Photography is the beauty of life, captured. – Tara Chisholm

Venice

In 2003, I received my first SLR camera from my husband as a birthday gift. It was not one of the more prestigious brands, and the zoom lens was off-brand, as well. But, the combination of the two– a Target-special camera combined with a basic 30 – 300 mm lens did one major thing in my life: hooked me on photography.

It wasn’t long after we purchased the camera, and we took a trip to the coast of Maine from the flatlands of our home in the Midwest. The time was precious because the skies were vivid blue, the ocean was alluring, the lighthouses shimmered, and the fog was thick at times. But also, our boys were then ages two, three, and five. It was tough, with boys running everywhere and into literally everything. But, as I now look back on the photographs I took during that time, I realize that it was the time of our lives.

Now, many years later, the time still is the time of our lives.

Somehow, through the lens of the camera, time can stand still, and a MOMENT is captured, forever.

Venice, Servizio Gondole

I have photographs from that Maine trip of majestic lighthouses surrounded by waves crashing like thunder along the craggy shore. And the next frames had photographs of little hands and legs scrambling to climb the dry rocks beside me. These memories will last. They are a treasure.

The very definition of Prague: two Czech men at 11:00 am with their beers, in Obecni Dum

Of course, now living in Europe, I tote my camera everywhere. Because everything is beautiful, and our boys are at a great age. My photo batches now have ones like the two above, of the Prague spires poking through the shroud of fog and two men chatting over beer in the Prague Municipal House, followed by a dozen shots of our boys playing futbol with their school tournament, followed by a thousand photos from our roadtrip to Venice. All moments frozen in time, to share with our loved ones far away, and to cherish for years to come.

Carnival Masks on San Marco Square, Venice

It doesn’t matter what our cameras are like — whether they are digital SLR cameras with multiple lenses or the always-handy cell phone cameras. To be able to separate ourselves from everyday busyness and to SEE the preciousness of a snatch in time — this is a gift. To be present. To really see, and mindfully capture the whirl of life around us.

Since that first camera that I loved, I have stepped forward into the digital era, and have happily captured thousands and thousands of photographs. And I have realized, what it is that propels me toward a life’s work of writing, and photography, and art.

Wine Production building, Brandolini Rota estate, Veneto, Italy

The fascination that propels my writing and photography and painting is light, when it shines around and in and through us, despite the dark. Because, like the photograph below, our lives are being lived. On a bone-chilling day in the middle of Venice’s Carnivale, the crowds receded to their warm rooms, and the gondoliers parked their gondolas for a brighter day. And yet the inky boats bobbing along the bright aqua water of the Grand Canal bring a festivity of their own. They shine. We can choose to shine despite the dark. We can open our lives to the beauty in life. This is what excites me.

Gondola Parking in Venice

So, today, in the brink of emerging Spring beauty, pull out your camera and look for the things that interest your eye. The richly colored garden flower. The glassy reflection of light upon water. The toothless grin of the neighbor girl in braids. The dew shimmering across the grass. And share the shots with those around you. For in a click of a button, you have captured the beauty and the value in the single moment in time.

This month, I’ve been writing posts about photography, and some of the basics I like to use when I shoot. Here, the links to the other posts:

5 Quick Steps to Managing Your Digital Photos

The Joy of Photography: How to Find Your Inner Lens

How to Watermark Your Photos for the Web

Starting the conversation (leave a comment below): Have you captured a photograph that you love? Post a comment here below with a link to the photograph you love and I’ll post the photo to my Pinterest board, Community Photos We Love. The link is here: Jennifer on Pinterest. Thank you! Looking forward to seeing your work!

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.  ~Ansel Adams

A February dash of color, tulips

A couple of weeks ago, a friend wrote to me asking how I watermark my photographs for the web. Since I hadn’t blogged about photography in over a year, I decided to dedicate my posts in February to the subject.

In case you missed the last two posts, click here for The Joy of Photography: How to Find Your Inner Lens and 5 Quick Steps to Managing Your Digital Photos.

Why watermark your photographs for the web? To claim your work as your own.

Some photographers like to have their text in a prominent position, with bold text. Others want to be more discreet with their watermark. But the principle stays the same: the purpose of a watermark is to claim the photograph you have taken and stamp it with your signature. That way, when others like your photo and want to link to it, or, as often happens, want to use it as their own, your watermark already links your work back to you.

Another important factor to consider as you watermark a photo is what size do you want your photograph to be? A smaller photo (in KB or MB) by compression helps your website to upload more quickly, while large photographs (more than 1.0 MB) bog down your website or page. The smaller the image file, the blurrier the image when it is enlarged. But usually, an image can be quite small on a web page and still retain its original look.

There are many resources online that show how to automatically watermark photos for the web, for instance here. But, my technique varies a bit from the standard method of watermarking photographs. I place my watermarks by hand, so that they blend into the image.

Following, in three steps, how I watermark photos for use on the web:

1) I use Photoshop, but any photo editing software will work in a similar way. First, open the photograph you want to watermark.

watermarking a photo with Photoshop, screenshot 1

2) Using the Text tool, select the font, size, and color of the text you wish to use for your watermark. Then, position the cursor in the spot you would like to have your words.

watermarking a photo with Photoshop, screenshot 2

3) Save the photo. Usually, you’ll save in a .jpg file, and I choose the smallest file size possible (high compression).

watermarking a photo with Photoshop, screenshot 3

Question for you: Do you watermark your photographs when you put them on the web? What is your method?

 “Our truest responsibility to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find the truth.” ~Madeleine L’Engle

I have always loved to read, and yet some books I’ve read linger in my memory long after I’ve turned the last page. Why? I’m not exactly sure, but that the language tucks under my tongue and the story and protagonist move in ways that long intrigue me. Since it’s January and the dead of winter here in Prague, and since I choose to spend much of my free time reading by the fire (it’s really dark in Europe right now!), I’m posting quotes from 10 favorite classic works.

The Treasure of Old Books, Strahov Monastery, Prague

“A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.”
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again.

-William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.” – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”  ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.’” ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive.”
-Ernest Hemingway,  A Moveable Feast

“All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” ~Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;–stumbling–leaping–slipping–springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone–her stocking cut from her feet–while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.”
~Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

For you: Do you have a favorite quote from Literature? From a favorite novel? What is it? Feel free to post your quote or novel title in the comments. Thanks for sharing!

“Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”  -Ansel Adams

In the comments on last week’s post, I was asked how I managed to place my website name on each of my photographs. I hadn’t thought about it much, and haven’t blogged about photography itself here for quite a while. So, inspired by Hallie’s question, I’m planning to write about photography each Wednesday in the month of February, including how I file and sort, edit and mark my digital image files. But first for today, the reason to become hooked on photography: On the Joy of Photography, and finding your inner lens.

Years ago, my love for photography came on strong—it traipsed into my life like a memorable song, sashaying in, swinging her coattails, and purring a delectable melody.

Dewy daisy at first light, in my former backyard, one of my favorite early shots

My first exposure to cameras was in modeling, the high-fashion kind where seedy photographers follow willowy girls with their dark cameras to freeze an attractive look for all time. There, cameras hooked me, I think. Images created and released from the combination of mysterious light, pungent film, and human creativity became a song in my head which followed me and grew louder with each passing year. Swapping sides with the camera, being the creator and not the subject, has been a wonderful experiment for me, a dive into a world of new beauty and staid time.

Now, ten years after getting my first SLR camera, the lure of the lens is unavoidable and its magic unforgettable. Photography opens up the world. Sharing what I see through photographs is part of my identity, an essential part of me.

My first good camera was a film-based SLR (single lens reflex), and I took endless rolls of photographs, learning by testing the limits of light and lens to find the style which I now see as my own. Once digital photography emerged onto the scene, I changed the film SLR camera in for a digital SLR. Digital format has been tremendously freeing, allowing me to capture more images than imaginable, all in the fleeting minutes of found inspiration. When the lighting is just right and something beautiful catches my breath, I dash for my camera and click through a few shots. I shoot photography in small blippets of time, between writing and the family and the daily chores of life.

Red Spotted Purple Butterfly

Red Spotted Purple Butterfly

Years and hours behind a camera and studying images have helped me to find my inner lens, one of the more rewarding pieces of my life. To help you find your inner lens, I have three essentials for a great shot.

The Essentials

A WOW moment is one I love to grab onto an image … one where I say “Wow!” as I press the trigger.

I think there are three elements that are essential to a WOW shot:

1) Lighting. When the light is right, the shot surpasses the ordinary to rank with timeless. Soft light is almost always best—first thing in the morning or in the evening, cloudy days, or natural light through a window. Harsh shadows from direct sunshine or blatant flash usually compromise the best image. But, I love low direct sunlight of winter!

The View of Prague's Spires toward Old Town, from Charles Bridge

The View of Prague’s Spires toward Old Town, from Charles Bridge

2) Camera. There are many options these days for cameras. But, even with the ease of a cell phone camera, the portability of a compact digital camera, I still choose to lug around my big digital SLR camera. Many reasons are involved, but the speed of taking the actual photographs and the flexibility of switching lenses are two of my top reasons. I currently shoot with a Nikon D90 and alternate between a Nikkor 18-100mm lens and a Nikkor 70-300mm lens. Since I’m definitely not a pro photographer, yet not a novice photographer either, the D90 has been perfect.

Taking photographs in the Cinque Terre, Italy

Taking photographs in the Cinque Terre, Italy

3) Subject. Something amazing occurs in a photograph when the subject (what you want in focus) appears crisp and the background fades out and appears fuzzy. Leaving out technical terms, for a great shot, back up and zoom in as far as possible. When taking the photograph, focus on your subject and allow the subject to fill the frame. The background fades away, leaving the subject as the main interest—beautiful!

Venice, a splash of color

Venice, a splash of color

I’d love to hear what your photography tips are, along with any recommendations you have! Please share on the comments, and thank you … happy clicking!

PS. Parts of this post have been taken from a post I originally wrote in fall of 2010.

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind

A Great Tit bird in winter, Prague

Today, I had the immense privilege of venturing into Prague with a dear photo-loving friend, despite the bitter cold temps, to take photographs of gorgeous Prague under a dusting of snow. In the matter of a few hours, I took a couple hundred photographs. :o)

One of the hardest things about digital photography is the ability to take thousands of photographs.

Yes, the ability to take thousands of photographs is a wonderful thing, especially considering the time and effort and money involved in the old-style method of developing film. But there is one drawback to digital and the thousands of photographs: how do you organize and find the photographs once you’ve taken them?

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked about my photos and how I manage them … I have a Nikon DSLR D90 camera and use an HP HDX laptop for my writing and photography. So, here, my simple 5 step method to managing my photographs:

1)  Insert or plug-in your memory card.

2)  Import the photos.

Tag the Photos

3.  Name the Photos. I always choose a name that I’ll remember later, for instance, Prague. Then, I use an underscore _ and then add the date I took the photos (here: 020812), and then use an underscore _. The computer then numbers the photographs in the order they were uploaded. This way, every folder in my photo library and every photo in each folder has a unique and relevant name.

My Simple Photo Naming System

4)  Import the photos and let the computer name and sort them into the correct folder, by automatic number.

Importing the Photographs

5)  Refer to and find the photographs you want to edit, sort, and use:

Finding your photos for use

Here, a photograph from my time in Prague today:

Prague Castle from Strahov Monastery

Questions? Please post them in the comments. I’ll look forward to posting next week about adding a watermark to your photographs, for use on the web… Thanks!

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home.  ~Edith Sitwell

The View over Prague in Winter

The first winter I lived in Prague, in 2009-2010, the snow came early and stayed late. Months passed and kept us blanketed with more than a foot of snow. For me, a native of Texas, the months of that first winter in Prague were out of a fairy tale … castles, spires, palaces, cathedrals all etched with enchanting and glittering snow.

Prague's Star Summer Palace in Winter

In November of 2010, I decided that I needed cross-country skis if we were to live in this place buried for months in snow. A week after I bought my used skis at Happy Sport in Dejvice, it snowed. And the snow didn’t stop … I skied my way through the winter of 2010-11. It was beautiful.

Prague's Spires, Prague Castle, and the view from Petrin Hill

Now, this winter of 2011-12, I am waiting  for the sure-to-come winter that will bury us with snow. My skis, though well used in the Italian Dolomites over Christmas, are standing unused in the garage. But despite the lack of snow, Prague is beautiful in January’s low light.

Prague's Mala Strana from Charles Bridge, January 2012

Prague's National Theater along the Vltava River

Majestic Prague Castle, January 2012

The View of Prague's Spires toward Old Town, from Charles Bridge

This January, I’m enjoying the brilliant sunsets, the quiet evenings to read by the fire, the crisp air, and frequent pixie dustings of snow. It’s simply beautiful.

The Sky on Fire, Sunset over Prague, January 2012

What is your favorite part of winter? The snow? Reading by the fire? Enjoy!

¹man·i·fes·to  noun \ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō\  : a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer  -via http://www.merriam-webster.com

On New Year’s Day, 2012, I saw the Holstee.com Manifesto for the first time. It encourages the reader to live their life, and to live it well.

I always love a visual that inspires me, reminds me of what matters most. And so, moved by the fresh page offered by a new year, I set out to write my own manifesto. A few hours later, this is the result. It represents what I believe about life. I love it. I hope it will inspire you, too. So, I’m posting it here to share with you.

If you click on the link tag on the image, you can embed this manifesto onto your own site, or paste into Facebook or other site you might want to share.

Here’s to making 2012 great. Dig deep. Live large. And to catching the joy as it flies.

Jennifer's Manifesto

Question for you: What inspires you? Do you have a statement or manifesto that reminds you of what is most important to you? I’d love to hear about it! Links, etc. are great. Happy New Year!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore.

Dream.

Discover.”

– Mark Twain

Throwing off the Bowlines (Sweden, Baltic Sea, summer 2011)

To me, there is nothing like the thrill of growth, being stretched just a little further, reaching out toward the wind lashing my face as I race toward the goal, toward becoming my very best self. The feeling is a lot like the feeling of being aboard a sailboat, seaspray fanning out in rainbows with each slap of the bow against the waves, the boat tilting with the heave of the sails as the wind empowers the boat faster, further, out across the water. I love that feeling.

While we all have our everyday lives, the weighty routine of laundry and grocery shopping and waiting in lines, we also have potential to grow and learn and continue becoming, no matter what our daily routines, no matter what our age may be. And while I unquestionably aspire to goals and hopes and dreams with my family, as a wife and a mom and a friend, and to giving back to others as much as I can, I also aspire to becoming my best self. To become the best me that I can be, with the various gifts and passions and energy and time I’ve been given. It’s a step by step process … becoming. A process that happens one year, one week, one day, one moment, one breath at a time.

That is why, every year about this time, I take time to think back over the year behind me, and count up all the things for which I am thankful, proud to have done, and happy I invested the time in doing. Always, there are so many things to smile about in remembering the previous year. And looking ahead at personal goals, Mark Twain’s quote always comes to me as a thread running between the year behind and the year ahead. I always have to ask: What is it that I most want to do in this coming year? What are my goals? My hopes? My dreams?

There are many. And quite a few are an extension of things I personally really enjoyed and feel proud of having done from 2011.

• Exercise: 800 miles, ~12,500 crunches, ~4,000 boy-push-ups for 2011
• Reading: 32 books read
• Travel: 23 countries traveled in 2.5 years, in 2011 stood aside 7 Seas
• Writing: extensive work and rework on 2 novels in 2011, including intensive work with an editor
• Music: learned 2 new pieces (George Winston) on the piano in 2011

Looking Ahead to 2012, personal goals:

Explore: Travel … as this quote says so well: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

I hope to read many pages of the world (travel) with my family again this year, and to learn more language, specifically more Czech and Italian.

Dream: Writing … as Winston Churchill says so well: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Because my biggest long-long-long-held dream is to be a career novelist, to write stories and connect with people through stories and language, I will continue writing daily and would love to break-in to NYC traditional publishing this year.

Discover: Reading, as Jane Austen says so well: “It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”

I hope to read 50 great books in 2012. You can keep up with me and my reading at my page on Goodreads.com. I love to find great books to read (recommendations) and to hear what friends are enjoying reading.

Wrapping up 2011, I am excited and hopeful at the fresh slate, the brand new year 2012 ahead. There is so much potential, and to seize the potential, we need goals …

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” – Bill Copeland

What are your goals for 2012?

The Prague Castle, the Lobkowicz Palace at the right-hand end in creamy white

As I look to wrap up my thoughts for 2011, after traveling more than 12 countries and dipping my toes in the Seven Seas in 2011, I must reflect on one event that has changed my thinking and altered my view of the world more than any other. And this event happened just last week, on December 15, in the Prague Castle grounds … at the Palace of friends we have the immense privilege to get to know a bit.

What do you think of when you hear the word CONFISCATION? Do you recall the bottle shampoo the security agent at the most recent airport you traveled took away because it was too large? Or the contraband you saw taken away at a school event, or other official venue, because it simply wasn’t allowed? I can think of a million things that might be confiscated at different places on different occasions …

But no confiscation ever could be as significant as the one I heard William Lobkowicz speak about last week, in relation to his family, and what the Nazis, and later the Communists so hastily took away.

The Lobkowicz family name gained recognition in Bohemian lands (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) of Central Europe with the first Lobkowicz prince in the late 1500s. With ties to the famed Golden Fleece, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, and having a Spanish royal wife, the first Lobkowicz prince began the tradition of historical collections within his family name. With collections of famed paintings (Brueghel, Canaletto, Bellotto, Rubens, Veronese), ceramics collected over 5 centuries, and copious arms and armor, the finest private library in Central Europe dating back to 1462, and a music archives of over 4,000 manuscripts and scores including Mozart’s work on Handel’s Messiah and Beethoven’s 3rd, 5th, and 6th Symphonies.

But, as the Nazis entered and dominated the region in the late 1930s and early 40s, the Lobkowicz Collections became a target. Ousted from the region, the Lobkowicz family was forced to leave all of their collections, castles and palaces, and name behind — it was all taken by the Nazis. After the end of the 2nd World War, the Lobkowiczs were briefly restored to their land and name, only to have it all stripped away again by the Communist takeover. This is the truest meaning of confiscation, I think. I cannot imagine anything more horrific to history, or to a family of historical, societal, and political importance.

In 1989, the Velvet Revolution liberated the Czechoslovakian region from Communism, and as the Iron Curtain fell, in 1991, Czech President Vaclav Havel (who passed away just this week) passed laws to allow the return of confiscated property from the Communist and Nazi domination. When the Lobkowicz family heard, exiled in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, they returned to Prague to begin the process of restoring their family’s heritage.

And so begins the incredible story I heard last week, of William and Alexandra’s journey through restitution, through regaining and reclaiming their family properties, and in igniting a family vision toward the future.

I was most struck with the generosity that shines from all they do and say, in their purpose to designate their family Castles and Palaces and Collections to public touring, learning, and use. Please, go to their website and see for yourself, their generosity: www.lobkowicz.cz .

One comment of William’s I would like to carry with me through 2012 and the years to come is this: That when all things are stripped away, we know that things are not what is significant. The most important values for life are in these 3:

1) Family and Friends

2) Faith and Beliefs

3) Education

These, William says his father always told him, are the things in life which have meaning, and which cannot be stripped away.

When you come and visit Prague, and are looking for the most impactful place to see … the Lobkowicz Palace and their Nelahozeves Castle are must-see and must-visit places. For within their family and palace walls contains many truths about humanity, our pasts, and our brilliant futures. Especially with the generosity of spirit with which they envision it.

For you: Have you visitied the Lobkowicz Palace within the Prague Castle, high above the age-old spires and the Vltava River?

“Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” – Matt Hardy

I have always loved beautiful photographs; I’m the kind of  soul who thrives at the sight of something that takes my breath away. Photography books, paintings, art books, travel books, and more have long been my inspiration.

At the age of 15, I took my first trip across the Atlantic, and splurged with babysitting money and bought a new Olympus film camera, to capture the sites I knew I would see in France on that trip. Photography has come a long way since I was a teenager, and given that I’ve taken thousands and thousands of photographs since then, my photographic eye has come a way, as well.

Having traveled over a dozen countries in Europe in 2011, I have had the incredible opportunity to photograph many beautiful places. And as part of wrapping up 2011, I’m posting my 12 best photographs from 2011. I hope you enjoy them!