บทความสำหรับช่างภาพมือใหม่ รวบรวมโดย คุณมะยม

http://mayom.multiply.com/reviews/item/1
This is photography tips for amateur - courtesey of Khun Mayom

Four Decades After Man Conquered the Moon

It was December 1968 that the first man headed for the moon but it wasn't until July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong by Apollo 11 landed on the moon and said his famous phrase "A small step for a man but a giant leap for mankind", that opened up space age possibilities.

I was six years-old and still remember watching this historic event on black and white T.V.  Since then, space and technology always stir my curiosity.  Thought I'd jot down some of the memorable movies and TV series that I love (list not in any chronology):

2001: A Space Odyssey

E.T.

Star Trek: The Voyager (I like this one the most as the captain is a woman and also technology is more high-tech than the other Treks - which I find a bit too slow for my taste)

Apollo 13

Lost in Space T.V. Series (จำชื่อภาษาไทยไม่ได้)

Time Tunnel (อุโมงค์มหัศจรรย์)

Innerspace

That's all I can think of for now.  Feel free to complete this list and share your favorites too.

Cheers to Journey to the Galaxies!!!

 

Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Biographies & Memoirs
Author:	Jung Chang

หนังสือเล่มนี้ออกมานานมากแล้ว แต่เป็นเรื่องหนึ่งที่ชอบมากๆ อ่านแล้วลืมไม่ลง เพราะทำให้ตัวเองซึ่งเป็นหญิงไทยรู้สึกโชคดีมากๆ เรื่องนี้เป็นบันทึกของสาวชาวจีนที่เกิดมาในช่วงจีนใกล้ปฏิวัติ คุณยายเป็นนางห้ามของนายพลผู้มีอิทธิพลอยู่ในสมัยศักดินา ประทับใจคำที่ว่า ผู้หญิงในสมัยนั้นมีสิทธิน้อยกว่าสุนัขตัวหนึ่งที่เดียว ส่วนหญิงรุ่นที่สองซึ่งเป็นแม่ของผู้เขียนโตขึ้นมาในสมัยต่อเนื่องก๊กมินตั๋งกับเมาเซตุง แสดงให้เห็นชีวิตของบุคคลธรรมดาในช่วงปฏิวัติวัฒนธรรม ว่าต้องตกอยู่ในความกลัว ไว้ใจใครไม่ได้ อ่านหนังสือก็ไม่ได้ (เหตุการณ์ตอนนี้สะท้อนอยู่ในหนังเรื่อง The Red Violin และ Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress ด้วย) ในยุคที่สามยิ่งเกิดการเปลี่ยนแปลงจากอิทธิพลของโลกตะวันตกเข้าไปสู่ความคิดของคนยุคใหม่ด้วย

ที่ชอบเรื่องนี้เพราะตอนเด็กๆ เราโตขึ้นมาโดยไม่รู้ความเป็นไปของประเทศเพื่อนบ้านเลย ทั้งๆที่เราเกิดมาช่วงนั้นแท้ๆ อีกทั้งเรื่องราวของการแสดงความเข้มแข็งต่อสู้ของผู้หญิงในสังคมจีน ทำให้เข้าใจอะไรขึ้นมาก หนังสือเขียนสนุกอ่านง่าย ไม่ทราบว่าแปลเป็นภาษาไทยหรือไม่

How About A Book Club? มาตั้งชมรมคนอ่านหนังสือกันดีไหม

เพื่อนท่านหนึ่งเอื้อนเอ่ยว่า แหมสงสัยข้าน้อยจะอ่านหนังสือเยอะ เห็นรู้เรื่องโน้นนี้ จริงๆ แล้ว ตอนเด็กๆ เป็นหนอนหนังสืออ่านนวนิยาย อ่านสตรีสาร (เด็กสมัยนี้คงไม่รู้จักสตรีสาร) ส่วนวรรณกรรมต่างชาติ หรือหนังสือแนวสวยงามนั้นก็ได้อ่านตอนเรียนเพราะมีเวลามากอยู่  พอโตเป็นผู้ใหญ่กลายเป็นต้องอ่านหนังสือแนวการตลาด      การบริหาร การเงิน ไปโน่น อารมณ์สุนทรีย์ก็ค่อยๆลดน้อยถอยลง (ครูภาษาไทยห้ามเขียนแบบนี้แต่ขอเหอะ ชอบ) ไปตามลำดับ  ความสนใจก็เปลี่ยนไปตามจังหวะชีวิต

นาน นานจนลืมอรรถรสของภาษา ของบทกวี ลืมว่าเคยมีบทกวีของ เนาวรัตน์ พงษ์ไพบูลย์ จีรนันท์ พิจปรีชา คำหมาน คนไค อยู่บนชั้นหนังสือ ลืมว่าเคยตามอ่านเรื่องสั้นของ ชาติ กอบจิตติ วานิช จรุงกิตอนันต์ หรือแม้แต่บทความของ ประชา พูลวิวัฒน์ ในนิตสารฟ้าเมืองไทย ลืมคอลัมน์ของฮิวเมอริสต์ ของคึกฤทธิ์

ลืมโจนาธาน ลิฟวิงสตั้น นางนวล ของริชาร์ด บาร์ค ... อย่ากระนั้นเลย ขอตั้งกระทู้เรื่องหนังสือดีๆ ที่น่าอ่านดีกว่า ไม่จำกัดว่าเป็นสาขาไหน ช่วยมาแนะนำกันด้วยนะคะ ข้าน้อยรู้จักแต่หนังสือเก่าๆ ใหม่ๆ ไม่ค่อยรู้จักนัก โลกเก่าจะได้พบโลกใหม่ คนเก่าและคนใหม่จะได้เรียนรู้จากกันไงคะ ขอบคุณล่วงหน้าค่ะ  วันนี้เล่มแรกที่แนะนำ ตามรูปนี้นะคะ เพื่อนซื้อให้เป็นของขวัญวันเกิดอายุยี่สิบหกปี ประทับใจมาก อ่านแล้วมาคุยกันนะคะ

A friend just mentioned that I must have read a lot. That started me thinking.  Yeah… Maybe.  I read a lot when I was young, from Ugly American to the Greek Mythology, or Ramayana… practically what I could find on my dad’s book shelf.  I also read a lot of novels and would be crying my eyes out into the wee hour of the night under the blanket with a flash light in hand so my mom would not know.   In school, I read quite a bit of literature… But when I grew up and joined the real world … all that passed under my radar had been more of trade and professional literature…

It’s been a long time since anybody raised this subject with me… so now I would like to invite you to share your list of good books that are close to your heart so we can all broaden our horizon.  After all, one grand element of being human is our ability to form thoughts in to written words.  Thank you in advance for sharing.  Here, I'm parting with the first recommendation ... Illusions, by Richard Bach.

 

 

Who Dun It ? Victim: My Apples เหตุเกิดในสวนหลังบ้านตอนใครตีท้ายครัว

เรื่องมีอยู่ว่าต้นแอปเปิ้ลแสนรักในสวนหลังบ้านที่เฝ้าฟูมฟักมาทุกวี่วันนั้น แม้ว่าปีนี้จะมีดอกน้อยไปนิดแต่ก็ยังออกผลให้ได้ชื่นชมพอสมควรอยู่  ฉันก็เฝ้ามองการเติบโตของผลเขียวสดของแอปเปิ้ลน้อยต้นนี้ทุกวันอย่างใจจดใจจ่อ เช้าวันหนึ่งก็ปรากฎว่าแอปเปิ้ลเกือบทุกลูกถูกเจาะเป็นรูหมดเลย แถมยังมีเมือกเหนียวๆย้อยออกมาจากรูเหล่านี้ด้วย  เหตุการณ์นี้เกิดขึ้นปีที่แล้วเหมือนกัน แอปเปิ้ลส่วนใหญ่มีหนอนหมดเลย เศร้าจริง มีคนแนะนำให้ฉีดยาป้องกัน แต่ด้วยความที่ไม่อยากใช้ยาฆ่าแมลงก็เลยไม่ได้ทำ แอปเปิ้ลผลสวยๆของเราเลยถูกเจาะไข่แดงด้วยประการฉะนี้  ใครรู้วิธีแก้ไขหรือป้องกันสำหรับปีหน้าช่วยด้วยนะคะ

I have an apple tree in my back yard which I have no idea how to take care.  Last year it yielded so many apples… so many that several batches of apple sauce later, I still could not keep up.

Came winter time when I should have trimmed it, but since I have never had an apple tree in my life, I didn’t.  And Spring came to fast.  I noticed that not many apple blossoms this year.  So I was worried that I may not get any apples this year.  Yet luck is still on my side and those few blossoms have turned into beautiful apples… Just a few days ago, much to my chagrin I found almost all my apples have been attacked by unidentified intruders… The majority of them got black holes in them… some bucks have got to them … How and when did this happen? How can these little monster attack all my apples in only a day?  I’m distressed.

Nature Photography Instruction

http://www.naturephotographers.net/np101/index.html

ND Filters Tips

http://ecarmel.typepad.com/elizabeth_carmels_photogr/2007/03/index.html

Elizabeth Carmel's Landscape Photography Blog

http://ecarmel.typepad.com/

Lanscape and Nature Photography by Elizabeth Camel

http://www.elizabethcarmel.com/

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FIRE IN THE SKY

Last week so many parts of California were on fire including the beautiful Big Sur which I recently had a chance to visit.  This year, we have such a dangerous season and rain is still an unanswered prayer. We have a saying "April Shower Brings May Flowers"... and that was a wishful thinking as well.   I took several pictures of the sky during last week and then recreated it here upon a rolling hill between Livermore and Fremont.  Here, I also quoted AP's report on the fire just to remember these days in the future.

(AP, June 29, 2008) "The Big Sur fire has burned about 32,500 acres (13,150 hectares) and destroyed 16 homes since it was sparked by lightning on June 21, the U.S. Forest Service said.

Firefighters have contained only 3 percent of the flames and the Forest Service could not estimate when the fire would be brought under control.

A 10-mile (16 km) stretch of the coastal Highway 1 was closed for a fourth day, and the community of Big Sur remained threatened. Evacuation advisories were issued throughout the area, but the local chamber of commerce said most businesses were still open.

Big Sur is heavily wooded, with steep slopes running down to the Pacific Ocean. The terrain creates one of California's most dramatic landscapes -- and slow going for more than 1,000 firefighters on the scene.

Its 90-mile (145 km) stretch of coastline lies between the quaint town of Carmel in the north and San Simeon, home of Hearst Castle, to the south. The area is a popular destination for campers, surfers and nature lovers. Novelist Henry Miller lived there for 18 years.

A library honoring Miller's legacy said it was closed until further notice. The Esalen Institute, a spiritual retreat frequented by Jack Kerouac and Joan Baez, said it was closed at least until Sunday. But Hearst Castle said it was still open.

A total of 31 fires were burning in California, according to the National Interagency Fire Center of Boise, Idaho, covering 333,838 acres (135,000 hectares), an area 23 times the size of Manhattan.

The biggest fire, covering 60,000 acres (24,300 hectares) at Los Padres National Forest, to the east of Big Sur, was about 89 percent contained, and was expected to be completely under control by Thursday, according to the Forest Service.

California fire officials are bracing for a busy fire season, which the weekend's lightning strikes started sooner than expected, because the state's rainfall has been below average for two years, leaving grass, brush and timber bone dry in many areas. (Reporting by Dean Goodman, editing by Anthony Boadle)"

ลองถ่ายรูปท้องฟ้าช่วงไฟป่าเมื่อสัปดาห์ก่อนไว้ แล้วมาซ้อนไว้บนเส้นทางที่เต็มไปด้วยหญ้าแห้งเพราะขาดน้ำ จะได้เห็นว่าช่วงนี้ไฟป่าน่ากลัวแค่ไหน ก้นบุหรี่เพียงอันจิ๋วก็คงจุดแม่พระเพลิงให้โหมได้ในพริบตา

Close Up Filter Study - Part 1 Metering and Light Compensation

ความพยายามครั้งที่สองค่ะ ตอนนี้สิ่งสำคัญที่เปลี่ยนคือ metering และเพิ่มแสงให้เว่อไปประมาณ 0.7 stop ค่ะ ขาตั้ง รีโมท และ f/8 ชัดแต่แบคกราวน์ยังเบลอได้สวย

 

 

 

 

This is my second attempt with the filter and found the following helpful tips:

Ingredients: Nikon D40; 55-200mm AFS-DX lens (non-VR lens), Canon 500D Close-Up filter; Tripod, Remote control. (I don't use flash -- just personal preference)

How I Did It This Time: The yellow rose right here, I used metrix metering. At f/5.6, speed 1/250, ISO 200 the picture was very soft and I have to use unsharp mask in Photoshop to sharpen it quite a bit.

Then I changed my metering mode to: SPOT and CENTER-WEIGHTED and didn't see much difference.  The picture is much sharper as seen here in the peony flower shot.

Another thing is that if I increase light compensation by +0.7 stop, my picture is much brighter.  The comparison here is before and after light compensation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before

                                                                          After 

A Night at the Opera at A Ball Park - Part I

Last night I went to an Opera at the Ball Park. It was a great fun!  Tons of people, perhaps the whole city showed up.  San Francisco Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donezetti with Natalie Dessay as Lucia was projected on a giant screen cristal clear.  The performance was fantastic and it was Miss Dessay's debut in San Francisco.  The sound was first rate too.  We even got to sing "Take me out to the Opera" during the intermission like the baseball's seventh inning stretch. About the opera itself? I'll let you know about the story and my impression in part two.  Stay tuned.  Meawhile, you can read about it here http://sfopera.com/o/260.asp.

Take me out to the opera,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me seat at the Opera House.
I don’t care if it’s Mozart or Strauss,
For it’s “root, root, root, for the divas,
Bring a friend or a spouse,
For it’s “one, two, three cheers for you”
at the Opera House.

(The original song is below.  You can sing along and change the words accordingly).

Help!!! I accidentally deleted my music playlist with Comments

Is there a way to get them back? I downloaded the new version of Bocelli's "Les Feuilles Mortes" and thought I'd delete the old one without realizing I deleted the comments that went with it.

If I can't get them back.  I'm very sorry for those of you who took time to comments.  Please help me put the comments back again.  Thanks.  Sorry Guys.

Tribute to Tim Russert (1950-2008)

Today, Tim Russert, the Washington NBC Bureau Chief, the host of Meet The Press, an ace political Journalist, and a great human being whom I admired just passed away at age 58.  My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones.

We will miss you, Tim.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.

an old Irish Blessing

Retrieved from "http://immortalpoetry.com/Irish_Blessing"

 

Garbage Island - Let's try to reduce our use of plastic!!!

Look what I found. This is terrifying.  Let's try to minimize our use of plastic and save this planet. Check this out.

Uninvited Guests

I've got a family of 5 now living in my back yard.  They are so cute and come out to frolic in the afternoon sun everyday.  I would love to adopt them but keeping pets in this country is too much work and extremely expensive.  Plus, I don't feel like separating the family as yet. Hope I can find them a new home soon.

Mother's Day - U.S.A.

Start:

May 11, '08

Number One Reason Why It's Good To Be American

It's the First Amendment to the Constitution - Freedom of Speech. I thought after posting David's picture in the U.S., this follow-up is only appropriate... Enjoy... 

David after a short visit to the U.S.

Just couldn't resist posting this.  Picture says a thousand word.

 

100 Places to See in America Before...

http://www.100placesusa.blogspot.com
"Life is not measured by the numbers of breaths we take, but by the Places and Moments that take our breaths away." - Anonymous-
This blog is about practical information on the places I have been and want people to see and places I would love to see.

Salvador Dali

This is one of the very few of Dali's work on display at MOMA during my visit.  The rest were on loan... I love this one so much.  It's call "Little Theatre".  If you zoom in, you'll see all the intricate details which are amazing... I truly love it, especially, the hanging red shoe.

Why Started this Blog?

I just browsed through this New York Time's Best Seller "1,000 Places to See Befoe You Die"and thought it was quite a good book. However, there are certain places that I would not necessarily put on my list... and then binngggg!!! I thought why don't I start my own list... And that's why this blog came about. I want it to be my own travel guide with useful information... information that I or like-minded people would find useful... like directions, what to bring, when to go, and snapshots of the place. In the United States alone, there are so many beautiful, romantic, history, gigantic, and wondrous places to see. Starting my list at 100 will make it less of a chunk of task. And this list is not in any particular order, maybe sometimes. Mostly, it's based on places that I know of and have gone to, and have been wanting to go, etc. I hope to revise and expand the list as I go along... and who knows, maybe it will reach 1,000 places or more some days.

Philadelphia

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

I don't have to say much about this academy-award winning film. I loved it at the time I saw it years ago. Now that I have been to Philadelphia. It's time to revisit the movie again. If you have not seen it, this is a must-see in your list.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

I just watched this disturbing and amazing documentary. Worth checking it out.  Amazingly, it all happened pretty much here in California.

More on Vulcan Salute

Learn more about interesting facts on Vulcan Salute... Which is not what I thought the statute did.  Anybody know more about the Goddess hand gesture, please let me know.  In fact has has g Jewish origin as you can find out more here.

 

 

Walt Disney World - Magic Kingdom

This is another test...This piece is very long, but I found that this resolution is ok. When I save, probably have to save for screen viewing, not for email. Dimension is 320x240

Christmas In New York 2004

This was the 100th year anniversary of Time Square and my first time in New York. The quality of the video list horrible, but it's the only few video clips I made and I want to test it. Wonder what I could do to improve the resolution or making the screen smaller.

Vulcan Salute

Here's more information on the Vulcan Salute that I mentioned in my Philadelphia's pictures.  Find ou more here for all you Trekkies out there.

Benjamin Franklin on Colbert Report

Jackson Pollock - Still Capturing the Vibes of our Modern Days

This Pollock's piece "One" is called "a landmark of Abstract Expressionism".  His paintings in this series (shown below) epitomize my feeling expressed earlier about modern art resonating the vibes of our modern-day societies... nervous, chaotic turbulence tied together with ever thining web of old-world orders (honor, courage, integrity, family value, etc.)... The description found in museum's publication is so eloquent that I would like to quote here.

"One is a masterpiece of the "drip," or pouring, technique, the radical method that Pollock contributed to Abstract Expressionism. Moving around an expanse of canvas laid on the floor, Pollock would fling and pour ropes of paint across the surface. One is among the largest of his works that bear evidence of these dynamic gestures. The canvas pulses with energy: strings and skeins of enamel, some matte, some glossy, weave and run, an intricate web of tans, blues, and grays lashed through with black and white. The way the paint lies on the canvas can suggest speed and force, and the image as a whole is dense and lush—yet its details have a lacelike filigree, a delicacy, a lyricism.

The Surrealists' embrace of accident as a way to bypass the conscious mind sparked Pollock's experiments with the chance effects of gravity and momentum on falling paint. Yet although works like One have neither a single point of focus nor any obvious repetition or pattern, they sustain a sense of underlying order. This and the physicality of Pollock's method have led to comparisons of his process with choreography, as if the works were the traces of a dance. Some see in paintings like One the nervous intensity of the modern city, others the primal rhythms of nature."

Top: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). One: Number 31, 1950. 1950. Oil and enamel on unprimed canvas, 8' 10" x 17' 5 5/8" (269.5 x 530.8 cm).

Left: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). Full Fathom Five. 1947. Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins, cigarettes, matches, etc., 50 7/8 x 30 1/8" (129.2 x 76.5 cm).

The other observation I made is that science principles and discoveries have played certain underlying role in the Artists' mind when coming up with their art.  Like mentioned here "Gravity" (Einstein, Quantum Physics, Theory of Relativity, etc. come up often in others' work, especially in the exhibition I saw later at the Guggenheim Museum).

Learn More about Jackson Pollock.

Jasper Johns - Flag 1954-55

This painting has been used by many as an icon of American patriotism.  What is interesting to me is the underlying layer of the painting that comprise bits and pieces of newspaper columns ...and in a way encapsulating the moment in time when the Artist created this piece. You can see these pieces when you zoom in on the picture.

Andy Warhol in Primary Colors

Here's the description from the MOMA website....


"I don't think art should be only for the select few," Warhol believed, "I think it should be for the mass of the American people." Like other Pop artists, Warhol used images of already proven appeal to huge audiences: comic strips, ads, photographs of rock-music and movie stars, tabloid news shots. In Campbell's Soup Cans he reproduced an object of mass consumption in the most literal sense. When he first exhibited these canvases (in 1962) —there are thirty-two of them, the number of soup varieties Campbell's then sold—each one simultaneously hung from the wall, like a painting, and stood on a shelf, like groceries in a store.

Repeating the same image at the same scale, the canvases stress the uniformity and ubiquity of the Campbell's can. At the same time, they subvert the idea of painting as a medium of invention and originality. Visual repetition of this kind had long been used by advertisers to drum product names into the public consciousness; here, though, it implies not energetic competition but a complacent abundance. Outside an art gallery, the Campbell's label, which had not changed in over fifty years, was not an attention-grabber but a banality. As Warhol said of Campbell's soup, "I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch everyday, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.". More about Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe.

And that was my 15 minutes of FAME....Remember my name. FAME, I'm gonna live forever.....

Dancing with Matisse

This is the famous Dance...that "in March 1909, Matisse received a commission from the Russian merchant Sergei Shchukin for two large decorative panels, Dance and Music (now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). This painting was made quickly as a compositional study for Dance, which was intended to hang on a staircase landing at Shchukin's Trubetskoy Palace, in Moscow. The figure at left appears to move purposefully, while the other dancers seem to float weightlessly. The momentum of their movement breaks the circle as the arm of the foreground dancer reaches out. Dance, Matisse once said, evoked "life and rhythm."  According to some, when this long-awaited painting arrived, it was not too well received.  However, it became one of Matisse's most famous work and deemed by many an icon for feminism movement.

Normally, I don't particularly like Matisse's style but some pieces are captivating...like this series of bronze sculptures of Jeannette.(Henri Matisse. (French, 1869-1954). Jeannette (I). Issy-les-Moulineaux, early 1910).  I love the minimalist display on a blank wall.  It's no secret that presentation of art (and everything for that matter) is equally important as the object of display itself.... Can we quote Marshall McLuhan..."Medium is the Message"?

Picasso - The Musicians

This is one of my Picasso's favorites as it's less violent and yet still passionate (if I may use the terms) compared to his earlier pieces... I can feel a sense of calmer disposition in the Artist... the same way I feel at this stage in life.  Not that one becomes dispassionate advancing in years, but the passion is based on a more stable foundation, I think.

"The three musicians and dog conjure a bygone period of bohemian life, enjoyed here by Picasso in the guise of a Harlequin flanked by two figures who may represent poet–friends of the artist's: Guillaume Apollinaire, who was recently deceased, and Max Jacob. The patterned flatness of the work is derived from cut–and–pasted paper, and stands in stark contrast to the sculptural monumentality of Picasso's Three Women at the Spring, also painted in the summer of 1921."

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Three Musicians. Fontainebleau, summer 1921. Oil on canvas, 6' 7" x 7' 3 3/4" (200.7 x 222.9 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. © 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

New York Meseum of Modern Art (MOMA)

Never thought I would appreciate modern art, but I found myself loving them more and more... It's like looking through a revolving mirror that shows gradual change of societies' mood and tone.  The posts after this are some of my favorites.

ไม่เคยคิดว่าจะชอบศิลปะร่วมสมัยเลย แต่ไปนิวยอร์กคราวนี้ค้นพบว่า ตัวเองได้เห็นภาพสะท้อนของอารมณ์และทิศทางของสังคมที่ผ่านการเปลี่ยนแปลงตั้งแต่ต้นศตวรรษที่ 20 เป็นต้นมา บทสรุปคือหนทางสู่ความยุ่งเหยิง รุนแรง และไม่อยู่นิ่ง

Note: Van Gough's The Olive Trees

Test Music Tool

This is a test to embed music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi! I'm another Nikon D40 Newbie - Wide Angle and Tips and Tricks

I just got a D40 with an 18-55mm and 55-200 kit.  I'm also thinking of getting a very wide lens in the near future -- Nikkor 12-24 AF-S is very expensive.  I saw some members suggested a sigma 10-20 mm.

My question is would that lens work with the D40 but we have to use manual focus?

And I would love to hear more tips and tricks from you all out there.

Thanks.

Earth Hour 2008

Link

I knew about it but forgot about it totally. It's a great initiative and we all should lend a hand so we and our future generations can cherish this beautiful blue planet for centuries to come.  Since Earth Day is coming up this month.  It's a good reminder.  Let's help in every which way we can.

New York Day 1- Carnegie Deli

We arrived at JFK airport on April 3rd and took a cap to Park Central Hotel in lower Manhattan.  The hotel is conveniently located across from Carnegie Hall, and in walking distance from Columbus Circle and Central Park.  I know that it was going to rain the next day so we took a horse carriage with Jack our local guide and Bee Bee the horse -- who loved carrot.

Then we went to New York's famous Carnegie Deli -- which has been favorites of celebrities and not-so-celebrities alike.  The place didn't look much but has the BEST cheesecake!!! and Gigantic pastrami sandwich -- (beware, they charge 3 dollars for sharing)... But it's worth a visit.  We ended up going back 3 times. 

My Trip to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and Grand Canyon

http://beetlejuice42560.blogspot.com/
I went to Las Vegas in July 2007 with Charlie and met up with Joop and P'Wan. I had resisted going there for a long time thinking that it would be one of those tacky places... but boy!!! Am I wrong...We saw a few shows..having great fun. We also went to Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, the Meteo Crater on Route 66 in Arizona, and Sedona. I would love to go back to Arizona again... Perhaps not in summer.

mind . body . soul

http://www.doridumrong.blogspot.com/
I created this blog at one time as part of my perpetual struggle with weight loss and shared health and mental balance tips. I kind of abandoned it for a while. Perhaps I will pick it up again if I have a group to share tips with.

I'm Off To New York City Tomorrow!!!!

I'm off to the City that never Sleeps tomorrow Yippy!!!!.

Viva California!

http://vivacalifornia.blogspot.com/

Toi's space

http://dreamachiever62.spaces.live.com/

My First Step

I'm creating this site so that I can leave and share comments with my others. A bit clumsy for customization and required a bit of a learning curve. I would really appreciate any tricks or tips from you.

First Lilac Bloom .. .Spring is Really Here

Now all the flowers in my garden started to bloom ... started 2 weeks ago with Daffodils and then Primrose and then tulips ... then now the first bloom of lilac... How beautiful life is ....