PlatoMedia

2008 is a new year for PlatoMedia and brings with it an opportunity for new business ventures to supercharge our photography dreams. I have been preoccupied with investing potential of real estate.

Last October I stumbled upon a small company called Nouveau Riche, a community of like minded real estate investor entrepreneurs who cared more about my success than I did about my own. It has changed my life and mindset completely! I read books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, “Think and Grow Rich,” and “The Millionaire Next Door.” I began to take a serious look at what truly matters in life.  It stuck me like lightning that the most valuable commodity in the world is TIME.  Most want to change their circumstances but can’t because they are trading time for money as a W-2 employee. Most Americans are seeking a way to secure their financial futures, be their own boss and balance career and family.

Since my first lemonade stand as a youth, being a business owner always appealed to me so I did my due dilligence and investigated Nouveau. What I found surprised me!!! Instead of finding bones I found gold. In fact, I found out that Success Magazine: Your Business At Home dedicated the entire January 2008 issue to this company.  I would read up on this one!

Nouveau Riche founders Jim and Mary Piccolo and Bob Snyder are intensely focused on helping others. They are people  who aggressively “practice what they preach” by teaching others the way to success and how to pay it forward. ” Their primary goal is to “create real estate investors”  and help everyone realize the American Dream whatever that may be for each of you.

Nouveau Riche founders hired the same Ph.D.’s who setup the curriculum at Harvard and University of Phoenix. Plans are being made to go public with an online degree program for real estate investing and business entrepreneurship. If all goes well the 61 percent of American’s who prefer to be their own boss will shortly have a way out of the rat race.

Depth of Field
Digital Photo Secret 10

The photo on the left was taken from WebPhotoschool and is a composite of two photos that were taken at the same exact location only moments apart. Each one, however, has a significantly different look from the other. An experienced photographer would identify the bottom half of the composite as having a long “depth of field” because both the subject and the background are in sharp focus.

If this concept of “depth of field” is not immediately clear to you, it may be easier to think in terms of “depth of focus”: every element from front to back in this photo is in focus, thereby having a long “depth of focus”.

On the other hand, the top half would be described as having a short depth of field (or depth of focus) because, while the subject is in sharp focus, the background is blurry, or “soft”.

Depth of Field (DOF) is one area of photography I somewhat understood. Like most photographers I know it has to do with the area of “sharpness” of an image in front of and behind a subject or in other words “a zone of acceptable sharpness.” At first this was very confusing to me and I had to visit a couple references to write about it.

If you go to my links page you will discover a tutorial by Canon on DOF. At the simplest level DOF is controlled by the aperture opening of a camera lens. The most important thing to remember is that your aperture setting controls your depth of field. The smaller your aperture number, or “f/stop”, the shorter your depth of field will be and vice versa.

The image to the left shows where on the Canon EOS Rebel LCD aperture size would appear. Most digital cameras represent this in the same fashion by 2 digits (2.8, 3.6, 4.5, 5.0, 5.6, etc.)

Again, the image to the left taken from Luminous Landscape demonstrates a short depth of field.

PHOTO EQUIPMENT: EDITOR’S CHOICE 2007

Before You Buy Do Your Research

It pays to read the camera reviews!!! First, you need to decide if your photographic needs line-up better with the consumer or professional series of D-SLR’s. The guys at Camera Wizard have a short 30 second test that helps to speed up the selection process.

CNET has a buying guide which list specs that matter most to different users. Below is CNET’s Editor’s Choice at each user level.

Two of the most comprehensive sources for photo equipment reviews are American Photo and The Digital Picture. These lists are worth reviewing!!

Place Your Subject Off Center
Digital Photo Secret 9

The Rule of Thirds

One of the most popular rules in photography is the “Rule of Thirds”. It is a simple rule that can add dynamic flare to your photos. Simply, divide the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. When composing your shot, place important elements either along these lines, or where the lines intersect - NOT at the center of the frame. It is a compositional rule in photography and other visual arts such as painting. Wikipedia defines this rule differently than the Digital Photography School.

Again, the basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. As follows.

It’s one of the first things that budding digital photographers learn about in classes on photography and rightly so as it is the basis for well balanced and interesting images.

I will say right up front however that rules are meant to be broken and ignoring this one doesn’t mean your images are necessarily unbalanced or uninteresting. However a wise person once told me that if you intend to break a rule you should understand/practice it first to make your compositions better!

Rather than placing your main subject in the middle of the screen, place it to one side and ensure something interesting is in the background that fills the remainder of the image.