New Hair Gadget

I have invested in a new hair gadget I didn't know I cannot live without - a socalled Sculpture Pin Curler":

Look at the nice vintage box it comes in.

It is simply a plastic tube with a comb in each end, which you use to curl your hair with, when you make old-fashioned pin curls you sleep in. You also get a nice little bookled with tips and coiffures:

I have never tried making pin curls before with my fingers, but this tool is really easy to use and I also slept fine with all the bobby pins. Here is the finished result - please ignore the grumpy old lady and only admire the curls, there is a reason I always stay behind the camera:

Veronika Lake go home! Or not exactly. I pin curled my hair dry and only sporadiccally sprayed some setting lotions in it, I think I should have used more. But it is curled and since it is my first try ever, I think it is quite good.

You can buy the tool here: Vintage Hair.

Monroe Monday

Nail Copy

At the ferrry to Germany I bought OPI's "Piroutte My Whistle", a really special glitter polish with small shiny glitter pieces and larger matte ones. But I had to have something under it, so I also bought Color Clubs "Take Me to Your Chatau", which looked like a pale baby blue in the bottle. It surprised me a bit since it became a quite bold swimming pool blue on my nails. A few days later I bought some French stickers which were of very bad quality. They broke when I put them on my nails and did not stick to the nails, but DH thought it looked lovely:

So on his fifties birthday garden party I asked him which nails he wanted me to do - he wanted a copy of the awful sticker nails. I think my copy looks nicer than the "original":

Monroe Monday

Photo Order

Last week I wrote about taking photos manually vs automatic and I mentioned that I take a lot of photos and also delete a lot of them. Because the problem with digital photos, in my openion, is that most people do not sort them and you really have to or else your drown.

Many years ago I have invented this tree-structure in my photo folders:

Photos
     2012
          2012-08-12_Harzen_vacation

I have a main folder named Photos, which is on the harddisc I save all my files on. I have two harddiscs - one I install on and one I save files on. Under this folder I have the years and under these I have the ISO-format for dates so the order is always correct. I don't use Danish letters and spaces in my filenames, because I'm an old it-nerd. I use underscore (_), but perhaps it doesn't matter anymore. This way it is very easy to make a backup, since I only have to copy the main folder named "Photos".

When I have copied all the photos from my memory card to a folder like the one above, then I start sorting - the first sorting is easy. The first ones to go are wrong shots and these are also the ones that are over og under exposed. Delete, delete! Then I go through them all again a few more times, and now I delete photos in which people look stupid (I would thank others for doing this) and photos that are unimportant. I often ask myself if I would look at this in ten years? If not - away to the bin it goes. Many photos are not saying anything - they also have to go. And then there are all those I have been experimenting with - I can sit for long and change back and forth before I decide which one I keep. I do read the "Properties" of the photos by right-clicking and read its "Details", so I learn something from my experimenting.

I hope I have inspired you to sort out and keep your photos in order, so your photos also will be interesting for others and yourself in ten years. :)

Hey! Did you notice? A post about photos - without a single one. That's not good, so here is a decent one of me (thank you, sis) wearing my nice vintage dress at DH's fifties birthday garden party:

Monroe Monday

Manual vs Automatic

I love to take photos. I will never say I'm an expert, but I can see the motifs and I think it is important. I take a lot of photos and delete about 50 to 70% of them, because I experiment a lot with manual settings. I have two cameras: a Canon EOS 450D, the one DH gave me for Christmas. I specifically wanted the 450 model since it was the model all the nerds on the internet praised. I have bought a great all-round lense, a Canon 18-200, which can be used for almost everything. I have also bought a big flash and close up lenses, so now I don't need much more. But it is big and heavy and not always practical to carry with me, so I have also invested in a small Canon Ixus 310, and since the photo shop had to order it especially for me I decided on a pink one. :)

It is smart because it can take semi-manual photos. I use AV a lot, which is diaphragm prioritized, which often can make a huge different combined with correct ISO settings, look at this:

The custom Trabant is shot at the parking basement of our hotel at automatic settings - deadly dull.

Here it is shot with ISO 800 and a little  diaphragm :

This is completely different and this is what it looked like in real life. The problem with a little diaphragm and high ISO is that you have to practice holding the camera very still because else the photo will be blurred. Here a tripod is great but how often do you carry such one with you?  But if you stand solid on both feet, hold the camera with both hands and your elbows in to your body, take a deep breath (and hold it) and shoot - then it most likely will be a good shot.

I have attended two photo courses, the first one held by a young guy who was really talented, but unfortunately he was not a talented teacher, so I only became more confused. A few years later I went again and then I saw the light - now I photograph manually.

If you want to read about basic photo technics Sophie has written a great text about it. (In Norwegian and English).

Monroe Monday