Wednesday, June 22, 2016

A dark, dramatic sky and a new project



This is last night's moon. Aren't the clouds dramatic? They look painted. This was right after the Strawberry Moon on the 20th. What's neat is that this Strawberry Moon fell on the same date as the summer solstice. I read that this is so rare, that the last time it happened was 1948!


The wind and the clouds were moving fast, which made things even more dramatic.



Eventually, the clouds covered the moon entirely which led to my favorite shot of the night:


Doesn't that look just a bit like a jack-o-lantern face?

To my surprise, my camera zoomed to 80x. I thought it would only go to 39x for some reason, so I was thrilled that it kept going and I got this one:


You can really see those craters on the right side of it.

I had been working on a blog post after a recent trip to the museum, but that isn't entirely done yet. Hopefully it will be soon. I photographed some cool and spooky old African artifacts there, but researching them is taking some time. I'd like to be able to actually tell you guys about them!

Besides researching those artifacts, I also haven't been blogging much because most my online time has been going toward other things like playing around with recording my voice and learning about making videos. It has been my goal for a long time now to do some recordings and get them on YouTube and after a few months of research, I'm finally getting around to figuring this all out!

Anyway, I thought I'd check in with a quicker post than what I'd been planning just to make sure I made an appearance! It's been a long time since I've been blogging and I didn't want to drop off the face of the earth.

I'd like to chat with anyone who has some tips or ideas before I go into doing the recordings/videos. I might have some questions for those of you who already have YouTube channels.

I'm thinking right now of an old time radio theme. Something like the spooky old shows and stories from the 40s that I enjoy listening to. Any suggestions of what you might like to hear?

http://www.animatedimages.org/data/media/599/animated-radio-image-0083.gif

14 comments:

  1. I love the idea of a spooky radio show! :) I bet that's something you could turn into a podcast as well with just the audio.

    Loving your photos - what kind of camera do you use for these shots?

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    1. Miranda ~ Great! Thanks for letting me know. :) Do you ever listen to the old radio shows from back in the day that have been posted online? I agree that what I've been thinking about could become a podcast. I'm just starting with what I'm most familiar with for now. I know how to get a video on YouTube, but as far as presenting a podcast, I don't know. But the visual aspect is cool too. I'm just thinking about a still image or two to have up while I'm talking.

      Thank you for your compliments on the photos! :) I am using a Canon Powershot SX260 camera. I just double checked the zoom info and read that it has a "20x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom and 80x combined zoom" So I guess what you're seeing with that up-close pic of the moon is as far as it can go. Here I was wondering if I could zoom it even more. :) But this is pretty darn amazing as it is! I never thought I'd get pics from this far away with such a small camera.

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  2. Beautiful images as always Justine! The ones of the craters especially. In Canada it was also Aboriginal Day, which I thought was cool too.

    Do you have a Mac? If so I highly recommend iMovie. My videos have slowly been getting better and I'd be more than happy to help in any way.

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    1. Shanon ~ Thank you! :) I was surprised that those craters showed up so well. That may be the most clear crater shot I've gotten yet. Aboriginal Day too! There was a lot going on that day. I looked up National Aboriginal Day. That's pretty cool. Did you end up at any festivals or events in honor of that day?

      I do have a Mac and I do have iMovie. So far, I haven't done much with it aside from making some videos of trips and putting them on DVD. I may be more likely to record on an Android tablet I have because I can take that anywhere. But I get that the editing would be a lot better with iMovie.

      I would love to have some of that help if a question comes to mind! Thanks for offering! I watched your last video with the ghost story and will be writing you an email about that one. Add it to the list of emails coming your way. ;) But I figure I should start a separate one to go with your story. Great job with the transitions on that, by the way! It was seamless from one scene to the next. Great visuals. I was thinking as I watched that video that I'm in a similar mindset to what you're doing there. I mean theme/vision-wise. Anyway, I'll be writing you more about the ghost story itself!

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    2. Thanks for the compliment Justine :)
      Feel free to ask any questions you want and I will try to help. It sounds like from your email that you have things pretty figured out though! If you can upload the video to your Mac it shouldn't matter what device it was originally recorded on.
      Aboriginal Day was good and I did go to an event that was happening here in Nanaimo. Some food, music, dance and sharing. It was very informative and I was happy to show my support.
      Hope you're having a great week :)

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    3. Shanon ~ You're welcome! :) Well, I have things pretty well figured out for where I need to be right now. But there might be some video questions coming your way as I learn more. It seems the more a person learns, the more questions there are! And vice-versa. I do really appreciate your offering to help me with this!

      That's cool that there were events for Aboriginal Day for you to check out and learn from. If we have something like that here, I don't know about it. Although, we do have Indian Summer in September: Indian Summer Info

      I'm doing well, pretty busy as you can probably tell from my lack of writing! One day, you'll get a bunch of emails. ;)

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  3. That absolutely looks like a JOL!!! I'm looking forward to your YouTube channel!

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    1. Midnyte Reader ~ Yeah! I know, right? I painted a jack-o-lantern face in some clouds once, so how cool to see it for real! Even those little round parts in the "eyes". That's the way I even cut them.

      Thanks! I'll keep you all posted as I get going with the videos.

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  4. Sounds great, cant wait to see what you come up with. Pictures are very nice too!

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    1. The October Boy ~ Thank you! :) I'll keep blogging as I learn more and keep updating everyone. I'm looking forward to seeing what I come up with too. ;) Hopefully, it will match what's in my mind!

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  5. Yes, we've had a lot of cool moons lately. That top one is really horror movie quality. I love those spooky moons. I always want to take pics but I really don't have the equipment. So it's nice to see your pics! Thanks for sharing :)

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    1. Matt ~ Thanks! Yeah, that's what I was thinking too while I was out there. Especially with it being so quiet. I thought "This feels like a movie!"

      Oh, I don't have much equipment at all - just that small digital camera. I bet you could get some amazing photos with your ipad, especially if you had some way to steady it. Is there a zoom on the camera that came with it? I've seen the kind of quality an iphone camera can capture. Sometimes there are ads on the back of magazines with this beautiful full page image and it says "taken on an iphone". I was blown away by the quality! So the ipad probably has similar capabilities?

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    2. Yeah, I've taken lots of moon shots but the moon is either just a speck, or with zoom, it's blurry. It's good at close distance though. How's the picture quality of your tablet?

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    3. Matt ~ Yeah, I know what you mean about the blurry shots with the zoom. Especially when it's a windy night. I'm not sure why, but that seems to make a difference. Maybe it's that the clouds are moving around.

      I haven't taken too many photos with the tablet yet. Just a few and a short video to experiment. So far the quality seems good, but not as good as what I get with my camera. The color on the tablet's photos seems super bright for some reason, but that's probably something I can adjust.

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