Ya’ll aren’t going to believe this! I told you about Edith the Bird choosing the pesky neighbor’s driveway to raise a family. Remember? Well… yesterday, right as we were getting ready to spray our drive with weedkiller, ole’ Edith came around the corner mad as Hell.

Evidently, Edith is a busy, busy kildee. Baby round #2 she decides to hatch her little ones right in front of our garage door.

We can get the car out of the garage. If it’s daylight. And if we can see to maneuver around the nursery. But seriously, how many batches of children does one bird have? Especially when she’s required to deposit eggs that are half her size for crying out loud! I guess after vacationing down south all winter, the dudes expect the females to reproduce. And, it was pretty cute to see her last night with two babies (one didn’t make it) under her wings, and all three of them keeping the new eggs warm.

But that ain’t all…

I don’t even LIKE birds that much! Now, it’s like Erwin’s Hatchery out here. **sigh**

Some days (just like some clients) are draining — others are inspiring. We all want to stay inspired and on the move forward, but I’ve found that when you take on more than you can handle, you simply have to make some pretty hard decisions and realize that sometimes you just have to pass on some things. I’ll take another dose of inspiration please. And a cup of coffee.

Happy Friday — and, here’s to sharing just a little of my inspiration with y’all.

For the record, I am officially a sappy Nanna. On the back deck is a wilted flower that Coco was carrying around over the weekend, and looking at it made me sad. I’m pathetic.

We are currently experiencing amazing weather in the Ville. When that happens, the office will sometimes move to the back deck. Make no mistake… work still gets done, it’s just that Perry and I are happier doing it in the sunshine. When our workspace is unconventional and absolutely not as one would expect, we figure we aren’t following a standard path, but are instead leaving a trail for others to follow. Heh. So, for those of you feeling much too confined to be productive, mix it up already!

We weren’t the only ones not following a path and leaving a trail…

I remember as a kid looking to the sky and thinking these were smoke trails made by jets that were on fire, when in fact, they are nothing more than vapor trails created when warm moist air that comes from the jet mixes with the cold air in the sky. Basically… condensation. It’s still pretty cool, yah?

Libby? She didn’t have time to look to the sky. She was too busy basking in the warm sun and dreaming of chasing bunnies.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t keep my hands inside the ride at all times. I sometimes drive over 70 mph. (They don’t call me Parnelli Shelley for nothin’!) I don’t always follow the rules, and I’m sure you don’t ALWAYS follow them either. These rules are made to be broken — but like most rules, they are a pretty good guideline that when followed, have a positive outcome. In composition (although we are talking here about photography, this applies to all art, i.e. web design too), the two rules most observed are (1) the rule of thirds, and (2) the golden spiral (sometimes called the golden mean or the divine proportion).

These rules don’t match up. At least not exactly… but they are close.

The Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is called a “sham” by some, and is claimed to be the most useful composition technique by others. In photography, it is a concept used to produce images that are more engaging and better balanced. It involves mentally dividing up your image using 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines, and then positioning the important elements of your scene along those lines, or at the points where they meet.

The focal points of your photo don’t have to perfectly line up, but by positioning the horizon along a line in a landscape photo… or a person off to one side to allow “breathing space”… can create a photo that is more visually appealing. If it’s a person you’re photographing, it looks less like a mugshot. In landscapes, applying this technique can provide an anchor and a focal point.

The Golden Spiral
The mathematical principal of the golden spiral dates back in artwork as early as 400 B.C. There have been books written about it explaining the concept in great detail — all about the creation of the universe, the specific number that determines how a sunflower’s seeds grow, the path a hawk takes when diving at it’s prey, and even how the spirals in a galaxy are laid out. It’s nature y’all!

In photography, this principal involves mentally evaluating your image, and positioning the focal points within a flowing spiral. It’s all about energy and movement… and again, nature. Just like with the rule of thirds, your image doesn’t have to line up perfectly.

Evaluating your photos and their composition is a fun exercise as you practice to improve your skill. But remember… RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN! Except the golden rule my Mom preached to my brother and me growing up, “Do unto others what you would have them do to you.” Don’t break that one. Karma is a bitch.

My favorite brother ordered Mothers Day flowers for me and for our Mom. (Isn’t he fabulous?) He ordered them from the same place at the same time. Thing is, he ordered them a little late (which is ok, he’s still fabulous in my book!) and they couldn’t be delivered until yesterday (Monday). Here’s where it gets interesting…

Although he ordered the flower arrangements through the FTD website, the deliveries were made by two different local florists even considering I could throw a rock and hit Mom’s house. Both arrangements were beautiful!

My flowers were delivered from a florist in Brownstown. I received a call at 3:00 PM EST and the kind gentleman asked if I would be home for a 4:00 PM delivery. He arrived at 4:00 PM on the dot. Mom’s flowers were delivered by a florist in Scottsburg. The first call from the florist lady asked for directions. Then, she told me she had already looked up directions on Google maps and preferred to take the 500 S exit off of I-65. Whaaa? This little road dead-ends at the Interstate. And, I’ve not seen any county road exits off of any interstate I’ve traveled, so I thought the response was really stupid a tad silly. Needless to say, I got 2 more calls for directions before I ended up standing in the front yard and pointing at Mom’s place.

Dude — nice product + easy processing = good experience
Chick — nice product + PIA processing = poor experience

I’m willing to bet neither of them had a clue they were actually representing the total FTD experience. If you have people that represent you to the public, do they behave in the way you want them to? Or, if you represent another individual or company, do you perform in the manner they expect?

Photos…
Are you still practicing Av mode? Yes, I am. Thanks for asking. Tomorrow, I’m going to touch on the ‘rule of thirds’. See you then!

After sharing the Mothers Day photos here and with the family, there were comments made about my favorite brother on the planet. They were more criticisms than they were comments I guess, and referenced that in the fun shots, he didn’t act “stupid enough.” I’m pretty sure that was because he wasn’t close enough to Coco. Have you noticed that the mere presence of a little one can make you do stuff you thought you’d outgrown? For example… who of you out there that know me and my family would ever expect that this dude would be caught in the act of smelling (yes, SMELLING) a dandelion?

Please note, there was someone who wasn’t afforded that same opportunity! Down on level, and still didn’t get attention. We were all pretty surprised when this someone got dissed — big time. I’m guessing it’s because he didn’t act ‘stupid enough’.

If the only photos you take are planned and posed, your hobby is going to be pretty darned boring, and you’re going to miss a ton of really good stuff. The photos you grab when your subjects are playing around are (in my opinion) some of the best memories you’ll capture.

Click away at your subjects when they aren’t looking. And then, click again right as they do.

Yesterday, I challenged you to practice photography along with me starting in Av mode. Since today is Mother’s Day, I hope you did the assignment because widening the aperture (a lower f-stop number) for portraits of Mom are going to earn you some major points. You’ll be the favorite sibling! Focus on Mom with a low f-stop setting (wide aperture) and you’ll end up with an image of her in focus, with a softer/blurrier/less in focus background behind her.

If you get in front of your mother and block her out of the photo… that is bad. That is VERY bad.

I love my incredibly amazing family…

Happy Mother’s Day!

For you Canon camera users — here’s a tip:

And one more so you know I’m practicing… taking photos with the Av setting — my handsome nephew, Faron:

As a kid, Mom made my brother and I practice on the piano every day for 30 minutes. She would say that line, “practice makes perfect” and I probably mocked her when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t until later in life I figured out my Mom wasn’t an idiot. So, maybe practice doesn’t make you perfect… but it will sure make you better.

I think sometimes when we do something as a hobby, we figure we don’t need practice. And, sometimes people claim they are a professional photographer just because they got a Canon Rebel for Christmas — but that would be a rant for another day. I did my 2 years and have an Associate of Applied Science in Visual Communication – Photography degree, have a few killer lenses, and am happy with many of the photos I take. Sometimes I even feel pretty badass when I pick up my 5d mark iii, BUT PHOTOGRAPHY IS MY HOBBY. I’m not an expert.

I need practice.

So if you’re like me and just want to take better photos, why don’t you practice right along with me? Grab your camera and turn that dial away from the little green square.

For the next few days, practice taking photos with the AV creative setting.

The AV setting lets you choose your aperture and your camera will choose the shutter speed for you.

Aperture controls the DOF (depth of field), and the f-stop is the measure of that aperture. It is the number that describes how far open the lens aperture is. So the lower the f-stop, the lower number of items will be in focus in your image.

Here’s what you need to remember:

When the aperture gets smaller (higher f-stop), the shutter speed must slow down and/or the iso must speed up to allow the same amount of light to reach the sensor.

(Both photos above were taken in a darkened room so I set the ISO at 1000 — try to stay as near 100 as you can for cleaner shots. And, even f-stop 5.6, as in photo #2, is considered a wide aperture setting. Outdoors on a sunny day, you could try ISO 100, and bump the f-stop up to 11-16 or so to begin your test.)

I tuned into an online photography workshop yesterday, and was surprised that I had fun listening to things I already knew, and learning a few things I didn’t. If learning more about photography is of interest to you, go to Creative Live and checkout the upcoming workshops. The one I attended was free to watch live, and is now available to purchase. While you may not want to spend cash to attend one of these (especially without a free trial run), I’m pretty sure there are free ones coming up.

It’s always fun to learn new things!

Happy Friday y’all!

This isn’t really another prom post! Ok, the photos and the thoughts that surround them sort of have something to do with the prom — but not really.

I’ve noticed my buddy, Alisa, posting Facebook “thanks” to others for the work they did in conjunction with this year’s prom in the Ville. Every day she’s thanking someone. I’ve not seen as many thanking her as there should be… at least in my opinion. Alisa is always the first to give of herself. Sometimes to the point of giving too much (if that’s possible when it has anything to do with your kid).

I know she was pretty darned proud of her bad self when showing off the fruit kabobs. They looked amazing! And, the cupcake tree thingy in the corner was enticing, but I promise I didn’t steal one. Alisa can cook! She rivals my Nanny when she was in her prime even — and for me, that’s saying a LOT. But Alisa’s pretty crafty too I might add. Obviously. The table centerpieces were very pretty.

So thanks, Alisa — for all the time you give to others. Your expression in the photo below is one of exasperation… you were worn out and the prom hadn’t even started. But it was appreciated! =)

Everyone has their own personal photography style, and I love looking at the differences in composition, color, and lighting. Typically, I aim for vibrant explosions of color — you know… happy, full of energy, vivid hues.

But processing low saturation images can create some truly stunning photos as well. Reducing the saturation can inspire a different mood or tone to any photo. Of course, fading the photos by lowering the saturation produces different effects on different photos…

Try it out! Simply create a new adjustment layer in your favorite photo manipulation program (Photoshop for me please), and play around with the results. I’ll stick with my own style. =)

I’m not a morning person. I will NEVER be a morning person. I love staying up late and sleeping until the last possible minute. My workday customarily begins the second I roll out of bed and get that first cup of coffee in hand. Pajamas are approved office attire when you work from home.

It’s rare that I wake to see a sunrise (I can’t tell you the last time I was awake early enough to see one) — so I thought it fitting that when I did actually get to see beautiful rays casting a soft glow I take a photo to share with y’all. In case you aren’t a morning person either.

“I’m going to be watching you… and I’m going to killll you.”

Death Threat?

That’s what the caller said. To us it sounded like a kid’s voice. You think so too?

The call came to our business 800 number. The caller listened to the welcome message (which is long… speakers tend to be a little talkative), then chose Perry’s extension and listened to his welcome message as well. After about 20 seconds of extremely weird noises (either a child’s howling or satanic gibberish) the words were uttered, “I’m going to be watching you… and I’m going to killll you.”

So I call the number — the 281 area code from which the call originated in Texas. I explain the nature of the voice message to an female adult as well as our feeling that it was the result of a child’s prank. I’m thinking she’s gonna do the same thing I would do — and some little feller is going to have his butt warmed by bedtime. But no! The female was adamant that it was not possible that the call originated in their home. She went as far as to say that if the call came from her number, someone had broken into her house and made the call. Even when I told her that we were just certain it was a harmless call and if it was true that she worried someone had broken in her house I would alert the police — she didn’t back down one little bit.

So I call the local police in that area. The woman dispatcher explains that it could be a case of call spoofing — and the person could be right in the Ville and making it look as if it came from the Texas number. She said I should immediately call local police. So I do…

Him: Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Dispatch
Me: Hi. My name is Shelley Erwin, who am I speaking with please? (Thinking I might know the gentleman.)
Him: Dispatch

Dude must hate his Mom for giving him a name like Dispatch. Seriously. Sometimes small-town communities aren’t so personable after all. So while I’m wondering what the sheriff’s dispatcher has to be afraid of by saying his name, I explain the whole thing again. Without even hearing the recorded message (to probably get the opinion it’s a kid too), he tells me it sounds similar to text messages that they’ve had reported — ones that say “I hid the body like you told me to.”

If you live around here, don’t get a death threat — real or by a kid — because you’ll get nowhere. Somewhere… someone is watching poor Perry and is going to kill him. =)

And now, a photo of my favorite aunt Shirley with Katie. Would love to know what she’s thinking…

And one proud mom…

For the record… 2 posts in one day… BOOYA!

Saturday evening, the phone rang at about 10:30 PM. It was those pesky neighbors calling to tell me to walk outside and take pictures of the moon. Seriously.

I obeyed, but really had no clue why they’d given the order, all I got from the short conversations was that the moon was closer to the earth right then than it would be again in my lifetime, and detailed instructions on where I could find it. “Go out your front door and look to the southeast!” Heh. I’m one of those people who then go, “Ok… lemme think… Seymour is north. And west is on my left…” I wasted some valuable moon time when it would’ve been quicker to just simply go outside and look up.

But then, I couldn’t find my plate for the tripod — and of course, when you take photos in the dark with your shutter open wide, you must hold very, very still or you get nothing but blur. To keep from getting in trouble by the peskies… I just did the best I could.

The Associated Press reported the supermoon was at its most super at 11:34 PM EST, when it was about 221,802 miles away from earth. That’s about 15,300 miles closer than average, making the moon appear about 14% bigger than it would appear if it were at its farthest distance during its elliptical orbit.

A few weeks ago, I told you that Edith, the bird, was back to lay eggs in the driveway of the pesky neighbors. Those peskies even put a fence post in the middle of their drive to protect the eggs from reckless company — and it’s a good thing, because Edith is now a PROUD Mommy!

But it gets better! Edith brought her babies here today. She herded the 3 little ones right down the road and stayed the entire afternoon. I personally thought it was a bit too soon to get the kids out and about, but ole’ Edith took pretty good care of them. As soon as I walked outside with the camera, she started the whole “OMG, my wing is broke!!” act to lure me away from the newborns. Heh. Edith thinks I’m stupid. Obviously. (My guess is because she’s been around those peskies too long.) She did take a few moments to just relax and see what kind of good bugs we had that would be an easy catch after mowing…

This is Fred. Good luck, lil dude.

Jerilyn asked that I be at her house to take prom photos of Katie & Kim (their exchange student that leaves to go home in a few short weeks), and explained that she had a horse & carriage coming. The bad weather held off and I snapped a few hundred shots, all the while thinking about the proms I attended in that same school.

A girl’s first prom is special. Evidently my Mom thought so too because the dress I wore to my first prom was purchased at Greenups in Louisville — my Grandmother made my dresses for the other proms I attended. Back in the day, I looked as good as anyone else in those homemade dresses (or at least I thought so), but no way could what we wore back then begin to compete with today’s style. Wow!

Of course, I’m partial! But even if I didn’t love Katie, I would still think she’s beautiful. A princess no less…

Like Cinderella…

But not to forget the others — here are a few random photos taken before Katie’s first prom — and Kim’s only prom.

I love the photo below — candid shots are my favorites.

I posted yesterday about Siri not understanding my spoken words. I don’t know how many times my intelligent personal assistant (the one living in my iPhone) has called my son “Dan” — or how many times she’s referenced me as Shelley “Are one”. It’s funny stuff… to me anyway. I’m not sure who to blame for my sense of humor, but typos (no matter if they are errors in translation or just bad finger movement) seriously crack me up.

Need more? Of course you do! http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

Happy Friday!
I’m going this evening to take prom photos of a couple pretty special girls. I’ll post a few tomorrow…

On an important business call, my iPhone decided to shut down. Just like that. My call was lost and I was royally pissed off agitated. Yes, I found myself in a rage to the point of punching buttons and uttering obscenities that I customarily refrain from using.

In the middle of my rant, my iPhone decided to light up and activate Siri.

None of the words I used could be misinterpreted as the screenshot you see on the left. Some words began with “F”, and POS was in there someplace I’m sure.

“Petemont death?” Seriously, Siri? And suggesting I search for the phrase on the web? Ok. Fine. I did your darned search and the only thing Google came up with was “Pokemon death”. What a sick joke, Siri.

Every single time a storm rolls in, I have a brief moment of panic in conjunction with the thought, “DID I PAY MY HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE??”

There’s not been a time that I’ve been without insurance coverage for my house, but the thought violently invades my brain anyway. I’ve been known to even call the 800 number of my agency to see if I can make another payment… just in case.

I know it’s crazy, but I can’t help it. Anyone else out there do the same freaky thing?

Just a few photos from the outskirts of the Ville yesterday late afternoon…

So many people go through life trying to change other people. I’ve seen first hand how much time, effort, stress and worry one person will put themselves through in a vain attempt to make another person someone they will never be. Ever. I’m all for helping others through troubling times. I’m waaaay too good at that myself. But agonizing over the past is only a waste of time. And life is simply too short for that.

And as my wise Grandmother once said to me during a difficult time:

“Life is too LONG to be miserable.”