Above is a picture I took for Buzz.  He has converted all of his overhead transparencies to PowerPoint slides by having me photograph each picture.  Then he creates a slide from each picture in PowerPoint.

The whole process is actually very low tech.  We use a white piece of foam core on Buzz’s desk.  He holds the foam core at an angle so we don’t get a shadow from the lights in the ceiling.  I snap a picture.  Picasa does the rest.

In the Tuning tab of Picasa is a Highlights adjustment.  By cranking this up, all the edges of the paper and shadows go away and leave only the black ink behind.  It’s literally that easy.  I export the picture and it’s finished about ten times faster than a scanner could do.

Now if I could only figure out who this Sherman character is.

Here is a digital first, and yet another way a digital camera can be used. This picture of Obama was taken with a digital camera and is the first “official portrait” of a president-elect to be taken with a digital camera.

It was taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  You can see all the settings here.

The picture is credited to Pete Souza, but should automatically be in the public domain because Souza is working for the federal government when taking the picture.

 
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High school sports fans can be brutal.  The bleachers can be inches from the field of play and some fans do not know when to stop.  Coming from a family of teachers, most of us have coached at one time or another.

The latest incident involved a fan sitting right behind the coach, about four rows up (just out of reach).  This guy was screaming at the top of his lungs at the coach.  He was not about to stop until someone on the bench took out a camera.

One of the assistants simply turned around and started snapping pictures.  When you do something like this, you want to make sure the flash is working.  It won’t make the picture better, but it will telegraph the fact that you are taking pictures.  After you have the heckler’s attention, pull out a video camera and tripod.  Point it right at the guy.  No one wants to be the next YouTube doofus feature.

People act differently when they know a camera is pointed at them.  Shots are more candid when the subject doesn’t know the camera is pointed in his/her direction.  Check out the “super-secret spy lens” for your SLR.  This could be just as much fun as filming the heckler.
 

 
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