Thunder, Rain & Photography

I woke up this morning to the sound of pounding rain and crackling thunder. Don't you just love to sleep when it's raining? It's so lulling.

Shingles Update: I woke up yesterday morning with a new sore in my mouth. And just when it had cleared up in my mouth or so I thought.

I feel like a wet dish rag. I read that shingles will last from 2 to 6 weeks, so I suppose I need to be more patient.

I have finished the shingles medication and am now taking an antibiotic. Is this normal to keep having sores after you've taken a round of anti-viral meds?

I had some questions this morning I will answer. 

Question: Did I take photography classes? Do I just point and shoot?

Answer: I have never taken photography classes. And I have never learned how to use my camera in manual mode. So yes, I just point and shoot.

However, lenses are important here too. I get close-ups with a zoom lens I've had about as long as I've had the camera, which is probably 7-8 years.

Then I download my photos to my computer. I open Picmonkey, which I pay for, but there is a free version I think. I take each photo and edit it. I get the really close-up shots by cropping, cropping, cropping.

I size my photos to 600 pixels. So I have to watch as I edit to make sure I don't go below 600 pixels. I don't usually crop lower than about 975 pixels. Then I of course size it on down to 600 pixels.

Then, still in Picmonkey, oftentimes I sharpen and tweak the photo a bit using the applications in the left column of Picmonkey. It has things like Sharpen, Exposure, etc.  

I've been taking photos for about 20 years, so you get better as you go along.

I want to touch on bokeh in photography. I love it when I inadvertently get a bokeh shot, the round prisms of light.

  
What is meant by bokeh in photography?

In photography, bokeh (originally /ˈboʊkɛ/, /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay —  is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".

 These last two photos I took at the park in the fall season.

This looks like a good article on achieving bokeh. As I've stated, I don't use manual settings, and when I get bokeh photos, it is happenstance usually.

https://www.slrlounge.com/create-amazing-bokeh-camera-lens/ 

I don't use anything else. I either just take the photo from where I stand or sit. And sometimes I'll lean against the wall.

What I consider good photography and what you consider good photography might be different. I like to take photos of objects on an angle, as you see in the candle photo above.

I will often crop nature/flower photos where I crop off part of it. I think it adds more interest. Just having a photo that is centered, to me, is kind of boring.

I know there were several other questions. I may have forgotten some. So let me know here.

One was how to attract birds to your birdbath. I found these links for you: 

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/attract-birds-with-birdbaths/

https://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/top10/attract-birds-with-water.php

I notice as I scanned these sites that the recommendation is to keep the bird bath low. I don't do that, and I have a wealth of visiting birds and squirrels at the bird bath.

Speaking of bird baths, my standing bird bath, which has raised leaves in its surface, has become very hard to clean. You don't want to have a dirty bird bath, because that can harm the birds.

I have scrubbed and scrubbed it. And I guess due to the raised pattern, I just can't seem to get the residue around the raised edges. 

So I kind of gave up and put the frog bird bath, that I had below the standing one on a bench, inside the standing bird bath. They still get water, but I don't have to worry about their drinking dirty water.

I've been posting twice per day the past couple of days. I always have a post ready to go out first thing in the a.m. I do this because many readers say they want to get the post early.

As of late, I've had my breakfast and drank my cup of coffee, then written another post. 

So there's no confusion, the first post was written the day before. I will sometimes write two posts if I have it in me!

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