Blurring the Lines....

The supreme accomplishment

is to blur the line

between work and play.

~ Arnold Toynbee

Since stumbling into Blogland nearly

a year ago, I have been longing to take

photos as wonderful as those that

I've seen on some of my favorite blogs.

When I started writing Privet and Holly

last April, it was my birthday month and

my sweet hubby presented me with my

first DSLR camera to commerate the

big day and my new adventure.

For the next four months I stumbled

along, getting lucky with some shots

and many times, unlucky with others.

And, often, I didn't have a picture

in my own cache that adequately

expressed what I needed to say.

A baby's tiny feet.

An elderly couple walking hand in hand.

A dog happily riding in a pick-up truck.

So, I turned to my go-to source

for borrowing pictures that spoke

to me {and hopefully, to you},

Flickr and on occasion, Tumblr

or Google Images, too

Meanwhile I continued snapping

my camera eagerly wherever I went,

hoping to fill my coffers with inspiring

and expressive photos to enhance

my words.

All was going well until one 
fateful day in August.

I left my camera bag tucked under

an airline seat....and forgot it.

When {in panic mode} I realized in
the parking lot what I was missing, 

I immediately went back, filled out

the necessary paperwork to retrieve

it and waited, counting on the

goodness of humanity to deliver

my camera back to me.

I was to be disappointed in 
humanity, this time around.

And so, I limped along with my

old point and shoot through the

autumn months.  I brought

home a couple of different DLSRs

from Costco to try.  Amazingly,

the prices continued to go down

and down.

I finally purchased a new one in

December!  And even better,

enrolled in a digital photography

class with a super sweet friend.

{No, she is not the friend!}

This is the year that we are 
finally going to make sense of ISO,

aperture, shutter speed and everything

in between.....and move the

dial off of AUTO!

And we want to take YOU 
along with us.

Thus was hatched a series of 

eight Tuesday posts which will

explain our weekly homework and

share ten of the photos that

we have taken that week. 

The homework this week was

to play with aperture settings.  What

is aperture?  It refers to the size of

the opening in the lens.  The larger

the opening, the more light is

let in; the smaller the opening,

the less light.  Like the pupil

in your eye.  Or shutters on
a window ~ how wide they
are open to the light.

If you have an SLR camera,

the settings to control aperture

are called F-stops.  The lower

the  F-stop number, the  w  i  d  e  r

the lens opening; the higher the 
F-stop, the narrower the opening.

A lower F-stop produces
a nice, soft, buttery
background.....


{Hey, this is fun!}


Here's hoping it all 
comes together, soon.
With your help, it most
definitely doesn't seem 
like work.


Thanks for coming
along to play with me!


xx
Suzanne




{All of these photos were
taken by yours truly this week 
for my Ten for Tuesday assignment.}














http://farmgirlpaints.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-it-click