It was early evening last month and as I was looking out the kitchen window into the backyard, I noticed a LOT of bugs flying around. I thought to myself - am I paranoid, or does it sort of look like the locusts are coming?!  It turns out that they were bees - and a lot of them! My husband and I watched them as they hovered in one area of backyard and then another and then back again. Then, they started forming huge clusters on an area of our eave. They would cling onto one another until the bottom bees could not hang on any longer and a clump of bees would fall to the ground. After awhile, they were able to hang on, and it looked like our bee swarm was trying to make a new home on the eave of our house.



At this point, what started out as somewhat fascinating to watch, quickly turned into mild panic as we realized that they probably weren't going to go away on their own! Some quick internet searching and a phone call led us to the local Bee Guild and soon a beekeeper was on his way.

It turns out that one only needs a five-gallon bucket and a brush for bee swarm relocation. Well, actually, a bee suit and an experienced beekeeper don't hurt, either! The beekeeper climbed a ladder, held a five gallon bucket underneath the bees and carefully swept them into the bucket.



  
Once most of the bees were in the bucket, he put the lid on, which had a small hole cut into the top of it. Since the queen bee was already in the bucket, the remaining bees were drawn inside of the bucket to follow her.



Once the temporary bee condo was full, the beekeeper was on his way, taking the bees off to their new home!
 

You would think that since I work for Kodak, I would be very diligent about archiving, sharing and organizing my digital photos. I wish I could say that I am that organized, but the truth of the matter is that it is easy to get distracted by other things and to put off transferring, organizing and sharing until some later time. After all, the two gigabyte memory card in my camera gives me plenty of storage to just keep on shooting those special moments. Thank goodness for Eye-Fi! Eye-Fi has rescued me from my disorganized self.

What is this Eye-Fi thing you ask? An Eye-Fi card is an SD memory card with built-in Wi-Fi. You configure wireless and transfer settings for your Eye-Fi card on your computer and then use the card just like you would any other SD memory card in your digital camera. The magic behind Eye-Fi is that it will transfer your pictures directly from your camera to destination(s) that you specify. If you have good wireless connectivity, your pictures will actually be uploaded right after you capture them!

There are a few different variations of the product available: Eye-Fi Home, Share, and Explore. I have the Eye-Fi Share version which lets me upload pictures to my computer as well as to one or more online services of my choosing (e.g., photo sharing, blogging or social networking services). Kodak Gallery is one of the available destinations, so I have my Eye-Fi configured to upload directly to my computer and to Kodak Gallery. By default, Eye-Fi even organizes my pictures into folders labeled by the date on which they were captured. This organization by date is used on my computer and on Kodak Gallery - very convenient!

For example, this past weekend, I sewed some pillow cushion covers for a couch (just the square back cushions, not the whole couch!):

I even managed to sew a zipper into the bottom of each pillow (and I've never sewn zippers into anything before):

This is exactly the type of project that I would typically document with my camera but then not do anything with the pictures until the next time I got around to transferring the pictures from my camera to my computer. With Eye-Fi, I can take the pictures and by the time I walk back to my computer, they're already there. Presto! The magic of Eye-Fi!

As you may have gathered from my previous blog post on color (and paint), I've been doing quite a bit of home remodeling. Now that we actually have some finished walls, I can actually start thinking about what to put on them! I love the life-sized prints that Tom highlighted in a blog post on the Olympics. That idea would make great wallpaper for an accent wall. I also like the Wall of Art project included as one of "Paige's Projects" in the Kodak project section with Paige Davis of Trading Spaces.

Like Jenny and some of my other fellow Kodak bloggers, I too have been enjoying capturing panoramic pictures using the auto-stitch panoramic mode of my Kodak camera. Such panoramic pictures would also make great wall art. This post contains a few pictures from a recent trip to Hawaii - both panoramic and non-panoramic - that I am considering using as wall art in my home.

 


 


 




There are several reasons why I love the idea of hanging poster-sized prints of my photos on the walls at home. Here are just a few of the reasons:

• Leverage those megapixels. 8- and 10- megapixel cameras are now very common and affordable. You don't need a professional camera to create large prints - you just need a camera with enough megapixels for the size print that you'd like to make. You can use any picture captured from a point-and-shoot digital camera to create a nice poster-sized print, as long as it has enough megapixels. This means that it's easy to fill your walls with everything from everyday photos to special moments and beautiful places.
• Big pictures = big impact. Precious facial expressions, that perfect sunset, special celebrations and those once in a lifetime vacations - we all have those favorite photos that really make us smile. They look great in a 4x6 print or when viewed on a computer or digital frame. Show them off in big style on the wall and there's nothing to say but "wow!"
• My pictures are my stories. I think the thing I like the best about hanging poster-sized prints of my own pictures on the wall is that each picture tells a story. I'm not just hanging "pretty photos" - I'm surrounding myself and my family with memories and stories!

What about you? What photo stories do you have hanging on your walls?


 

One of the delights of exploring places both near and far away from home is that once in awhile you stumble upon something surprising - either surprising about where you found it or surprising about the discovered item itself. When that happens, it's great when you actually have your camera with you to capture the moment. This year, I saw buffalo (hence the title of this blog entry) for what I believe was the first time in my life!



The most surprising thing about them was where I saw them. Can you guess where this is? (You can list your guesses in the comments and I will reveal the truth in the comments tomorrow.)

I also saw a windmill in an unexpected location as well:



This past spring, I attended the "Monterey Festival of Speed" at Laguna Seca raceway, where I discovered that Kodak sponsors Doran Racing's #77 Grand-Am Rolex series sports car!



They even have a Kodak branded golf cart! (I wouldn't mind taking either of them for a little spin!)



What surprising pictures do you have in your collection? Share your stories and links in the comments!

There's nothing like a paint chip, a can of paint and a large painted textured wall to remind us of the relationship between color, light, texture and perception - both in real life and in the pictures we capture! Like some of my fellow Kodak bloggers, I too am doing some home remodeling. I've been without a kitchen for more than two years now, so we were ecstatic when we recently started painting our kitchen and great room. We were looking for a nice warm, earthy gold color to give the room a cozy feeling and to complement our cabinets. I picked up a number of paint chips that looked like they had potential:

I placed them next to a piece of cabinet filler to see how they'd look with our cabinet color:

I even looked at the final candidates under different lighting conditions. We finally settled on a color called "Warm Cocoon." Sounds cozy and inviting, right? To be really sure before we painted the walls, we bought one gallon of that color and one gallon of another color that we were considering for adjacent rooms. When I opened the can of Warm Cocoon, I was a little alarmed by the orange sherbet color staring back at me. "It's ok," I told myself - "when it dries, it'll be the perfect color!" We painted a couple of 20"x30" remnant pieces of textured drywall with our exciting new colors. When the orange sherbet dried, it really did look like the Warm Cocoon we were hoping for. It also looked great next to the cabinets and other wall color. Off to the store to buy more paint so we could do the whole room. A little taping and an excellent paint sprayer and we had the paint on the walls in no time. This is really exciting!

Hmmm... The color is looking a little loud and a little orange - what happened to warm and cozy?! Let's wait until it dries and take a look at it in the morning in the sunlight. Well, it took us less than 24 hours to realize that we wouldn't be able to live with Warm Cocoon staring back at us. There were some areas of the wall under certain lighting conditions that did look like that warm gold we had envisioned, but unfortunately we could not deny that the majority of the time the walls just looked too orange.

A little revisit with the paint chips, a trip back to the store to get more paint and we were ready for some "Calm Air." Ooooh, ahhhhh - there's  that warm and cozy color we were hoping for! Here are some pictures to show some of the contrast in the two colors:

 

Notice how Calm Air looks gold next to Warm Cocoon and vice versa. Lighting, perception and camera auto adjustments all play a role in the color of our digital pictures! Although the Calm Air looks more tan or taupe in the second picture, it really does look more golden in person and on the walls. Here's a picture that best captures the essence of the Warm Air color, as seen next to the ceiling and the cabinet:

So how does this affect my photography? It reminds me to keep in mind that surrounding colors, texture and lighting can influence the overall impact and emotion of a picture. I often focus on the central subject and don't always think about the surrounding environment. This can be important, especially when you do have some control over what will be in the background of a shot. A little color theory can go a long way to improve your pictures. Want to learn more about color theory and photography? Check out Chris Rutter's Color Theory Fundamentals for Digital Photography and other resources on the web.

Another Maker Faire has come and gone and once again my brain is inspired and swollen from all of the exciting projects, ideas and tools seen at the faire. Maker Faire is a faire for do-it-yourself (DIY) people of all ages, covering DIY projects from crafts to robotics and more; attracting newbie and professional artists and scientists alike. Some refer to it as the "Burning Man for geeks." Last year, I blogged about some of the photo-related exhibits and demos at the faire. This year, I thought I would try to bring a small taste of the faire to you.

The kite aerial photography (KAP) booth was bigger and better than ever. Cris Benton returned to Maker Faire along with several other KAPpers, displaying kites, rigs, and a gallery wall of KAP photos. Here are a couple of kite camera rigs that were on display:

 

Stereoscopic cameras and displays also returned this year. Eric Kurland and crew had several cameras and displays, including this fun PSP / antique stereoscope combo:

Do you have a pair of anaglyph (3D) glasses available? You can experience part of Maker Faire in 3D through Eric's 3D pictures captured at Maker Faire. I think this and this photo are my favorites from his 3D set, as it looks like the hand is popping right out of the screen! If you have PicLens and 3D glasses, try viewing the set via PicLens for another amazing 3D viewpoint. Very cool!

Part of the fun of Maker Faire is not just seeing cool projects, but also creating new things to take home with you. A Japanese andon is a paper lantern. At the make-and-take laser-cut andon booth, you could have a picture of your silhouette taken and then wait while a computerized laser cutter would make a perfect cutout in the form of cardboard lantern pieces. After a little assembly, voila, you have a take-home, personalized andon! Here's a larger andon that was hanging above their booth:

Want to make your own andon? On their take-home instruction sheet, they suggest printing onto cardstock and using a box cutter or exacto knife to cut out your silhouette design. You can use translucent paper for the lantern panels behind the silhouette, and a light source such as an LED-throwie to light it up. I'm thinking this could be a fun project to test out with my previous photo-based silhouettes.

The Flick-to-Flick booth was a place to make-and-take photo flipbooks. First, you create a short video clip (e.g., waving arms, dancing, throwing kisses, etc.). Then, two 8.5x11 sheets of numbered frames from your video clip are printed out on cardstock (15 frames per sheet for a total of 30 frames). Cut out your frames, stack them in order, clip them together with a binder clip and voila, you have a take-home flipbook! Want to see the process in action? Check out their video clip.

I could go on and on about Maker Faire, but I see that this post is already getting too long. So, I will close with one last highlight of my day at Maker Faire - hearing Adam Savage of MythBusters talk about his careers and hobbies outside of Mythbusters. If you've ever seen an episode of MythBusters, you know that Adam is a cross between brilliant, funny, creative and crazy (they blow a lot of stuff up on their show). While I have watched the show, I had no idea that Adam's previous experience and careers included building models for movies such as Star Wars Episodes I and II, Space Cowboys and A.I., among many others. He's also worked for toy company Zoob and enjoys the challenge of replicating movie props - including trying to get the look, materials and pieces just right. He's also a sculptor and has had his work presented in art shows. He was very excited to talk about the process and progression of his "real" sculpting work in creating a dodo bird skeleton and maltese falcons - which were on display at Maker Faire:

One thing that was clear in hearing Adam talk is that he is passionate about his work and art. I think it's that same passion and enthusiasm that he shows on MythBusters that inspires the science and inquisitive nature in all of us, both young and old. I think the Kodak bloggers hope that our passion for photography is contagious like that as well!