modified from the official instructions from Twitter:

1. Log in and click the settings link in the drop-down in the top right-hand corner of your screen, where you see your username.
2. Click the Mobile tab on your profile's Settings page.
3. Choose your country from the first drop-down box.
4. Enter your number without a country code or leading zero (for example, a Vodafone NZ number would be 21, not 021, and Telecom NZ would be 27, not 027).
5. Users outside the US need to choose their carrier from the drop-down box. If your carrier isn’t listed (and in New Zealand, only Vodafone NZ and Telecom NZ are listed), it’s still possible to send texts by way of the UK, Germany or Finland.
6. Click “Start” to begin verifying your phone.
7. You will be directed to send a text message, containing the word "GO", to your Twitter number.
8. Send GO from your phone.
9. After Twitter receives the confirmation code from you, your phone will be added and you'll be ready to use Twitter on your phone.

My advice is go to make sure that all updates sent to you are turned off. Just as with Facebook, above, this is especially important if you follow/are followed by people around the world. If you don’t do this, you’ll get texts any time of day or night. However, if there are certain people whose updates you DO want sent to your phone, you can easily add them on the web. I don’t have any Tweets sent to my phone by text.

That’s it. Once your phone is set-up, you’ll be able to send updates to Twitter and Facebook, even if you have no power and ordinary phone lines are down. In an emergency situation, cellphone calls may be hard to make, but texts will probably get through more easily.

Please keep one very important thing in mind: If you want to text Facebook and Twitter to let folks know you are okay, please wait to do so. People who are in real danger or who have immediate need for help should get first priority; keep off the network as long as possible after a disaster.

I offer these instructions, and the advice to use cellphone texting in an emergency, as a quick and easy way to let a lot of people know all at once that you’re okay. But common sense should make obvious that no one should ever text unimportant messages during an emergency.

Used responsibly, this can be a great way to let friends and family overseas know that you’re okay, and that will probably help you feel better, too.

5 things to stop typing

Over the years, I’ve taken thousands of documents people have typed up, usually using the ubiquitous Microsoft Word, and then spent countless hours fixing them. I’m not just talking about spelling and grammar mistakes (we all make them…), but typing errors—most of them holdovers from the days of typewriters.

If a document is for use within a company or organisation, those mistakes don’t matter much, but if the document will be used in something that’ll be professionally laid-out and printed—like newsletters, annual reports or brochures—then it does matter. Anything that takes extra time will probably cost more money, so it’s a good idea to avoid mistakes in typing.

Here are five common mistakes people make when typing a document:

1. HEADLINES SHOULD NEVER BE IN ALL CAPS! Did you find that easy to read? That’s why newspapers and magazines don’t print headlines in all caps. That’s a holdover from typewriter days when there was one type size and weight. Instead, just make your headline bold and/or make it bigger.
2. A tab is not something you pull. When indenting a line, use a tab, never spaces. Spaces get all messed up when the document is reformatted for publishing. There’s special formatting you can use, like hanging indents for lists, or maybe first line indents for paragraphs, but they’re not really necessary for a document that will be published professionally. But if you insist on indenting text, use a tab and never spaces.
3. Deceptive appearances. Many people like to type with justified text, that is, where the left and right margins are all straight lines, like in a column of text in newspaper. If you use that, you won’t see any extra spaces you’ve accidentally put in. Also, these documents sometimes turn out really weird when placed in professional publishing software. Instead, let the right margin do as it pleases! Word calls this “Align Text Left,” other programs call it “Left Justified” (and typographers often call it “ragged right”). Whatever you call it, that’s what this blog post is. Also, keep in mind that if the recipient of your document doesn’t have the same fonts, it could look—and the layout could be—very different from what you see, so stick to basic, boring typefaces.
4. Return to sender. Using the return (or enter) key is like slamming your hand down on your desk: It’s abrupt, it’s noisy and very jarring. That’s why it’s used ONLY at the end of a paragraph and NEVER at the end of a line, like folks used to do on typewriters. Computers automatically wrap the text onto the next line, so if you hit return at the end of each line, professional publishing software will see every line as a separate paragraph. That has to be fixed line-by-line, meaning hours of endless non-fun.
5. One space only. The biggest, most common mistake people make when typing: NEVER put two spaces after a full stop (called a “period” the US and other places). This is another throwback to typewriters. In those days, every character got the same amount of space (this is called “monospacing” or “fixed width”). Adding an extra space after sentences made paragraphs easier to read. But when word processors came along, they introduced proportional spacing, that is, they give space to characters based on how big they are; for example, an uppercase “W” takes up more room than a lowercase “i”, or a fullstop, and the spacing is adjusted. They also automatically add extra space at the end of each sentence. So, when you put in two spaces, it’s actually the equivalent of adding many spaces. Professional publishing software often sees these as BIG spaces. So, publishers have to strip out extra spaces between sentences.

Keep in mind that a real-live person will have to spend real-live person time fixing all these typing errors, on top of routine editing, before they can turn your document into your lovely professionally printed and published masterpiece. That extra time could cost you more money, so it really is to your advantage to—ahem!—type right.

This post was inspired, in part, by a Tweet from my fellow American expat in New Zealand, @juliryan.