3rd From Sol

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3rd From Sol

Monthly Archives: July 2013

Are you a Good Photographer or a Great Photographer?

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Branding, Lessons of Life, Photography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

camera, Great Photography, images, landscape, model, nature, Nikon, people, Photographer

Mt. Shasta July 2012

Mt. Shasta

I have spent almost 40 years off and on with my Nikon cameras. I love photography and I have enough good shots to open up a small gallery if I had them printed up and displayed. The problem is that despite my experience and skills, I’m just another good photographer. I don’t meet the qualifications of a great photographer.

Mom and Daughter 2012

Mom and Daughter

So what is the difference between a good photographer and a great photographer?

A good photographer can’t wait to see the images (printed or on a computer) because he or she is pretty sure they got some good shots. A great photographer knows the instant the shutter closes that the shot is great and doesn’t need to wait to see it because it is recorded in their mind.

A good photographer understands the use of light, color, and shadow in photography and seeks to find it in every shot. A great photographer sees the subject for all viewpoints and knows automatically where and when to take the image for the best use of light, color, and shadow.

Boy on Edge

Boy on Edge

A good photographer can see the flaws in his or her images. A great photographer knows how to fix flaws in the image in editing so that no one knows he or she made a mistake.

A good photographer can find moments in his or her subjects that express emotion. A great photographer can create emotion in his or her subjects that they didn’t even know they had.

A good photographer experiments with equipment and camera lenses to take his or her images to the next level. A great photographer is a master of his or her images. Extra equipment, lenses, filters are used as needed to make a good image great but are never a substitute for skill and experience.

A Walk With A VIP

A Walk With A VIP

A good photographer is sensitive to the needs of his subjects, and always places their concerns and ideas first during a photo shoot. A great photographer is a pain in the ass and could care less about the input of his or her subjects. Capturing the perfection of the moment is the first and last concern of a great photographer and everything else is just noise.

How Did Earth Get A Moon?

08 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Paul Kiser in Science, Space, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Apollo, Earth, formation, missions, Moon, NASA, origin, Satellite, space exploration

Earth's Only Child

Earth’s Only Child

How Earth was blessed with a Moon was anybody’s guess 50 years ago. In our solar system it’s a relatively big moon. At slightly over 1,000 miles (1,700 km) in diameter it’s about half the size of planet Mars and there are only four moons (Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, and Io) that are bigger than Earth’s Moon.

Pre-Apollo Mission Theories
So how did Earth end up with a natural satellite that rivals the biggest moons of  the massive planets Jupiter and Saturn? And why just one?

Moons of our Solar System

Moons of our Solar System

Prior to the Apollo missions to the Moon, there were three main theories of the origin of the Moon. First, was the adopted daughter theory. It proposed that our Moon wandered into Earth’s gravitational pull and was captured. Second, was the mother/daughter theory that suggested the Moon was spun off from the Earth when it was still a molten blob of spinning material. The final theory was the sister theory where both bodies that formed side by side.

Apollo 17 Astronaut - Our last mission to the Moon, 40 years ago

Apollo 17 Astronaut – Our last mission to the Moon, 40 years ago

Hard Evidence: The Destroyer of Theories
When the Apollo missions came back to Earth with Moon rocks the three existing theories took a big hit. Had the Moon rocks matched the composition of Earth rocks then scientists could dismiss the adopted daughter theory because a wandering Moon wouldn’t likely have rocks similar to Earth’s. If the composition of the Moon rocks were different then they could dismiss the other two theories. What no one saw coming was the idea that the Moon rocks would match the composition of our Earth rocks, except for a lack of iron. The rocks were the same, but different.

None of the theories really met the evidence in hand, but now the geologists had a vital clue. When Earth first formed all the elements were mixed throughout the molten mass that would become our planet. As time passed most of the iron sank deeper into the mass to become Earth’s core. The evidence suggested that the Moon must have formed from Earth’s material after the iron sank into the core.

The New Theory: Impact Earth
It was clear the material for the Moon had to come from Earth, but the transfer of material had to occur after the most of the iron was not mixed in with the shallow layers of molten Earth. Enter the Impact Theory.

Scientists proposed that the Earth must have been hit with a large object (about the size of Mars) that pushed out shallow molten material into a near Earth orbit to create our Moon. The theory assumes the object was absorbed into Earth’s mass and didn’t significantly change the composition of the Earth or the Moon. Those are big assumptions.

The Little Bang Theory
Recently scientists are suggesting a new theory for the formation of the Moon that proposes a natural nuclear explosion blew off part of Earth’s shallow material after most of the iron sank into the core. The idea of natural nuclear reactions are not new. Radioactive material will always start a chain reaction upon reaching its critical mass and we have evidence that Earth has had multiple natural nuclear explosions in the past. It simply requires enough radioactive material to consolidate in close proximity to start a chain reaction. If it is radioactive and it reaches critical mass, BANG! A nuclear explosion.

So is this it? Do we now know how the Moon was formed? Not Exactly. Scientific knowledge is like the work of a detective. Learn something new and you can rule out certain possibilities, but it takes decades, sometimes centuries, to understand enough of what ‘couldn’t have happened’ in order to understand what did happen. It is likely we won’t have many more answers coming until we have scientists working on the Moon again. It’s hard to gather the evidence when you aren’t at the scene of the crime.

Five Rules For Taking Images of Your Children

01 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Lessons of Life, Opinion, parenting, Photography, Random, Recreation, Technology

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

camera, children, D60, digital, Family, how to, Image, Nikon, photo, pictures, portrait

Alexander and JasmineI’m an image horse. From my first film-hungry Nikon FM in the 1970’s to the inexpensive, but utilitarian digital Nikon D60, I’ve recorded life through my camera lens. I’m not a professional, but I’ve logged years with landscape, micro, macro, stellar, animal, model, and most other forms of photography.

The one type of photography I dislike most is the type that parents love to do, take semi-posed pictures of people. Every time I hear a parent say, “Smile! Smile! Come on, SMILE!,” I cringe. I don’t know who started the “Smile” prompting, but it is the worst thing anyone can ask of the subject of an image to do. It is saying to the child (or adult), “We want you to fake an emotion so we can show you faking an emotion to other people.”

Humans don’t fake emotions well. In fact, we are horrible at faking emotions. Children are the worst. A fake smile is marked by a tight facial expression around the mouth, bared teeth, and cringed eyes. Unfortunately, the people who take these horrible images are often rewarded by comments like, “Oh, he looks so handsome,” or “They look like they’re having such a great time!” Of course people are going to compliment your picture-taking ability, they want it to end!

This doesn’t mean people need to take sad or “how-long-do-I-have-to-stand-here?” pictures. There are a few simple rules that will avoid taking fake pictures of people you love.

Image Composition is YOUR Job, Not Their’s
Instead of going for the posed shot, which everyone hates to be involved in, position yourself so that you can take a REAL image of what is happening. From talking to playing children (and adults) in action are much more interesting than a posed shot. You want a recorded image of people engaged in life, not the camera, so you must do the work required of any good photographer, not them.

Does Fake Happy Really Tell The Story?
Sometimes children can be intensely focused on a task, or interacting with others. WHY would you want to stop this intensity and fake a smile for the image? Take the picture that tells the story instead of the fake happy picture that makes them look stupid.

If You Demand Happy, Make It Real
Okay, happy children can be a great image, but if you must have that type of image, make them laugh naturally. Ask questions like, “who’s the stupidest person with a camera?” When they laugh and point at you, take the picture. I guarantee that image will be better than the one where you said, “Smile!”

Be Unseen and Patient
It’s almost always better to hang around for a while before you take the picture. Look for the best composition, the best angle, and become part of the background. They may notice you, but children attention spans are marvelously short and they have a Jedi-like power to ignore a parent, so use that to your advantage.

It’s Digital, Take Lots of Images, Select Few
People sometimes think that every image should be perfect. I’ll admit, in the days of film cameras, when I got my photos back from the developer I used to feel guilty about all the failed images; however, today they are just digital bytes and bad pictures can be deleted. Take ten images and consider yourself a great photographer if there is one good one in the bunch.

Here’s one thing to consider the next time you see someone point a camera at another human:  if they say ‘Smile!’ it’s going to be a bad image.

Other Pages of This Blog

  • About Paul Kiser
  • Common Core: Are You a Good Switch or a Bad Switch?
  • Familius Interruptus: Lessons of a DNA Shocker
  • Moffat County, Colorado: The Story of Two Families
  • Rules on Comments
  • Six Things The United States Must Do
  • Why We Are Here: A 65-Year Historical Perspective of the United States

Paul’s Recent Blogs

  • Dysfunctional Social Identity & Its Impact on Society
  • Road Less Traveled: How Craig, CO Was Orphaned
  • GOP Political Syndicate Seizes CO School District
  • DNA Shock +5 Years: What I Know & Lessons Learned
  • Solstices and Sunshine In North America
  • Blindsided: End of U.S. Solar Observation Capabilities?
  • Inspiration4: A Waste of Space Exploration

Paul Kiser’s Tweets

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