Light Up Your Life

Imagine giving your favorite fisherman the gift of better catches, or gifting your teen with a toy that’s useful and fun. Imagine a gift that is appropriate for just about everyone – including yourself. Have you got someone on your gift list that is almost impossible to gift? If you’re stumped on a gift for just about anyone in your life, take a look at some of the newest LED gadgets meant for the desktop, glove box and pocket.

Coast has an excellent reputation for quality LED flashlights, and their newest addition just cements that sterling reputation. The V6 stainless steel 6-chip Lenser is only about three inches long, but it packs a powerful light beam that will never let you down. The V6 uses 6 bright white LED light chips to focus a beam of hot white light that can light up an entire room, or close to half a mile along the path in front of you. The V6 features a smooth, stainless steel body that is sleek and stylish, and comes in its own little pouch that easily attaches to your belt or a loop on your purse or backpack so that it’s always handy. It’s an ideal gift for anyone you know who is sometimes out at night, or who might find themselves in need of a little light now and then. The V6 Lenser offers all the advantages of LED flashlights – it’s powered by three AAA batteries that will give you more than 100 hours of illuminating power with just one set. The light is brighter and cleaner than the typical incandescent flashlight, and the body is comfortable and easy to carry. Buy one for anyone you know that travels, camps or drives at night.

How about a gift with a little bit of cute and a whole lot of useful? LED Moppels are exceptionally useful and quintessentially adorable. The Moppels are a line of LED lights that are more than just illumination. Each Moppel features a warm, white light for a head – but it’s their bodies that make them unique and fun. From the simply slither-ific Snake LED Moppel with a single, flexible arm to the futuristic Block Man Space Moppel with his handy alligator clip appendages, the Moppels are designed to sit and cling to desktops, dashboards, windows, tabletops – just about anywhere you might need a little light. The flexible bodies bend and twist in any direction so that you can shine a little light wherever you want it to go, and magnets and suction cups keep them exactly where you put them. Best of all, the little pseudo-action figures are darned cute without being girly, so they make great gifts for your favorite techie of any gender or style.

There are literally dozens of great LED toys and gadgets that make perfect gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people on your list. From outdoor lanterns to keychain illuminators, LED Lenser lights are high quality and durable, as well as stylish and unique. You’ll find LED outdoor gadgets that can help your fisherman lure more fish, light the path to the trailhead on a dark night or alert other drivers to your need for help. LED tower lights can call attention to a stranded hiker or serve as roadside flares – or just brighten a backyard.

When you’re looking for the perfect gift, let LED gadgets and novelties shed a little light on your search. You’re sure to find exactly the useful and unique gift for everyone on your list.

Making Memories

When you are driving through the mountains somewhere, & you notice a automobile parked half off the road & some guy leaning to the left to avoid a branch with his Rebel 2000 camera in the act of focusing, you have met a hot shot. To a hot shot a trip isn't fulfilling unless they have preserved that beauty for posterity. I'd like to share a quantity of the techniques that make scenic photography such a wonderful art form - simple, yet elegant.

First off, equipment. As much as the cheapo disposable camera beckons, get real. These cameras have fish-eye lenses or "spam" lenses. It crams everything in, with equal blurriness & boringness. Nice photos are sharp, unless you use blur for artistic effect. Sharp comes from an adjustable lens. It can be a fixed lens or a zoom, but it must focus specially for each picture. Fixed lenses are limiting for scenic pics, where to frame the shot you may require to move long distances. Imagine using a fixed lens on the Washington Monument, when you are half a block away! Zooms is best, even though we often don't have as wide an aperture, which limits their capabilities in low light situations.

Practically speaking, an SLR is the absolute best. we are lightweight, & can be used with top quality lenses. Film SLRs tend to be less expensive, but have the limitations of film, meaning you have to get it developed & so forth. Digital SLRs are VERY expensive, so for the budget-conscious either go with a film SLR or a high quality basic digital camera. With digital, resolution is also a critical factor, so look at the specs before you buy.

OK, we have got the camera, emotions are jogging high, & that's great, but not  great! sometimes we find a spot that's so wonderful, We start shooting like a madman, only to be disappointed by the pics. What happened? Emotions. When you experience a place, there are sounds, aromas & breezes as well as the visuals of the spot. Needless to say, you cannot photograph all of these elements, only the visual. When overwhelmed by the spectacle of a scenic hotspot, we are often overwhelmed by all of these elements.

Now, if we were a tad dishonest in saying that you cannot capture all of the elements of a scene. You can hint at them. For starters, motion. Yes, even in a still picture, there's motion. Something happened before, during & after your picture. In a mountain vista scene, you may find something that hints at motion, whether it be a branch of a tree that has been swaying in the breeze, or a river flowing through the valley below. These add a sense of motion.

So what to do? Look through your camera. The viewfinder does not lie (usually). Try to see what you are looking at as the finished picture. Most people perfunctorily take pics, hoping that somehow the shot will come out great. If you wonder how the pics came out when you are on the way to the drugstore to get them, you are doing something wrong. At the moment you click the pic, you should know exactly what you will get. (Of work with digital, that's not a trick!).

Then there's the "rule of thirds." When you place the main object of the picture smack-dab in the middle, it is static & boring. Place it one third of the way from either side, & you IMPLY motion. Put the horizon in a landscape photo a third of the way up or down, not across the middle.

Remember, when a person looks at a picture, their eyes move. You require to frame your photo to help that movement. If you can find some lines in the scene, such as a skyline, cloud formation, path through the forest, etc., use it interestingly, & with the rule of thirds to draw your viewer's eyes into the picture.

Avoid "summit syndrome." You get to the top of Mount Washington & shoot the majestic vista. Great. The pics come out .. boring! How? No PERSPECTIVE. Big vistas will be flat unless you have an object in the foreground, such as a rock or a tree, to give them perspective. Then the eye  grasps how big this scene is. People enjoying the view is a real winner, because the viewer may identify with their emotions, giving the image real impact.

Cheese! Yes, you do have to take the family photos. it is obligatory. But when you do, make sure that we show the location of the photo. Otherwise, you might as well do it on your driveway. Frame the scene in context, with landmarks as part of the picture. Find a way to tell as story in the picture, such as little Sara climbing up the rocks by the waterfall.

Finally, any element in the picture that hints at more senses than  the visual will make it remarkable. Actor headshots for example, tell a story about the subject. You can  hear them saying their next lines. If you photograph a garden, the viewer may experience the aroma of the flowers. A tourist street with an accordion player on the corner may have your amazed friends whistling "Dixie."

In summation, picture taking on travel is recording the experience in a satisfying way. Use motion, perspective, sensory, storytelling & so forth, to bring your photos to life. Oh, & needless to say, make your job easy & go to great places! See you at the overlook!