// July 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Libraries, Photography, Web Stuff, librarians
Libraries and librarians can make use of Creative Commons licensed works but must be careful to adhere to the terms of the licenses. Finding photos that have been licensed CC is the easy part: CC search is a part of flickr, Compfight and even Google Images search.
Read more at the TechSource blog.
// June 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Libraries, Photography
In sitting down to write Part 5 of this series, “Turning Images into Objects,” I realized I’d gotten ahead of myself. If you’ve beenkeeping up with this series, you’ll know that we’ve covered photography basics, what the modes on your camera mean, and ideas for using your camera creatively in the library. Before we can think about prints, greeting cards, business cards, stickers and other interesting and practical things that you can make from photos, you have to get them off the camera and onto the web. Simple, right? Well…. It can be, if you plan ahead a bit. Here are some tips that may help. Read More…
I use Flickr all the time personally, and my library has two accounts, a general library account and a University Archives account. Flickr has been around for a few years now, and librarians all over the world use it to share images from their personal and professional lives. Flickr is more than a great place to post and share photos with your community; it’s a community in itself, and a starting place for all sorts of activities. Read More…
// May 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Libraries, Photography
From photo booths to scavenger hunts, flickr is a great place to find ideas for using your digital camera at library events. Read more at the TechSource blog.
Yes, this photo is a gimme, but I love it! 
// May 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Libraries, Photography
I’ve been working today on a TechSource post about creative ways to use a digital camera in a library and have been wowed and awed by all the great programming that is being documented by libraries on flickr. There’s the usual–storytime, gaming events, Meet-the-Authors. My favorite so far is an event held by the London, Ontario Public Library: “Human Book.” Community members from all walks of life volunteered to spend a few hours at the library posing as “human books,” meeting with interested “readers” and telling their life stories. Regardless of how many books we circulate, articles we download, what matters most (IMNSHO) is the impact that we have on each other. Fabulously done, London PL.
// April 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Libraries, Photography
Cross-posted at ALA TechSource blog as Take Pictures, Tell Stories Part Three.
Modern digital cameras, whether small hand-held models or digital SLRs, often have more modes and options than the average picture-taker needs, but knowing a bit about how modes work can improve photos.
As explained in the previous post, three measurements work together to ensure a properly-exposed photo: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Most cameras have various modes that enable photographers to give weight to either shutter speed or aperture, while allowing the camera to dictate the other measurements. If you aren’t yet comfortable experimenting with aperture or shutter speed, you can try using some of the automatic modes. Ever wonder what those little icons on the settings dial mean?
Below is an explanation of typical camera modes:
Using portrait mode when taking photos of only one or two people, but switching to Auto or Landscape mode when shooting an entire room full of people may result in a better end product. The biggest secret in digital photography? Take as many photos as is required to get the shot that you like best.
Partially-automatic modes offer some control for the photographer. With aperture priority, the photographer sets the desired aperture, and the camera sets the shutter speed needed for a good exposure. Speed Priority or Time Value mode lets the photographer set the desired shutter speed, and the camera sets the aperture needed for a good exposure. Many digital cameras also have a fully-manual mode, but for point-and-shoot cameras, what “fully manual” means can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Typically, the camera’s built-in light meter will provide visual feedback as to whether the dialed-in setting will result in a proper exposure.
Up next: Fun with photos at library events
Photo courtesy Cats-eye-view; CC:by-nd
// March 31st, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Libraries, Photography
Cross-posted at ALA TechSource as Take Pictures, Tell Stories Part 2.
There are three measurements that work together to make up a properly-exposed photograph: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. These three measurements are to a large extent dependent on one another; changing one setting requires that at least one other be changed to compensate.
“Seattle Public Library” CC:by Jeff Wilcox.
ISO is roughly equivalent to what used to be the “speed” of film, but in digital terms, the ISO is the measurement of how much light has to hit the sensor for an image to be exposed properly. Lower ISOs are used in bright light; higher ISOs are used in low-light situations. Be aware that raising the ISO, particularly in older or less-expensive digital cameras, can introduce undesirable noise, or speckles, to images.
Understanding and knowing how to manipulate the other two measurements, shutter speed and aperture, can produce widely varying images. Changing the shutter speed can freeze action or introduce the suggestion of movement; varying the aperture dictates how much of the image–front to back–is in focus. The latter concept is called “depth-of-field.”
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is the measurement of how long the shutter is open and is usually expressed as a fraction of a second: 1/100, 1/13, 1/1000. Lengthening exposure time allows more light into the camera and captures the subject over a longer period of time. Decreasing shutter speed freezes action or movement, but slower shutter speeds require a brighter setting or a change in aperture or ISO to ensure the proper amount of light hits the sensor.
Take these two photographs, for example:
The photo on the left has a shutter speed of 1/13th of a second. The streams of water look smooth, and the people walking on the left in the background are slightly blurred as they walk by.
Now consider the photo on the right, of the same fountain, taken at 1/1000th of a second. The lines of the fountain no longer look smooth, and it’s not only possible to discern individual drops of water but to see the tiniest droplets that have bounced up off the surface.
Aperture
The aperture is the part of the lens that opens to let light into the camera. Also known as the “f-stop,” the aperture setting can vary in size, with subsequently larger openings (smaller f-stop numbers) letting in more light than smaller openings (which, confusingly enough, have higher f-stop numbers).
Consider the fountain images again. In order to capture the first one at 1/13th of a second, the aperture was stopped down to f22, the smallest opening possible for the lens used. The bottom image, captured at 1/1000th of a second, was shot at f2.2. Notice the crisp background in the first and the blurred background of the second. A small f-stop limits how much of the image is in focus and is great for portraits. A larger f-stop is good for group shots, like capturing a crowd at an event, or taking a picture of an entire room.
Depth of Field
Depth-of-field is an expression of how much of a photograph, from front to back, is in focus. Changing the aperture can result in two different images of the same scene:
The image on the left has a very narrow depth of field; only the flower’s petals are in perfect focus, as is a relatively small length of the tape measure. When the lens is stopped down to the smallest aperture, f22, the entire tape measure is in focus, as is the flower.
Setting a camera to capture a narrow depth of field is particularly useful in isolating the subject of a photo against its background, as in this photo of my fellow TechSource blogger, Jason Griffey:
Narrow depth of field is ideal for portraits, whereas wide depth of field is required to capture details in a landscape or interior, although narrow depth of field can be used effectively in architectural photography as well:
(Left: f20; Right: f3.2)
As mentioned above, changing the aperture changes the amount of light that it let into the lens. The shutter speed must be changed accordingly to compensate. Most of us rely on our cameras to make these adjustments for us, but here is where knowing a bit about how your camera works can help you dictate what sort of photos you get, instead of the other way around. For a more in-depth explanation of depth of field and its concomitant terminology, visit BernieCode.
Note also that the lion’s face in the photo on the left is slightly elongated. I haven’t yet researched why this is, but I suspect it has to do with differing focal lengths. These photos were taken with the same lens.
Applying these principles in your library
In a library setting, a higher shutter speed would let library staff capture fast-moving toddlers at storytime, while a slow shutter speed (and sitting the camera on a tripod or other stationery object) would make for a great night shot of the building.
I already mentioned that a smaller f-stop makes for great portraits or other photos where it’s necessary to isolate the subject from the background. A larger f-stop is not only great for group shots but for taking photos inside or outside the library building, for brochures or websites. We have exciting events and beautiful buildings; show them off with pictures!
One of the biggest advantages of digital cameras over film cameras is that it costs little-to-nothing to take dozens, even hundreds, of shots. Experiment with your camera by shooting the same scene, changing one setting at a time. Any digital camera will have different modes that allow the photographer to fix one value while varying another; it’s a great way to learn.
Up next: Cameras and modes explained
About the “Take Pictures, Tell Stories” series
// March 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // Photography, librarians
This summer, I had the pleasure and privilege of participating in a LITA Preconference session with Michael Porter and Helene Blowers titled, “A Thousand Words: Taking Better Photos for Telling Stories in Your Library.” Michael and Helene shared great tips for using and reusing photos to record and relate the stories of our libraries and our communities, and I explained and illustrated the basic principles of photography, and that pictures can be improved by understanding how these principles work together to produce a properly exposed image. There was a ton of content shared over the day; over the next few months, the “Take Pictures, Tell Stories @ Our Libraries” series will share some of this and other photo-related content with TechSource readers.
I’m thrilled to be able to share photography tips and tricks with TechSource readers. Part I of the series has been posted, and Part II is in the can, as they say. I’ll also repost them here. Have a photography question? Submit it as a comment on the TechSource blog, here, via twitter, Facebook, or send email to cindiann at gmail dot com, and I’ll try to help.
// February 6th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // My Kids, Photography, Random, Social Stuff, librarians
A snapshot of projects today that comprise the whole me.
Crochet: an afghan for a pregnant friend (25% done); an afghan for Miss 6 (95% done); an afghan for Miss 4 (65% done); an afghan for me (designed, yarn purchased).
Photography/Art: taking Art History 497, The History of Modern Art. We just finished lectures on French and German Expressionism from the first decades of the Twentieth century and will start on the Cubists next. Also taking ART 463 – Photography Independent Study, where I will produce a set of prints in the theme of “My Trees: the Tangency of Rural and Suburban”; write a paper of some kind on sequential photography; and uh, learn how to make digital prints. 
Post to flickr occasionally; shoot occasionally for work. Have literally thousands of 4×6 and other prints to put in albums. None have been printed since 2006 for this very reason! (small victory: I put photos from the 1930s – 1970s in an album this week!)
Writing: currently drafting an issue of Library Technology Reports on OpenURL and linking, with Jason Price. Write a monthly column (or 2 shorter ones, or a couple of photos) for ALA TechSource. Write this blog. Write a personal blog. Keep a personal data diary. Tweet endlessly. Post to Facebook occasionally.
Work: day-to-day management and coaching for four library staff (yikes, need to update that). Daily participation in library management and administration with fellow “Coordinators” (Administrators). Coordination of the UX Team and communication/coaching for its subgroups (OPAC, SFX, LibGuides, Usability, Web Design). Weekly liaison work: weeding, selecting, communication and reference with faculty and students; occasional instruction sessions; weekly LibGuides maintenance. Other Stuff As Assigned.
Entertainment: got caught up on 30 Rock, The Office, and Death Comes to Town (Kids in the Hall). Still watching the fourth season of Dr. Who. (Oh, David Tennant!)
Family and home: daily work and conversations with daughters and husband. This morning’s breakfast conversation with Miss 6 ranged from IEDs at Pakistani girls’ schools to vegetarianism in protest of mass-production of animal products (which we are going to try, together; we predict we will miss bacon) to tonight’s sleepover at Miss-Best-Friend 6’s house. Put laundry in the dryer, dishes in the dishwasher, helped Miss 6 make her first scrambled eggs. Ken listened with groggy fascination while drinking his coffee. Miss 4 spent this time in her room cuddling with her blankey and listening to a book on CD. I missed her.
I am happy.
(Another small victory: a year ago, I would never have used the phrase “the whole me” because I did not think I was, nor ever could be, whole.)
// January 28th, 2010 // 9 Comments » // Libraries, Photography, Random, Web Stuff, librarians
If you know me at all personally, you know that I have a dark side, and that dark side is prone to depression, despair and self-loathing. My problems have been so black—yet so fucking mundane—that there have been many times in my life that my only thought was escaping the pain. This tendency runs in my family, which makes me at once electrically fearful and fiercely vigilant for the psyches of my daughters. My purpose here is not to address the stigma of mental illness. I inherited bad brain chemistry; would you shame me for medicating my poor cholesterol? No. Moving on.
My outward confidence is a carefully-rendered house of cards, whole wings of which flutter to the ground after the merest of stumbles. I am stupid. I am ugly. I am fat. The sum of me is less than zero. Nothing I do or say is of any importance. We are all our own worst critics, but my hypercritical nature knows no bounds.
Until today.
Something happened this week that two years ago would have sent me into a weeks-long depression. It’s interesting to note that, this time, my inner voice has not withdrawn into a spiteful litany of self-loathing but has instead said, “Hey! Wait a minute. I don’t like being treated that way.” A first, after nearly forty years of spinning highs and crushing lows.
Earlier this week, one of my photos appeared in an online newsletter, with no accompanying credit. Fine, that happens—nearly every single time, I contact the author or other appropriate person, and they address it. I emailed the publisher, in this case, who responded almost immediately that they take their responsibility of crediting art and photography very seriously. A link back to my photos was added right away. Cool.
BUT, the photo in question—which clearly had been downloaded from flickr and posted as-is—was not only licensed Creative Commons – Attribution, it was also licensed Non-Commercial. Interpretations of all attributes of Creative Commons vary, of course, but the web page in question was not a mere blog post, it was an article published in a regular newsletter, by a very well-known industry publisher. Pretty clearly NOT “non-commercial.”
The publisher’s response to my inquiry was to add credit to the article, saying that they had been sent a jpg file of unknown provenance (ok, that happens sometimes, too), and—rather pointedly, I thought—leaving the question of the NC attribute completely unaddressed. “Ha! You are a meek librarian!” they roared. “We can have you for a song! You are worth nothing!”
Right. The old me would have quailed at this. Instead, I pushed on.
Meanwhile, I contacted the subject of the photo to let her know this was going on. She sent me the email that she had sent to the article’s author, which did not have a jpg attached to it, but had a link to the flickr page and listed my name as photographer.
Uh… what’s going on here? Wires crossed? Someone not owning up?
So, I pointed out the NC attribute and asked how they could address that, figuring the response would be something like “Oh, you’re right. Sorry, we can’t pay you, but we’d very much like your permission to keep the photo with the story.” Which I would have granted.
Instead, the response was: “I’ve taken the photo down.” The publisher reiterated that this was an innocent mistake; they had no idea about the rights status of the photo.
Yes, I am a meek librarian. They sure showed ME.
Screw that.
I let the publisher know that I was aware that they had been sent a link *and* my name, and that I was disappointed that this happened. The response: We have acted in good faith. We have taken the photo down. What more can we do?
That’s a good question—what do I want here? I don’t want money. I don’t want the photo reinstated, though I would be fine with that. What do I want? I think I want to get to the bottom of the story, the culprit of which I suspect to be carelessness rather than malice. I can imagine the reporter honestly not remembering the contents of the email sent by the photo’s subject, after having clicked the link, downloaded a satisfactory image and sent it on without another thought. I can imagine—and I understand and support—the publisher inquiring and believing the reporter assurances. We are all busy; there was a deadline to meet. I cannot imagine that there is any deliberate lying here, or covering up.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story as I await a conclusion and reflect on what this means for redefining the sum of me.
// February 3rd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Photography, Random
If you follow me on twitter, you know that I’ve struggled with cell phone handsets over the last year. In December 2007, I bought the LG Voyager from Verizon Wireless because of its 2-megapixel, auto-focus camera, touch screen and flip-open QWERTY keyboard. I loved the Voyager, except for one little feature: occasionally and randomly, it would turn itself off and on again. This usually happened in the middle of a call. Not good. To make what could be a very long story short, I had four Voyager handsets with the same problem before giving up and asking Verizon to send me a different model, the LG EnV-2. Two of the Voyager models I had also had less-than-responsive touch screens (which probably could have been fixed by re-calibrating them, which I didn’t think of until it was too late), and the instant messaging application on the most recent one I had worked very sporadically: contacts were inconsistently marked online and off, messages would not be received or delivered at random. (NB: I still have this problem with the EnV-2; it seems to go away if I turn off “IM forwarding” in the Yahoo IM app.)
With the phones side-by-side, you can immediately see that the EnV-2 (left) is smaller than the Voyager:
The EnV-2 is not only shorter than the Voyager, it weighs less and is thinner enough that I notice the difference when I stuff it in my pocket:
You’ll also notice from the above photo that the Voyager (top) has a third button on the side. The sliding toggle in the middle unlocks the touch screen; it takes the press of a key to unlock the EnV-2. I miss the unlock button occasionally, but honestly, it was mostly a frustration on the Voyager–when trying to lock the phone instead of waiting for the touch screen to time out, I would inevitably hit the camera button (left). So it’s probably not a big deal that it’s gone. I do find myself locking the EnV-2 by opening and shutting it quickly, instead of waiting for the screen to time out.
I was initially worried that the EnV-2’s smaller internal screen would be frustrating to use after the relatively generous space of the Voyager:
So far, it hasn’t been a problem, though I find myself using the camera less. I’m not sure it’s related to anything other than the fact that it’s been below-freezing out every day but one or two since I got it: many photos I take with my phone are outside. I recently joined the daily-photo site Momentile; I hope this changes how frequently I use the camera.
The biggest difference is the keyboard:
The EnV-2’s smaller form-factor dictates that the keyboard be smaller. The phone feels slightly cramped and less comfortable in my hands than the Voyager did, something I didn’t really realize until I picked up my final Voyager again to return it to Verizon. “Oh, that *is* better,” I remember thinking. Someone with smaller hands than I would probably have trouble hitting individual keys. YMMV. I’m used to the keyboard now, though I haven’t quite committed to muscle memory the shortcuts I need most: Messaging and IM.
I do find myself using the itty-bitty screen on the front more than I used the wonky touch screen. Text messages are short enough, and I get few enough of them at this point that it’s manageable.
To their credit, Verizon’s customer service and technical support folks were stellar each time I talked to them. They always sounded interested in the problems I was having, genuinely sympathetic, and never bored. That’s a pretty amazing thing, considering the fact that I called probably a dozen times over the last 12 months.
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