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Category Archives: tips

If you’ve ever been in the awkward situation of trying to get a baby or a pet to look at the camera, which they flat to refuse to do, while Mommy, embarrassed, shrieks at the reluctant tot or pup, creating a flood of tears  or a puddle of pee (and yes that has happened to me) — if that’s what’s troubling you, Junior, help is at hand!

Put a mechanical cricket noise-maker or dog-training clicker in your camera bag.  Little kids and pets look right at you to find the source of the sound.  Bingo!  You got ‘em!

This is an old idea, and I certainly didn’t invent it, but it does work.  You can buy crickets at any toy store, or over the web.  A dozen will cost you about $5.00.

Below you’ll see some crickets that you can also buy at the pet store, but they don’t make noise when you squeeze em!  Only the toad says “ ribbet”.

_DSC5551 american toad 810

Want more tips?  To buy Explorations in Photography as a print version for $35.95, go here.  To buy it as an e-book for $9.95, follow this link .

If you remember your high school English class, you may remember a term called “metonomy.”  It means letting a part of a thing stand for the whole thing:  hands for farm workers, for example.

In photography, enormous vistas rarely make great photos:  too much useless stuff and nothing to fix the eye upo.  So it’s time to try metnonomy by letting a small sample stand for the whole thing.

This works because it concentrates our vision, gives us something concrete to look at, and mayt engage our imagination in different ways.

The shots below were all taken at the same location, a large horse-shoe shaped arc of rock ledge.  By looking at concentrated chunks of this scene one captures a range of images which suggest the variety of the whole.

I call this collection “icy delights.”  Sometimes thinking small is good.

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Want more tips?  To buy Explorations in Photography as a print version for $35.95, go here.  To buy it as an e-book for $9.95, follow this link .

My Nikon D800e has been back at the Mother Ship for a tune-up.  In desperation I borrowed my wife’s point-and-shoot, with no viewfinder, no aperture mode, but I did have manual flash as an option.  I felt like a heroin user on methadone.

Still, persistence paid, as these shots from the Hamilton OH Ice Festival suggest.  You CAN get decent shots with a cheap camera but you sure to have to work for them.

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