17May09 Wedding Photography

Wedding is not just an event but it is journey that two people have decided to take. Wedding photography may not be a mainstream or commercial photography but it is still an art. It should not be considered to be anything less than serious photography. In fact it is one of the most demanding disciplines of professional work. If you are an aspiring wedding photographer then there are certain key areas that you need to understand. One of the key areas is strategy. Even before you can think about the camera to use, the film roll, the lighting and the background, you need to work on a strategy.

A sound strategy means that you would be able to create opportunities by the numbers. You will have to create an opportunity in every situation. Most wedding photographers take two versions of the same shot to eliminate blinks and at the same time they are able to introduce variety. The norm of wedding photography is to shoot a full-length photo, which is followed by a head and shoulders or half-length photo. Secondly, you will have to create a list of photographs that should be or can be taken during wedding. The list drawn by most professionals include photographs of Bride at home, preparations/wedding dress, parents, bridesmaids, bridesmaids – group photo, bride and bridesmaids, bride and chief bridesmaid, bride and family, parents and bride, mother and bride, father and bride, brothers, sisters and bride, parents and bridesmaids, extended family and any special request.

These will be followed by photographs in the church or outdoors after the wedding ceremony is over. One of the favorite shots is where the bride walks through the aisle. You can take good photos using a tripod so that the flash can bounce from a reflector at around f/5.6 followed by a shutter speed of 1/8 or 1/15 of a second. This will allow ambient light to seep in. If you are not using the tripod then you will need to have one stop less than the normal where the flash will reflect on an 80mm lens and the shutter speed will be 1/30 of a second.

There are basically two types of cameras used for wedding photography. One is the 35mm and the other is a medium format. The 35mm cameras create grainier appearance when the photograph is enlarged as compared to a medium format. Another aspect of photography that you need to know about is the camera film. The camera film is available in both B&W and color. The color film is the most popular one but off late B&W photos are coming to the forefront. The good thing about black & white film is that you can create an artistic look. Secondly, the B&W photos last longer than their colored counterpart. The salient point of color films is that they are more versatile. If you shoot with a color film then you will be able to portray the details of the wedding day. If you are using a 35mm camera for the occasion then your best bet will be 100, 200 or 400 speed film. The 100 speed film gives best quality prints in strong sunlight, the 200 speed film can be used in sunlight as well as shade and the 400 speed film is the best for low light.

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14May09 Scrapbooks That Work: Some Cool Ideas!

If you think scrapbooks are old, outdated or out of style – think again. Scrapbooking is a multi-billion-dollar industry that has progressed just as the computer has. There’s a good reason why it’s so huge and why it’s been around so long. Scrapbooks keep your memories and allow you to be creative with it at the same time. If you’ve run out of ideas, fret not. We’re going to run through some great things you can put in your scrapbook as well as some ideas of when you might want to start putting together your next one.

Let’s go.

The Recipe.
What’s a recipe? It’s a list of ingredients. So let’s get your recipe for a fun scrapbook that will have the ability to transport you back to the memories it depicts instantaneously.

The first ingredients you’ll want to include are, of course, pictures! “Scraps” are what they used to call unmounted pictures, so you really can’t have a scrapbook without pictures in it. Include the ones that evoke the most emotion from you. Maybe it’s a still picture of a flower taken on the top of a mountain you hiked. On the other hand, it might be an action picture of your son or daughter’s baseball game or volleyball shot. Colorful, part the moment, representing something you love. That’s how to choose the ideal picture from the possible thousands you may have on hand. Also, if you’re making a themed scrapbook – it should obviously fit that too.

Another great, but slightly lesser known ingredient to is include tickets. It doesn’t matter what kind of tickets because they all have a few things in common: It means you went to some special event and that there’s probably a story that goes along with it. So whether we’re talking about airplane tickets, sports tickets, movie tickets, theatre tickets or museum tickets – you might consider including them.

Some other ideas to put into your scrapbook are: personal writings by you or to you, magazine articles or titles, drawings, stamps, glitter, any collectable cards that you don’t expect to sell for millions in later years and possibly parts of maps you might have used during some getaway. They’re great ways to bring your scrapbook to life.

The Right Time.

Scrapbooking is a personal affair, so only you will know when the best time to start putting one together is. But just in case you think you should start a scrapbook based on your favorite bathroom reading…we’ll offer a few suggestions.

One great idea is to have a scrapbook in addition to or in place of, the traditional photo album. Just as the whole family is in the photo album, you can try to get the whole family involved in adding something to the family scrapbook. Everyone can take turns with full pages or two people to a page, 3 or everyone. It doesn’t have to be all in one night, but it’s a great ongoing family activity you can start tonight.

An obvious one is to make a scrapbook based on the family vacation, but here’s something to keep in mind: If you really want to be able to recall the memories of a vacation, make the scrapbook while you’re still ON the vacation. Why? Because it’s the little things that you include in your book that will bring back those memories. For example, maybe a conversation about a seashell had everyone laughing silly – well you might forget that seashell incident and only remember the main events: the ocean, the water park, the golfing, etc….

Remember – it’s the little things that really give a scrapbook the most character. Those little details give them life. Get creative with yours and think about having the whole family or your loved one get in on it as well. Scrapbooks are a great way to preserve some of the best memories you’ll have.

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11May09 Art Theft: Most Famous Cases in History

Art theft is an ancient and complicated crime. When you look at the some of the most famous cases of art thefts in history, you see thoroughly planned operations that involve art dealers, art fakers, mobsters, ransoms, and millions of dollars. Here you can read about some of the most famous cases of art theft in the history.

The First Theft:
The first documented case of art theft was in 1473, when two panels of altarpiece of the Last Judgment by the Dutch painter Hans Memling were stolen. While the triptych was being transported by ship from the Netherlands to Florence, the ship was attacked by pirates who took it to the Gdansk cathedral in Poland. Nowadays, the piece is shown at the National Museum in Gdansk where it was recently moved from the Basilica of the Assumption.

The Most Famous Theft:
The most famous story of art theft involves one of the most famous paintings in the world and one of the most famous artists in history as a suspect. In the night of August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen out of the Louver. Soon after, Pablo Picasso was arrested and questioned by the police, but was released quickly.

It took about two years until the mystery was solved by the Parisian police. It turned out that the 30×21 inch painting was taken by one of the museum employees by the name of Vincenzo Peruggia, who simply carried it hidden under his coat. Nevertheless, Peruggia did not work alone. The crime was carefully conducted by a notorious con man, Eduardo de Valfierno, who was sent by an art faker who intended to make copies and sell them as if they were the original painting.

While Yves Chaudron, the art faker, was busy creating copies for the famous masterpiece, Mona Lisa was still hidden at Peruggias apartment. After two years in which Peruggia did not hear from Chaudron, he tried to make the best out of his stolen good. Eventually, Peruggia was caught by the police while trying to sell the painting to an art dealer from Florence, Italy. The Mona Lisa was returned to the Louver in 1913.

The Biggest Theft in the USA:
The biggest art theft in United States took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. On the night of March 18, 1990, a group of thieves wearing police uniforms broke into the museum and took thirteen paintings whose collective value was estimated at around 300 million dollars. The thieves took two paintings and one print by Rembrandt, and works of Vermeer, Manet, Degas, Govaert Flinck, as well as a French and a Chinese artifact.

As of yet, none of the paintings have been found and the case is still unsolved. According to recent rumors, the FBI are investigating the possibility that the Boston Mob along with French art dealers are connected to the crime.

The Scream:
The painting by Edvard Munchs, The Scream, is probably the most sought after painting by art thieves in history. It has been stolen twice and was only recently recovered. In 1994, during the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, The Scream was stolen from an Oslo gallery by two thieves who broke through an open window, set off the alarm and left a note saying: thanks for the poor security.

Three months later, the holders of the painting approached the Norwegian Government with an offer: 1 million dollars ransom for Edvard Munchs The Scream. The Government turned down the offer, but the Norwegian police collaborated with the British Police and the Getty Museum to organize a sting operation that brought back the painting to where it belongs.

Ten years later, The Scream was stolen again from the Munch Museum. This time, the robbers used a gun and took another of Munchs painting with them. While Museum officials waiting for the thieves to request ransom money, rumors claimed that both paintings were burned to conceal evidence. Eventually, the Norwegian police discovered the two paintings on August 31, 2006 but the facts on how they were recovered are not known yet.

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8May09 A Look At The History Of The Electric Guitar

Electric Guitars

The Electric guitar hasn’t been around nearly as long as the Acoustic and Classical guitars. In fact, the Electric guitar was created just 70 years ago (the 1930s) by Adolph Rickenbacker. Since that time, the Electric guitar has greatly evolved to the where it is today. In this article, we’ll go over the history of the Electric guitar.

The History

Guitars, or similar instruments, have been around for thousands of years. The Electric guitar was first manufactured in the 1930s by Rickenbacker. Original Electric guitars used tungsten pickups. Pickups basically convert the vibration of the strings into electrical current, which is then fed into the amplifier to produce the sound.

The very earliest Electric guitars featured smaller soundholes in the body. These guitars are known as semi-hollow body Electric guitars and still are somewhat popular today, mainly due to the fact that they are flexible guitars.

However, with the use of pickups, it was possible to create guitars without soundholes (like the Acoustic and Classical guitars have) that still had the ability to be heard, if plugged into amplifiers. These guitars are called solid body Electric guitars.

The Electric guitar’s popularity began to increase during the Big Band era of the ‘30s and 40s. Due to the loudness of the brass sections in jazz orchestras, it was necessary to have guitars that could be heard above the sections. Electric guitars, with the ability to be plugged into amplifiers, filled this void.

The Electric guitar that is most prevalent today is the solid body Electric guitar. The solid body guitar was created by musician and inventor Les Paul in 1941. It is a guitar made of solid wood with no soundholes. The original solid body guitar created by Paul was very plain—it was a simple rectangular block of wood connected to a neck with six steel strings. Les Paul’s original solid body guitar shape has, of course, changed from the original rectangular shape to the more rounded shape Les Paul guitars have today.

During the 1950s, Gibson introduced Les Paul’s invention to the world. The Gibson Les Paul, as it was and still is called, quickly became a very popular Electric guitar. It has remained the most popular guitar for 50 years.

Around the same period of time, another inventor named Leo Fender came up with a solid body Electric guitar of his own. In the late 1940s, Fender introduced the Fender Broadcaster Electric guitar. The Broadcaster, which was renamed the Stratocaster, was officially introduced to the public in 1954. The Strat, as it is now known, was a very different guitar in comparison to the Les Paul. It had a different shape, different hardware and was significantly lighter. Fender’s Stratocaster Electric guitar is the second most popular guitar in the world, second to only the Les Paul.

Over the years, other companies, such as Ibanez, Jackson, Paul Reed Smith, ESP and Yamaha have all produced solid body Electric guitars of their own. However, most Electric guitars still feature the familiar shape of a Les Paul or Strat guitar.

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5May09 Four Ways To Learn Guitar

With the increasing popularity of rock music during the last few decades, playing the guitar has become very appealing for many people. While there are many teenagers out there who dream of becoming rock superstars, there are also many people that want to learn how to play the guitar just for the sake of it. However, many of them don’t find the best way to learn guitar and after a few unsuccessful attempts, they finally give up.

Different people have different learning needs. In addition, we also have different resources, different jobs, different errands to run and different schedules. If you’re not at the level you want, maybe it’s because you haven’t found the best way to learn guitar yet.  There are several ways to learn how to play the guitar. Listed below are only a few of them.

Theory Books

There are thousands of theory books on the market that teach you how to play the guitar. Some of them are even very good and can provide you with all the information you need. Books are an inexpensive and comfortable strategy to learn how to play the guitar. Unfortunately, experience shows that for many of us they just don’t work. However, if you are a very patient person, a theory book might be the best way to learn guitar.

Video Lessons

Video guitar lessons are available on DVDs and video tapes in almost any music store, as well as on virtual shops. In addition, there are also some video lessons available online. Some of them are even free. Video lessons are more dynamic and have a better chance of keeping you focused. They have the advantage of allowing you to practice at home whenever you find the time to do it. However, the inconvenience is that you can’t benefit from the personalized attention and useful feedback a teacher could provide.

Private Lessons

If you are willing to dedicate a lot of time as well as some money to this, private lessons are definitely the best way to learn guitar. A good teacher can design a customized teaching program to suit your learning style and provide you with individualized attention and positive feedback to get you motivated. In addition, he/she can also spot and correct your mistakes very fast.

Learning by Ear

Learning the guitar by ear can be very fun, especially if you have some sort of musical bone in your body, and that bone is humming with lots of vibration, you might find that this is the best way to learn guitar for you. With the modern slowing down technology, it is much easier now than it used to be for our parents’ generation.

You should always keep in mind that playing the guitar should be fun. If you find it difficult or stressing, your learning strategy might have a lot to do with it. Sometimes you need to try several learning methods before finding the one that works best for you. However, if you really want to play the guitar like a pro and have enough time and money, taking up private lessons is probably the best way to go.

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