Category: Photography

It Snowed Little Yellow Flowers

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date March 17, 2021

The most difficult aspect of moving to Savannah (other than moving during a pandemic) is getting used to the weather.

You expect the hot and humid summers. But it’s the lack of clearly defined seasons that feels a bit off.

The Savannah temperature is mild in the winter. When it falls below freezing at night, it always warms to above during the day. There are times when you can go about in t-shirts and shorts, even close to Christmas. I had both roses and azaleas blooming late into December.

Christmas blooming azalea

Because there is no harsh winter, the spring doesn’t pop up like it does in more northern climates. Fall is a gradual process of browning, and Spring seems to be a gradual process of unbrowning.

That is, until you see the Carolina Jessamine bloom. You go for a walk one day and suddenly you see it everywhere: delicate, beautiful tulip-shaped flowers covering every tree and bush. It’s like Christmas, but in Spring: every tree is dotted with bright yellow flowers.

Carolina Jessamine vine

During the night when it rained and the wind blew, it snowed bright yellow pollen and little yellow flowers.

Fallen Jessamine flowers

Critters Photography

No Worries

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 26, 2017

two chimps in a tree

Tags Life

Photography

My first “zoom” set with Nikon Coolpix 900

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 9, 2015

Thanks to a little quick action, I was able to snag one of the extremely rare Nikon Coolpix P900.

I have a couple of Nikon DSLRs, but I was attracted to the concept of one camera for all purposes. Changing lens in the field gets tedious, and I’ve missed photos because I have the wrong lens on my camera.

I’ll have a more detailed review later, but I wanted to post my own set of “zoom” photos. These are from my backyard.

leaves in a distant tree from my deck

closer to the bunch of leaves

closer to the bunch

When I zoomed in, I was in for a surprise:

there's a bug on one of the leaves

Just Shelley Photography

This is my Mom

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date March 18, 2015

My Mom must have had over a thousand photos, some dating to the 1800s. It will take me months to scan them in and identify them. She had all my Dad’s WWII photos, her family, his family, and my brother and I.

I gave her a Nikon Coolpix years ago, when she expressed an interest in digital photography. Of course, she wasn’t that interested in getting a computer, so the Coolpix didn’t get much of a work out.

I grabbed it and the lenses when I was back there. It’s a fun camera and I thought it would be a good walk around camera. I tested it out when I got home.

Mom had one photo on the memory card. This is my Mom.

Photography Technology

Rent not to own

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date October 21, 2011

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have used Photoshop for years. I tried to use GIMP and UFRaw, and these are wonderful tools, but I’m comfortable with Photoshop. I like Photoshop.

Unfortunately, when I recycled my last Apple computer, I also lost my last copy of Photoshop. It was an older version, but still had what I needed. I looked at buying a few new version of Photoshop for my Windows 7 laptop, but the price of a new copy of Photoshop is beyond my means. And I don’t steal software, that’s not my thing.

Fortuitously for me, Adobe came out with a new way of acquiring Photoshop: instead of buying the application, rent it instead.

For a fixed monthly cost, you can rent a copy of Photoshop (or other high end Adobe product). How much the cost is, is dependent for how long you rent it. If you rent the application month-to-month, the cost is higher. If you rent it annually, the cost can drop a substantial amount.

The subscription plan is not the most economical way of accessing the software. The subscription cost is more expensive than just buying the software and the upgrades. However, for those organizations (or people) who just need a license for a temporary period of time, or people like me who don’t happen to have several hundred dollars lying around for a software purchase, the subscription plan does provide another option.

I signed up for a subscription for Photoshop and once a month, Adobe takes a bite out of my bank account. Hopefully, eventually I’ll have the income to buy the software outright. Or I’ll learn to live with GIMP. For now, though, the subscription does work for me.

Adobe isn’t the only “rent not to own” game in town: Amazon is getting into the rental business with Kindle books. I discovered the option when looking at a high priced book on zoos and animal rights (high, as in $108.00), Amazon is especially touting this option for textbooks, such as Sensation and Perception, 8th Edition, which sells for $116.76, but can be rented for $43.61 (and up, depending on how long you keep the book).

This is all old hat for O’Reilly, my book publisher for the last several years. The company provides access to many (if not most) of its books through Safari Online—a subscription based book site. The difference, though, is that you can download Photoshop or a Kindle rental book to your device(s) and access them offline. As far as I know, you have to access Safari Online, well, online. You can access the books through a mobile device, but you still have to be online. So Safari Online is less a case of renting the book, and more subscribing to a service. With Amazon, you’re literally renting the book.

The concept of “rent not to own” has its advantages: you don’t have to buy something you only need for a limited time, have to have the cash upfront, or charge the cost of the products to a credit card (which you most likely won’t pay off, anyway). The cost is fixed, and you know the price (and conditions) before you sign up. If your finances are erratic, you can rent month to month. Best of all, by not charging, you’re not giving interest to the bloodsucking banks.