For some women, their camera scares them more than this image does. Here is one of the very most important things I can say to you about photography, there is no room for fear.

Fear is a beautiful thing. It can save your life when the scary bear comes tramping into your campsite and it tells you, “GET UP AND RUN”. Actually, that’s probably the worst thing to do when a crazy bear comes roaring into your camp, but it is a very powerful visual so let’s just stick with it for now. OK, how about you go out of town for ten days and your four teenage children have the house to themselves….How’s that for scary? This picture d-o-c-u-m-e-n-t-a-r-y material here. I am not going to say where or when this shot occurred, but you kids down the street know what I”m talking about. But your camera? Not scary.

In photography there is no room for fear. By having fear you only deny yourself the opportunity to learn and grow. There are no scary bears here. Sometimes my hair gets a big and crazy, but I am no bear unless it’s 3am and I can’t get my computer to cooperate. Moving on from bears, you camera is not a mystery that can not be unsolved. Your manual, on the other hand, was probably written by somebody with Asperger’s in Silicon valley who is ten times smarter than you and can’t relate sub genius intelligence. Being sub genius myself, I can relate to you and if I can figure it out so can you. I’m here to help translate. Photoshop is magical, but unlike Harry Potter, you don’t have to be born with something special, you can learn magic without being special, no wand needed.

In photography I love the philosophy of Smug Mug, “We Are All Peers.” That means we’re all learning together! In fact there is a song I could start singing right now, but you can’t hear me, maybe I’ll just sign it for you. Welcome to the the no fear zone.

My posts will often contain poor spelling, consistently awkwardgrammar and sentence structure with fabulously long sentences (my favorite kind) packed great information. I can’t be afraid of making those mistakes because having wacked my head pretty good and hard and sometimes writing after I’ve taken my Ambien, I simply can’t guarantee anything other than information I wished I had when I started out. If Pam Baumeister, editor from Wasatch Woman reads it, she might cry, but hopefully her desire for further enlightenment will ease her pain. Suffice it say, this will be a great place to overcome issues period. So let’s get started:)

Here are a few great links for camera lovers of all levels.

http://www.betterphoto.com ♥ – all levels

http://www.Iheartfaces.blogspot.com ♥♥- for those who love to take people pictures

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/ ♥♥♥ – more advanced, love love, love this place!

Welcome to my first blog entry for My Photographica.

In the video we announce the winner from the Start Up Princess Conference. Janice Croze from www.fiveminutesformom.com totally inspired me to make a video. Thank you luv!  Our winner will receiving a Deluxe Action Pack (worth $125 of software solutions) for your photos. It will be available next week for download. Joy from www.joyinthekitchen.com also contributed to the prize package and ladies make sure and watch it because Winner, she wants your business.  Yes my friends, I went to a Princess Conference. Really it was more about dumping Wendy and being The Pan than it was about wearing a dress. If you didn’t go, you missed out!

I will posting 3 times a week starting next week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Our store will be open next week as well. I look forward to geting to know you and sharing my passion of photography and preserving your memories with you.

Here’s a few great things I learned this week that I wanted to pass on. It’s not about still cameras but moving ones. I wish I had known this all ahead of time, If you have a DV video on tape and you want to download it to the computer from your camera you will need to make sure your computer has a fire wire cable. You will also need a 4 pin to 4 pin fire wire cable. After you upload the file to your computer you can use Windows Movie Maker (a free download for PCs),  or imovie for Apple which often comes installed or is available for a low fee. imovie is far superior and if you google it, you can find a free windows version (not sure how Apple feels about that).

After you’ve downloaded your movie and edited your movie, you will need to save it as an .avi or .MP4  format. Windows is stinky and sometimes won’t let you do this. You can go to Any Video Converter and convert your video. (http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/). This place will also convert your file to flash so if you want to run it as a stand alone on Word Press or your Website you can. Here’s a review of the top 10 video plug-ins for wordpress (http://wpfeed.com/2008/12/top-wordpress-video-plugins-available/). One of them includes editing capabilities online! You can then code your video into your html. Pretty awesome! If you need a host and player for your video on a webites or blog, youtube YouTube is a popular solution but even better is Vimeo, Vimeo, awesome! Vimeo has commercial restrictions for commercial use but it’s so much better than youtube. A lovely creative community of artists have made a platform for high quality video hosting and converting available. Thank you Vimeo. If you have pictures you like to produce into a video, Animotohas it hands down. You can now even do pictures and video together. The opening video on this site is an Animoto creation.  Jordan Borugh, a lead engineer for Animoto was in town this last week and I was lucky enough to meet him at a Smug Mug party that Zuma Photo hosted. I was very fortunate to  be able to be apart of a promotional video there at there at Zuma Photo which I will feature next week. I can’t believe I was in a movie!  You can be in a movie too now that you know all this.

 This is great information that I wanted to pass along to help you preserve your memories.