Life in the barn was very good…
We were in Walmart (That Eeeeeviiiil place) looking at the clearance racks a few weeks ago when Pixie spotted a hat. It had princesses on it. It was fairly spendy. Normally, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I would have said “No!”. But… she put it on.
And I caved.
“Don’t worry Mom! I’m a professional!”
Landing! No broken legs. He’s a professional, ya know.
Sunday was a day of new beginnings. It was The Boy’s 8th birthday. I had fond memories of birthing him- yes, they were “fond”- after eight years, I can say that. And we were having our first church service in our new building!
The Boy wasn’t feeling well. Somehow he picked up the cough/cold bug and didn’t even want to eat his waffles that morning! Wow. He was disappointed as he had been looking forward to running around the new building with his walkie-talkies trying to get lost- or not. He was perking up by the time it was to leave but he wasn’t ready and I wasn’t sure about spreading germs so he and The Col. stayed home and had some quality “boy” time.
The Girls and I went off to the big event. I stayed in the nursery (someone had to do it) but the service sounded like it went well. Then a well attended pot luck and friends to chat with.
I had my trusty camera with me. A couple of people said “I forgot my camera but I knew you’d have yours so I didn’t go back for it.” Hmmm. Am I getting predictable? I was tired and the basement was dark so I wimped out. Yes, people, I wimped out and set it on complete automatic. I made my Digital SLR a point and shoot. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And they turned out well, overall. I only managed to take 150. Thank goodness for digital! Since I am awful about doing anything with them once I take them I will copy them to a CD and give them to a gentleman at church who does wonderful slide shows. It’ll be fun to see what he puts together. I think I tended to take pictures of people I know, so there were reoccurring faces but I hope I took enough shots of others too.
So, I’ll leave with impressions that will hopfully help answer the question of “why a new to us building?” Here is the old building- taken during practice for our Easter production- not the best artistically but gives a good feel of the sanctuary. Remember, you can click on the thumbnails to make them larger.
New.
Totally different feel, isn’t it?
When we visited The Grandparents we took many a walk in the drippy woods Rain Forest. We saw many interesting things- like deer tracks, moss, flowers, trees (of course), and birds. One of the birds that Grandpa pointed out was a Pileated Woodpecker.
(Click to enlarge)
Don’t the kids just look enthralled?
Anyway, the Pileated Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in North America and is about the size of a crow. It has red on it’s head, which I know because I looked it up- it was too far away to get a good look at it. I didn’t even try to get a photo of it because it would have been a dark blob on the side of a tree and you would have looked about like this:
You would have given me the “sure we see it” and the “I’m bored, can we go?” looks.
The Nature Walks were enjoyable to me, at least.
On the subject of Photography in The Rain Forest- you will notice that in the first photo that Grandpa is really the only one in crisp focus. In the second one I think KJ is the clearest. I am just not sure how I could have done it different. I should have tried full automatic just to see what the camera would have tried. Any thoughts?
It’s dark, it’s damp- there is lots of moss.
Looking down through the slats on one of the walk bridges. Moss underneath and growing between the slats. I like the leaf imprint also.
Rain Forests are dark places. There is the thick canopy overhead, cloudy skies and rain falling on your camera. I had to set the ISO and the F-stop. Sounds like I know what I’m doing, doesn’t it? Ha! I laugh.
The ISO has to do with the speed of the “film” but because I have a digital SLR there is no film. But from what I understand (and with limited brain power, I could be wrong) the lower the number the more light it needs but it has better color saturation. ISO 200 would have better color but needs a brighter day. The higher the setting the more grainy the photo can be too. I experimented with different ISOs and settled on about 400 or 800 depending on where I was in the woods Rain Forest.
The F stop determines how wide the shutter opens (called aperture) which determines how much light hits the “film”. The wider it opens the shorter the depth of focus. If I have it set to 8 the aperture doesn’t open as wide, letting in less light, but it will provide a wider focus area. If someone was standing in front of an impressive sight, I would want to have a deeper focus to include not only the person but the background so I would set it at about 8. If the person was standing in front of something not so impressive or I wanted the person to be the main focus of the photo, I would set it at a lower number- say 5.6. If you go too low then the person’s nose might be in focus but the rest would be blurry.
In this situation, trying to take photos in the dark, when I didn’t want to use a flash- I wanted the aperture to open wide to let in as much light as possible. It seems to have worked for the forest shots but the people shots were a bit off. Maybe one person in focus and the others a tad blurry. Here’s an example:
(Somebody has complained about the amount of time my Blog takes to load. I certainly wouldn’t want to inconvenience my vast (snort) readership or hog up more than my share of Internet ethereal space. So these shots are in thumbnail because I haven’t figured out how to put part of it on another page. Click on the thumbnail to get a larger photo.)
TG is mainly in focus but her moving boots are very blurry. Grandpa and KJ are slightly fuzzy. This was at ISO 400 and F-stop 5.6. I’m not sure what would have been better because if I went with a smaller aperture then there may not have been enough light and the shutter would stay open longer also making a blurry shot.
I’ll probably be posting more photos in the next few days. I’ve been a tad bit grumpy lately ( yes, just a Tad, you have issue with that?!?!?!) The Col. is leading worship at revival services in the evenings so he isn’t around- which may be for the best. When he is gone and the kids are in bed, I don’t have to share the chocolate.
