Less Time Blogging Does NOT Mean Less Time Photographing!

Some photographs of birds over the past month or so from our balcony...

 Blue Jay in Black and White

 Caught this bird at the right moment!!

 Dueling Birds

More posts to come!

National Coffee Day...is TODAY!

Yep, that's right. Today is National Coffee Day 2011! Althought some places said it's International Coffee Day 2011. Not sure many are celebrating - although Caribou is offering buy one get one free, 7-11 was offering free coffee until 11am, and Krispy Kreme offered some sort of free coffee as well. The Washington Post Blog had a little snippet here.

I'm not sure that Americans need a "special day" to drink coffee, right? Most people that drink coffee have it most days and those that don't aren't going to drink it on this nominally special day. But hey, since I drink coffee most days, might as well celebrate...

In honor of NCD (that's what celebrators call it nowadays obviously) here are some places where I have enjoyed a memorable cup of coffee (that I can remember)...

Costa Rica - enjoyed coffee at a hotel, bought 2 lbs of coffee in a market in San Jose, and 3 years later enjoyed Costa Rican coffee on my Honeymoon in Papagayo...

Kenya - big tea drinkers/producers but I enjoyed both in Nairobi...

Haiti - strong and sweet, almost syrup-like sometimes! Gives you enough caffeine for 3-4 days. My friend Thony said he doesn't like to drink it everyday or else he gets a little crazy and then gets headaches.

Go celebrate. Drink some coffee. Most of you already have and/or were already planning on getting your second or third cup today probably. I might go enjoy one cup today, since I've noticed that two cups gives me a headache! At least at Starbucks...

Let Me Explain Myself When I Say "I Coupon..."

First of all, I am sorry to not have posted for a while...I guess with all the busyness of my photography website and placing ads and such, I forgot! But here we are, with a post that's sure to please.

So I have been couponing for our family of 2 since the summer. At first it was just a little, now it's a lot more. Once you start, it is just as they say and it is difficult to compell yourself to buy something at full price, even when you actually need it! Most of me just wants to go print an online coupon or wait until there's a sale, but oh well.

I considered starting a coupon blog, but am not sure I will yet - should I?! There aren't many male couponers out there as you probably thought - I am reminded by the female cashiers EVERY TIME I check out! For now I will show one of them success stories from Tuesday. So first here's the list of what I got and I'll explain WHY and HOW MUCH I PAID below!

9 Boxes of the largest size of Honey Nut Cheerios (21.6 oz) - $5.93/each retail
4 Bengay Pain Relieving Cream (2 oz) - $5.49/each retail
4 small bags of cat treats - $1.49/each retail
1 Publix Premium Honey Wheat Bread - $1.89 retail
1 Safety Matches (10 count, 32 per box) - $1.15 retail
1 Cantaloupe - $2.99 retail
1 Mission Fajita (Package of 20) - $2.69 retail
1 Family Size Box of Kleenex Tissues - $2.49 retail
1 "Body Puff" aka Loufa for my lovely wife - $1.69 retail

Ok so all of that and I was actually charge twice for the matches, but it wasn't worth going back for the $1.15 and here's why:

Total cost of all items at retail:
$53.37
$21.96
$5.96
$1.89
$1.15
$2.00
$2.69
$2.49
$1.69
TOTAL = $93.20

So...what did I pay?!? Well You'll be glad to know that with the sale prices of a few of the items and over $55 worth of coupons I paid $11.62. Now the items I need to explain...

Cat Treats - they were completely free. The coupon was for one free Crave Cat Treats (I had 4 of them) and I take Christina on cat walks - not the dangerous kind, just the ones around our neighborhood to search for strays for her to love on since I am allergic and would die in an apartment with an animal I'm allergic to!

Bengay - I had a $5 manufacturer coupon and a $2 Publix coupon - so yes, I actually made money off of "buying" them. $1.49 each. You didn't know you could?! Check your store's coupon policy. I have "bought" only packs of gum and walked out with more money than I walked in with. Worth it.

HUGE HONEY NUT CHEERIOS! Well this is my fun one. I had a rain check from a week or two before when the item was actually on sale for $2.99. Silly Publix had a $2 off only that size that expired 9/30, so of course most bought it for $0.99 - great deal. However I had coupons giving me an additional $0.33 of each, making them $0.67! But they were out of stock every time I went. So I got a rain check - another thing you should do! Then this past weekend I found new Cheerio's coupons which would give me $0.50 off each box up to 8 boxes. So I ended up getting 6 boxes for $0.49 and the other 3 for $0.67. Wow! Since Christina and I PLOW through cereal like it's our job, we will have no trouble finishing them.

So there you have it. Now, whether "couponing is cool again" is true or not, I'm still siding with it's not so "cool," but it is definitely WORTH IT! Start couponing. You won't regret it. Where do you get coupons? I buy 4 Sunday newspapers at $1.25 each so that factors in $5 a week on getting coupons. I also print from online sources like Target (an accepted competitor at my Publix), Coupons.com, Red Plum, and Smartsource. Follow some blogs of local coupon fanatics in your area and it will be super helpful. Sometimes it's hard to find someone close, for instance some of the blogs I check out are in Georgia and that means I often go to the store and the item is not on sale or not the same price. I have another great shopping trip coming up for cereal, I might be getting it for free...if they don't run out!

Since you're reading all my my math and couponing story, take a minute to head over to my wife's blog, it's not about couponing and doesn't have math and it's awesome and she will be a famous blogger.

Happy Thursday!

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New Domain! BrettBeckerPhotography.com

As you may have noticed in my previous two posts, I started watermarking with "Brett Becker Photography" and some of the new BIG NEWS is I also registered my domain name http://www.brettbeckerphotography.com/ - don't get too excited just yet! It will bring you right back here! But there are some exciting things in the process and will hopefully be unveiled soon. So in the meantime, take a look around and enjoy all the photos I have on this blog already!

But it means there are two ways to get here for now:
http://www.brettbeckerphotography.com/
and
http://lettherebelightphoto.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, here is a photo of my parents from a family wedding last year (such a good looking couple, right?!):

I'll tell you this...since I am now editing with Adobe Lightroom 3, Blogger does NOT do my photos justice. I think they look so much better before they get loaded and compressed into Blogger! But that's okay, I realize that Google is high-powered and all, but not enough to put full-size, all-the-millions-of-pixels-photos on my blog time and time again. There's only so much space I guess!

3 for 3 this week (Monday-Wednesday posting) - not bad!

A New Camera, A New Photographer, A Not-so-New Model!

BIG NEWS!

It has come - the time to upgrade to a new camera. It is an exciting time! There is some more news that will be coming along with it (good news of course), but it's not quite at sharable status yet. So stay tuned! But in the meantime, I enjoyed taking my Canon 7D out for a "get to know you date" with my lifetime date (aka wife) to get to know how to use the 7D a little better - and of course enjoy time with my wife. Having my Rebel XTi for 4 1/2 years had me so used to the settings, how to change things quickly and make them the way I wanted, I was so used to the weight and size, and everything changes with the 7D. In order to do the very same things, I had to read the owner's manual...the OWNER'S MANUAL! You think, "Who even reads those anymore??" Well, I read a lot of it. It's very informative and a good reminder of settings, but more importantly I needed to actually LEARN how to change the settings quickly, rather than the slow way which I had figured out easily.

Short story long, here are some photos I took of my beautiful wife Christina - we went down to South Beach Miami (look for my next post) and walked around for the day. It was 95 degrees...and humid of course. So it's not a photographer's dream to be sweaty and trying not to drip all over his camera, nor is it fun for a model who is also sweating. These shots were taken after cooling down for a good half hour or so in a coffee shop, enjoying cold drinks and VERY cold a/c (Florida knows how to keep things cool!), so we weren't too bad by now!

Since we were both pretty unfamiliar with South Beach - as far as finding cool spots to take photos - I tried to keep my eyes peeled for some good ones. I definitely like this one we found (above). This is along the sidewalk that follows the beach - I wouldn't really classify it as a boardwalk. But this short wall added some cool dimension to the photo and elevated my beautiful subject, which also helped remove the people walking and cars behind her.

Here's my new photographer! Christina now tells me this is her camera (the XTi). It mostly is, unless I need a backup! I'm so excited to help teach her how to use it at a more advanced level, since she already knows the basics. She'll be a pro in no time.

I don't think I can pick a favorite between this photo and the first on this post. She is SO beautiful! Stay tuned for a post about South Beach!

Fun with Photos...and video?! And a business card?!

Since there was a quick rainstorm just a few minutes ago I decided to take a few photos. I also wanted to try a little time-lapse-style video with some of the photos. So here it is! Nothing special, I will probably try again and use more photos which will make it a little better - oh and also do it horizontally of course so it's not a pain to watch. I have never posted a video on my blog, since this is a photography blog, so don't be too disappointed!

I also played around with the idea of a business card - for my photography of course. So I will show you what I came up with! I would absolutely love to upgrade my camera to a Canon 7D, but until I either have a good job or make money off of my photography, that will not be happening! I was reading a blog the other day that recommended upgrading photo equipment every year if you work professionally...but I don't so here we are going into my 5th year! In the meantime I will enjoy my Rebel XTi, and though it has passed its 4th birthday, it is still doing well! The photos in the video above were with my favorite and best lens, 50mm f/1.4 - which has also done me wonders with portraits. Anyways, the business card....

 Front 

The real reverse has my phone number on it so
might as well keep that to myself! But here
is a version without my phone number!

I printed a few out just for fun. The cardstock I used is not quite as thick as a business card normally is and it is slightly gray in color, but I added a little tab just to see what it looked like...any thoughts? Part of me thought it looked good, then I put it down and thought it looked random and out of place. So I don't know - obviously it would be a lot of work to put it on every one, but I tried just for fun! Here are photos of the front and back I took...

Don't mind the colors, they look a little different in person than on the screen and there was no need to edit them to look like they should! I guess I could figure out some kind of logo to put on that little tab - then it would probably look cool. Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated! Otherwise, I am hoping to get a great photo of lightning sometime soon. Florida has so many thunderstorms, which is great for people who like thunder and lightning and rain (like Christina and I). If it weren't for all the mosquitoes, we would probably be on our balcony every time there is a thunderstorm. But there have been some great *potential* lightning photos, but no successful ones as of yet. I'll keep you updated!

NEW Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital - Officially Open to the Public Today!

In honor of the official first day of seeing patients, I wanted to share a couple more photos of inside the brand new hospital - part of Memorial Regional Healthcare System. The doors opened at 7 a.m. from what I heard and I'm not exactly sure when they started moving patients from the old hospital to the new hospital, but it was probably sometime this morning!

3rd Floor - Imaging Service

Child Life Specialist explains the play CT scan
machine - rumored to cost about $20,000! The scan
can be pushed in (usually with a teddy bear on the bed)
and the screen will show a "photo" of the bear's heart,
brain, or lungs - the photos are on a loop. I think I
should get into the medical play toys industry.

This is one of the opertaing rooms at JDCH - this is a panoramic
photo that didn't come out perfectly, but still looks cool!

Above is the Oncology holding room - with a little play area/lounge

Check my previous post for more photos of inside of the Hospital and July 16th's grand opening celebration...
Let There Be Light Photography: Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Grand Opening Celebration SATURDAY! JDCH Hollywood, FL

Summer Favorite's: Weddings and of course Food, Drinks, and Delicious Desserts

I'm back! It has been over a month since blogging, but at least I can say I am a married blogger now! I will post a photo from the wedding first. We are waiting for the rest of our photos to be finished by our photographer - summer is a busy time for photographers!! Keep an eye on Facebook and joellewattunscripted.squarespace.com for the photos - or just check out Joelle's awesome work in the meantime.

Photo by Joelle Watt

Summer is full of weddings. My WIFE and I moved to Florida, so it is proving difficult to attend most of the weddings we have been invited to. Our friends Josh and Whitney got married last week in DC and this coming weekend our California friends Brycen and Marian are getting married. I am close with Brycen's family and his mom, Terri, let me know that they have somewhere around 400 guests attending. FOUR HUNDRED!!! WOW! If they weren't such a cool family, I would question their sanity. Clearly they have plenty of friends and family, but Chrissie and I really wish we could go! Especially since her parents randomly decided to vacation in San Luis Obispo this week for a few days. I love California...surprise!

We also have my brother's wedding coming up one month from today - well, it's on the 13th, not on a Wednesday haha - so we will be heading up to good ol' Long Island for that...we are excited for our first visit with my family and hometown as husband and wife. Here are Katie and Kyle...

Photo by www.NYOccasion.com

Speaking of California, as I often enjoy reminiscing of California, here are some photos for my official SUMMER post. Since food is a favorite thing to enjoy over the summer, and pretty much all year long, I am posting a few photos I took at the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Farmer's Market, which is on Higuera St. in San Luis Obispo, CA every Thursday evening/night. It was one of my favorite things to do when I lived in the area. I'm posting photos of vegetables since one of the photos later will make you think my wife and I only eat the "food of the month" for July...

So slat-blinds are pretty ugly. And when you are renting your apartment, there is really nothing you can do about it. However, I realized that they make this shot of the wine bottle and glasses of wine look really cool. Taking pictures of liquids will usually make whatever is behind it look cool, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The perfectionist in me wants to retake the shot with equal amounts of wine in the glasses...oh well. The photo of the bottle of beer is actually from a while ago when I was on my friends sailboat in Massachusetts. I had my long 75-300mm lens on and saw this beer further up on the boat and it made a cool photo - very summer-ry!

Iced tea is delicious. If you know my family - especially my parents and grandparents - iced tea is a staple drink when going out for lunch or dinner. One of them will ALWAYS ask the following question, "Is the iced tea freshly brewed?" Many of you are thinking "Who are these people? who cares if it's freshly brewed?!" I can defend them saying that mixed iced tea or drinks like "Brisk" are an abomination to true iced tea. If you are from the south, you will say "How could it not be fresh? Everyone has fresh sweet tea...even fast food chains." All that to say, iced tea is a staple summer drink, and if you live in Florida I can vouch for the Publix Deli: Sweet Iced Tea. It is delicious...and when they are buy one get one free I usually buy 4 and that lasts us until the next sale (They cost about $1.40 per gallon when on sale). And by "us," it is mostly just me drinking a lot of iced tea! Oh, and I like to add fresh lemon.

Ok, now on to the good stuff. In the Becker household, we love desserts. Both of our families also love desserts. Christina made these delicious caramel layered fudge brownies the other day. I will probably enjoy the last little sliver sometime today, since looking at this photo and talking about desserts make me want to eat it. I told Chrissie she needed to leave a middle piece so that I could take a fancy photo of her delicious brownies...she cooperated so I have this delicious looking photo...

Also, my sister-in-law and famous blogger, Lauren (of Health on the Run), informed me that July is "National Ice Cream Month." So in honor of it being July we have 6 cartons of ice cream in our freezer. Now you say "But Brett, you said you just found out, right?" Well you are correct, so we actually already had that many in our freezer, but now we have an excuse...right?! Either way, we love our ice cream, so I had to take a photo to prove it...it's all because of sales at the grocery store and being smart-couponers! Flavors inside: S'mores (Edy's), Cookie Dough (Edy's), Cookies & Cream (Publix Brand), Mint Chocolate Chip (Publix Brand), Dulce de Leche (Publix Brand), and Mocking Island Fudge Ice Cream (Publix Brand). Now, you'd think that store brand ice cream isn't good, right? WRONG! It is delicious.

Happy summer - I'll have plenty more photos coming soon and will be better about posting...promise!

Weekend Wedding: Palm City, FL Part III - Reception

So I went up to Massachusetts to good ol' Gordon College for my sister's graduation - so before I post those photos I have this post and one more of the family wedding from a week and a half ago! Enjoy!

 

 Kyle preparing for his bestman speech!

Kyle delivering the speech to the newlyweds!

Our last wedding being engaged!

Almost sisters!

Future daughter-in-law and mother-in-law!

 

Hummel cousins

Many of the ladies in the family doing a dance...

Mom and Aunt Robin

Mom and Lauren

Grandma and Uncle Kurt

Answer to Yesterday's Poll (AKA Night Photography) and Some Fresh Photos from Today!

APPARENTLY some people were "afraid" to vote because they thought they might be wrong! Well that's okay, but next time you definitely don't need to be afraid, especially because the vote is completely anonymous. But to those who voted, thanks for your participation! As Sarah pointed out to me, I actually tagged my Twitter post with "#nightphotography" so if you caught that, well done!

So yes, this photo was taken at 11:30pm. That may shock some of you and any of those that have dabbled with photography at night, it may not be much of a surprise. Now, the answer to your question: Well, how was this at night if it looks like it was during the day?!?

Answer: I took the photo with my 50mm f1.4 lens. Shutter speed: 3.2 seconds, Aperture: 1.4, ISO: 800. Basically I used a faster film speed, which allows you to take a faster photo (I would have needed 6.4 seconds if I used ISO 400 - half the film speed = twice the time). Also, the aperture is how "open" the lens is while taking a photo, the more open = more light coming in, but less focus on everything in view, or the depth of field. Make sense?! If not, that's okay. I would suggest taking your camera out and playing around - if you have a point and shoot you can play around with the ISO - try taking the same shot at night or dusk with ISO 100, 200, 400, 800 and look at the difference! For those using a DSLR, it is obviously much easier to tweak these settings and you can see the difference immediately if you are changing the ISO but leaving the other settings locked.

Also - use a tripod at night. Since the camera is taking a longer photo, if you are not using a tripod, I can almost guarantee it will be blurry!

Here are a couple fun shots I took today since it rained and I love taking photos of drops of water! These two photos were taken in Boca Raton, FL - where it's cloudy today and I'm not sure what to do on cloudy days here...it's always sunny! Click to enlarge to get a better view as always.

And here are some photos that I have taken over the past few years of droplets - these photos were taken in Massachusetts and New York...

Below you can see a little trick I use sometimes with water droplets - the flash. The first shot is without a flash, and the second is with. You can see the huge difference it makes when using a flash with water droplets, since each droplet catches the light from the flash - so it brings out so much detail! Sometimes you can tell you used the flash and other times it just looks cool!

These two photos are examples of using the flash and, for the most part, not really being able to tell the flash was used. They turned out to be two of my favorite photos of water droplets I have taken...

That's all for today. Hope you are having a great day and if you are bored tonight, go try some night photography! Or take some photos of water droplets today (if you can)...I would love to see them - I will even post them on my blog if you send them to me!