BARRIE, Ontario — I arrived in this cool Canadian lakeside resort town near Toronto with educators from 40+ countries, each of us paying about $700 for six nights, seven days of room, board, and conference fees. This was the 17th annual International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) gathering for K-12 teachers and students engaged in online collaborative work.
We are proof that it is possible to have a jet-set life on a do-good budget, done through volunteer work with international organizations. There are many such international non-profits (you can find many of them at National Geographic’s Global Action Atlas); but my own low-budget-jetset life revolves around two organizations: Partners of the Americas (DC-Brasìlia chapter), which connects volunteers to serve and change lives in this Hemisphere, and iEARN, which represents about 30,000 teachers and two million students in 125 countries working on projects in 30 languages…..Full story in National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog.
How To: Blur backgrounds on automatic
Naturally the photo workshop instructor, David Luria, recommended that I turn the dial on my new Panasonic point-’n-shoot to “P,” so that I could control my camera.
Naturally, after class I turned it right back to iA, meaning intelligent automatic. This super-fast Lumix DMC-ZS7 (with a Leica lens) takes the best photos I’ve ever shot, and I’ve used some superb cameras.
With iA, I can focus on other techniques. Says Luria:
1– Get close and get low. Note to self: need stronger thighs.
2 — Stabilize yourself by standing with your legs apart with one leg ahead. Note: And squat low at the same time?
3 — Telephoto always blurs the background; wide-angle always gives a sharp background.
4 — Move the center-of-interest out of the [damn] center.
5 — Golden hours when everything looks beautiful: hour before/hour after sunrise and sunset. Note: Kindest time to shoot friends, not in dark restaurants after a wine or two.
Set the Speed (S) to 1,000-2,000ths of a second and you can capture raindrops falling.
Set S to 2 or 3 seconds, put your camera on a tripod, and passing cars will disappear from your photos — they are traveling too fast to be recorded!!!!
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Penn Camera Classes: “Photo Safari – The Essence of Good Photography,” Newseum, August 1, 2010.
Merry Ramadan, Hanukah, and Christmas
I’m about to blast my official holiday e-card.
I can’t fret anymore. It’s not too late for 2009 and not too early for 2010. Dème un break. I’m an iguana. When the sun’s out in August, I am in motion. When it’s dark in December, I don’t move.
Happy Holidays 2010! God bless you everyone. I’ll answer your cards and e-mails with Valentine kisses from sun-kissed Guatemala. 😉
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