How to Create a Family History Video Memoir with Photos and Interviews of Your Loved Ones
April 30, 2010
Here are examples of two basic videos you can create quickly on a great budget:
Example A - Do-it-yourself for around $125 + extra copies
1. The interview
Rent a digital video camcorder or if you have one already, use it. At the Video Kitchen in Louisville, Kentucky our $48 daily rental charge includes a tripod, a 60 minute digital tape and one DVD copy of your video.
In a comfortable room with bright and warm (incandescent) lights behind the camcorder facing the subject and no back light (windows behind the person) videotape your relative. Make sure there is water to drink and the camcorder is within 6 feet of the individual. First record 15 seconds of silent video with the lens cap on at the beginning of the video. For more information on how to shoot great video, check out the article by Video Kitchen owner, Carlile Crutcher at: http://www.videokitchen.com/greatvideo.html
There are usually two parts to a biography video: questions and photos. First, in a clear voice, behind the camera or preferably sitting next to the subject, read the questions and allow for plenty of time for answers, this is not a race, make sure the subject feels comfortable to tell stories, or go off on tangents. Here are examples of questions to ask:
Preparing for the Art Appraiser’s Exam
April 29, 2010
Preparing for the Art Appraiser’s Exam
by: Corinne Cain
Locate all items in advance of the appraiser’s arrival and make them accessible.
Share pertinent records about when and where items were purchased, including their receipts. Receipts often have a painting’s title, which may or may not appear on the back of the frame or on an attached plaque. Art works without a title may be determined if the artist is still living. Unfortunately, some artist’s do not remember titles or record them in a permanent ledger. Not all art bears the date or dates it was completed. The date of the receipt could assist in dating the artwork. The goal is to create as complete a record about the artwork as possible. Don’t slow the process down or create an opportunity for the document to be less complete by holding back information.
Allocate enough time for the appraiser to carry out the inspection and the photography. Appraiser’s typically need about 15 minutes an item for both activities. While the appraiser often enjoys visiting with clients, he or she must focus on the task at hand in order to not take additional time or overlook pertinent information.
Making Gifts A Pleasure
April 29, 2010
As we reach the time of year when Christmas items start to appear in the stores, and thoughts of vacations start to wind down with the shortening daylight, it is a good time to think about gifts. Not only the gifts, though, but also the practise of giving.
Offering a gift can be a mutual pleasure; some might say it should be a pleasure for giver and recipient. A problem with a modern commercial Christmas, however, is that buying gifts can become a chore. Often it is a stress ridden chore in the dying days before Christmas Day, as everything gets left to the last minute.
A true gift, though, should bring with it no stress; it should come from the heart to be a true gift, and not be out of duty. If someone is resentful of having to spend time and money buying Christmas gifts, then the result is not a gift but a token of duty.
Starting a Contemporary Art Collection
April 28, 2010
Starting a Contemporary Art Collection
by: Corinne Cain
Contact museum curators or art professionals in your area who do not sell.
1. Build a relationship with these professionals by attending lectures where they assemble.
2. Discuss your interest in collecting contemporary art and ask for their recommendations.
3. Listen for names being repeatedly identified as quality artists.
Attend exhibitions at contemporary art galleries in your area. Ask for information about any work that interests you. This will help you understand what the artist intended for his or her work “to say.”
Go to national and international art fairs to gain additional exposure to contemporary art. Ask for information on work that interests you at these events as well.
Contact prominent local contemporary artists working in a medium you like and ask them to identify their “hot picks.”
Supplement your efforts by reading art publicatons such as Art in America, Art Forum, and Art News, as well as magazines directed toward just one kind of medium, for example, Fiberarts or types of art for example, Latinarte, Native Peoples and American Indian Art magazines.
Digital RAW Workflow for Beginners
April 27, 2010
Having an efficient work flow is essential for photographers. In the days of film, many of the tasks in the film work flow were handled by the lab. Now, more and more photographers are switching to digital and have to handle many of these tasks themselves. The purpose of this document is to provide a basic digital work flow for working with RAW images that is camera and system independent. Most modern digital SLR cameras, and some point and shoot models, have the ability to record the RAW data from an exposure, allowing the photographer to process the images as they see fit. This can be a daunting task, especially for those who don’t have a work flow in place to handle the images from the camera. The following steps will take you through the process of setting up your own RAW digital work flow. Work flow Step 1: Compose and Expose Your digital work flow begins before you ever sit down at your computer. One of the best things you can do to make your work flow more efficient is to get as much of your image perfect in the camera as possible. Many digital photographers have fallen into the “I can fix it on the computer” trap. This costs you time and money. The more time you spend “fixing” a photo after you’ve tripped the shutter, the less time you are spending with clients. Here are a few tips to help reduce your workload from the time you make your exposure:
- Set your white-balance to match your scene. If you get the proper white-balance in the camera, you won’t have to adjust it later on the computer. See your camera documentation for how to set a custom white-balance. Remember to set your white balance whenever you change lenses, or the quality of light. If you change modifiers, or lenses, change your white-balance as well.
- Expose for the highlights. Since digital acts similar to slide film, its easy to accidentally blow your highlights. By exposing for the hot parts of the image, you’ll save yourself some time in the long run.
- Scan your frame. Get in the habit of doing a top-to-bottom scan of your frame before you trip the shutter. This will help you avoid stray hairs, lights in your frame, reflectors being visible, and anything that you might have to clone out of the image later.
Work flow Step 2: Importing and Backing Up Your Images There are many ways to get your images from your camera to your computer. Some people use a card reader that will read the images off the memory card from the camera. Others connect the camera directly to the computer and import the images directly. No matter how you get the images to the computer, your first step is to setup an organizational structure for the images and create a backup copy of the RAW files for safety. First, create a folder to store your image files. In our studio, we use the folder name to organize our images. For instance, let’s say we are importing images from a portrait session with Jane Doe that took place on January 1st, 2005. Our folder name for this session would be P_2005_DoeJane_0101. If we also did a portrait session with John Doe on the same date, our folder would be named P_2005_DoeJohn_0101. This allows us to keep our images organized in a way that we are familiar with. Use whatever folder structure you like, as long as it helps you keep things organized. Next, we will create the folders under our P_2005_DoeJane_0101 folder that we will use during the course of processing the images. We create the following folders: RAW, WORK, and JPEG. The final file structure looks like this: -+P_2005_DoeJane_0101 -|-RAW -|-WORK -|-JPEG The RAW folder holds our RAW image files, the WORK directory holds the processed TIFF files where we will do all of our editing, and the JPEG folder holds the completed files, ready to be uploaded to the lab. Copy the images from your camera to the RAW folder using whichever method you prefer. As soon as this initial copy is complete, make a backup copy of these images. Some photographers backup to writable CD-ROM or DVD discs. Other photographers backup to a separate backup hard drive. No matter what method you choose for your backups, they are CRITICAL. Make sure you can recover your images if something should happen to your memory card. Work flow Step 3: Verify Your Backup Your backup copy of the RAW images files is important. Take a moment to verify that you can read the images you copied to your backup medium. Once you have verified your backup medium, you may proceed with the work flow. Work flow Step 4: Culling the Herd Converting the images you never want the client to see wastes time and money. Use your preferred image browser to go through the RAW images and delete any that you know you won’t use. Don’t worry about deleting the wrong file, that is why we made a backup. If you delete a file you wanted, just bring it back from your backup. Once you have selected your “keepers” from the RAW images, it is time to move on to the next step. Work flow Step 5: File Conversion Most cameras come with software specifically designed to convert the RAW image data from its native format into TIFF files, JPEG files, or some other format that is compatible with the popular image editing software. At our studio, we convert the RAW images into 16-bit TIFF files, because we like to have the maximum amount of data available for editing and processing. Your needs may vary. There are many articles on the Internet that deal with the different file formats and the pros and cons of each. For the purpose of this tutorial, we are going to assume that the files are being converted to 16-bit TIFF files. We now open the software that came with our camera and set it to convert our RAW image data to 16-bit TIFF files, and save them in the TIFF folder we created in Work flow Step 2. This step can be time consuming, so we often go out to eat while the images from a session are converting. Once the conversion is finished, you will have a folder of 16-bit TIFF files to do editing and retouching on. We use TIFF at our studio because it is a loss less format. That is, we can save the file as many times as we like without degrading the image quality. JPEG is a lossy format, every time you save a JPEG file, you lose a little more data to compression. Work flow Step 6: Editing and Retouching This step of our work flow is where the real work is done. You will open each TIFF file in the image editor of your choice and make sure your colors and exposure are correct, the crop is the way you want it, and the image is ready for printing. At this point you will make any edits to the image, such as changing the crop, converting it to black and white, or doing any needed retouching. If you use the TIFF file format, you can save as many times as you need to during this process without having to worry about losing image quality. Once editing and retouching is done, save your work file and move on to the next step. Work flow Step 7: Saving the Production File One of the cons to working with 16-bit TIFF files is that they take up an incredible amount of disk space. Once we have reviewed the images with the client and ensured that no further edits/retouching need to be made, we convert the TIFF file to a JPEG production file for archive purposes and sending to the lab. Open the TIFF file in your preferred image editor and save your file as a Baseline Level 10 JPEG in the JPEG folder we created earlier. Why not save as a Level 12 JPEG, you might ask. When printing your image, there is no discernible difference between a level 10 JPEG and a level 12 JPEG. Try it for yourself and see. Once your files are saved as JPEGs, move on the the next step. Work flow Step 8: Backup Your Production Files This is a good time to make a backup (either to CD/DVD, or to another hard disk) of your JPEG production files. This ensures that you have a copy of all your hard work and if something should happen to the original files, you know you have a good backup. Work flow Step 9: Cleaning Up the RAW and Work Files Once we know we have a good backup of our production JPEGs, we delete the entire WORK folder and the entire RAW. This frees up the large amount of space that TIFF files require and leaves us with a manageable set of files from the job. However, we have already made backup copies of the RAW files and the JPEG files, so if we ever need to re-edit an image, we have the materials to do so. Work flow Step 10: Final Touches At this point our production JPEG images are ready to print or send to the lab. Make any final adjustments to the image size and print or upload your images. Final Thoughts With an efficient digital work flow, handling large amounts of digital images is easy and relatively stress free. I hope this tutorial has given you some ideas on how to best setup your own RAW digital work flow.
Christmas Lights Add Sparkle To The Holidays
April 26, 2010
Electric Christmas lights have been around since the 1880’s. It is no wonder they are still around and being enjoyed by so many. Using lights at Christmastime is not only a tradition; it is truly what turns boring streets into winter wonderlands and plain houses into gifts for everyone who drives by. Lights are the easiest way to decorate with the most impact.
Lights give anyone an opportunity to express their personal style and festive mood. You can use them indoors, outdoors, even on your car or boat. A good place to start lighting things up is to start with your Christmas Tree. The general rule for deciding how many lights to use on a tree is to use 3 strands for every one foot of tree. Experts are now saying it is easiest to hang lights in an up-and-down pattern as opposed to the traditional wrapping around method. Either way you should start at the top.
NOT Savvy Collecting
April 25, 2010
NOT Savvy Collecting
by: Corinne Cain
Original paintings by Renoir, Chagall, Picasso, Rembrandt and Mary Cassatt at a discount buying club??? Embarking more than 25 miles each way to experience possibly original prints by these artists, I figured the press release was probably only slightly errant. Almost no Rembrandt paintings in private hands are available for sale anywhere in the world, much less as part of a 3 day art trunk show at a discount buying club.
The named art dealer was from a seemingly swank Southern California locale. Some degree of suspicion results, as mention of this location is designed to trigger a certain poshness. There are reputable art businesses in this locale alongside those who consciously prey on the uninformed spontaneous art buyers. Other potential victim zones in the U.S. are Carmel, California; Honolulu, Hawaii and Scottsdale, Arizona. Travelers far away from the pressures of work, often in the company of a favorite companion, spend dollars with relative abandon. In short, they don’t comparison shop or do their homework.
Alumpeth Devi Temple of Kerala in India
April 24, 2010
Alumpeth temple is an ancient kalari temple of Sri Bhadrakali (Devi), located at Vathikulam, a remote but beautiful village in Kerala state of South India. Vathikulam village is accessable by road travelling 7 kms towards east from Kayamkulam town. Kayamkulam is a well known town on national highway 47 about 108 kms towards north of Trivandrum and 110 kms towards south from Cochin. Kayamkulam is well connected by railway also. Motive behind the incarnation of Sribhadrakali (Devi) is to save the gods from insult and despair, people worship her in times of dejoice, neglect and impending emotional distress. Devi is also known to be a goddess on call at times when life is in risk and existence is felt to be impossible. Since Alumpeth temple is in the form of ancient Indian Kalari (school of literal and martial arts) people depend her when their progress in educational, cultural, scientific and legal endeavours are thwarted by enemies or negative situational factors. Prayer
Sit in a comfortable position with closed eyes and chant the manthra:
“Ya devi sarwabhootheshu mathruroopena samsthitha namasthasyai namasthasyai namasthasyai namo nama:”
several times and achieve bliss.
Colorful Talk
April 24, 2010
“I heard what you said, Red. Yet, I have to disagree. There’s nothing wrong with my voice, You’re just filled with jealousy.”
“You just don’t understand, Tan. Let me alleviate your fears. It’s not about how well you sing, But can you inspire listening ears?”
“What do you think, Pink? Am I right or am I wrong?” “I’m not really sure, my friend, I have not heard the song.”
“Well, what about you, Blue? Are your thoughts the same as mine?” “To tell the honest truth, dear Red I must hear it one more time.”
“Anything you want to say, Gray?” “Yes, I don’t like what you’re discussing. A hymn should soothe the troubled soul, Not arouse this senseless fussing.”
“Wait just a minute fellow,” said Yellow. “You’re going a bit too far. After all, we’re engaged in tκte-ΰ-tκte Which is not so irregular.”
“Don’t think I’m being mean,” said Green. “But a hymn is a sacred thing. Though Tan does try his very best, He really cannot sing.”
“I don’t think you’re right,” said White. “To me Tan sings quite well. Just take the time to listen You’ll hear God’s word prevail.”
Discussing Value with a Prospective Art Appraiser
April 23, 2010
Discussing Value with a Prospective Art Appraiser
by: Corinne Cain
Identify what you need to have appraised by providing the following information:
Artist’s first and last name
Medium such as bronze, painting, or print
Condition, especially if you are not sure if the item has enough value to warrant an appraisal.
State why you need the appraisal.
The same item can have a different value depending on the purpose of the valuation. Appraisers ask why you need an appraisal document because they want to investigate value for the appropriate market. Imagine that you are buying this item instead of having it appraised. Would you expect to pay the same price for the item at a flea market or at an estate sale as you would in a high-end antique shop or art gallery? Different purposes mandate different markets, which translates to correspondingly different value levels.
Identify the timeframe needed for the appraisal document’s completion.
Is this a rush job? If there are 200 items and your moving van will arrive in less than 60 days, this is a rush job. Also, the appraiser may have too many active assignments to meet your desired timeframe. If this is the case, the appraiser may redirect you to someone else who can fit your appraisal into his or her schedule.
