So here we are putting out the first newsletter of 2010. We are very excited about this issue. We have lots of great things planned for the year and this issue of the newsletter kicks off the first of them.

In this issue you will find our first video finally posted. It's been such a long time coming but we hope you feel it's worth it. We won't have video in every issue of the newsletter, especially not at first, but our plan is for video to be a recurring feature going forward.

This issue also formally introduces a featured we toyed with a few times over the last couple of months: the photo essay. Previous photo essays were really just a collection of photos. Starting with this issue, we're putting more emphasis on the essay part. We plan to have one each week. All will be built around a single theme, event or trip. All will also includes notes and commentary on the shooting itself. They may contain photographic lessons, logistical or historical lessons, trivia, etc. Importantly, we're going to open this one up to you! If any subscribers would like to submit a photo essay for publication in a future edition of the newsletter, please contact us with your idea. You will, of course get prominent credit. You will also win yourself credit to your account which can be used toward any paid feature on our site.

In 2010 we will begin adding content to MoreSatisfyingHobbies (covering a wide range of hobbies and recreational interests). We also plan to debut MoreSatisfyingMusic (to teach music lessons online). And we are working on opening our blogs to site members. You will be able to host your own hobby-related blog right here, in a community of friends with similar interests! We have tons more plans that we aren't yet prepared to announce but rest assured there is an exciting year ahead.

Most of the world is experiencing troubled economic times to one degree or another. No matter how bad things may get, in fact maybe particularly when things get bad and we can less afford to venture out and do things, people always have hobbies and recreational interests that beg to be fulfilled. We aim to be there for you, helping with each step along the way. As always, we remain open to your comments and suggestions. We take requests and we genuinely listen to your feedback.

Here's to a great year!

Getting Out of Focus Backgrounds

Portraits are generally thought to be most pleasing when the subject is properly lit and in sharp focus but the background is pleasingly out of focus, such as in this image.

The out of focus areas...

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Photographing Plants

When the point is to photograph a plant (as opposed to a vista or broader landscape), mixing too many different types may lead to chaotic results.

Note the difference in both pictures.

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Photo Essay - Arlington National Cemetery

I took a long-planned day trip recently to Arlington National Cemetery.

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JFK's grave site may be the most famous, and most visited grave in all of America.

Not technically part of Arlington, but immediately adjacent to the grounds is the Marine Corps Memorial. It's very difficult to find, but if you can find the roadway leading up to it, you can drive around the Marine Corps Memorial. When you do, an optical illusion makes it appear as though the flag is actually being raised by the men memorialized in the statue.

Most striking me was this photo I took.

Although the buildings in the background are those of Arlington, Virginia, this photo just struck me as remarkably reminiscent of New York City after 9/11.

In this 16 minute video, I interview 13 year old Sydney about her results taking pictures with a cheap cell phone camera on a recent photo-walk.

We obviously can't email something as large as a video so please log in to watch.

Mnemonics

Mnemonics are memory devices that help people recall larger or more complex pieces of information. There are at least 9 basic types of mnemonics:

• Music (Think of the ABC's song used to learn and remember the English alphabet.)
• Name (Such as ROY G. BIV, used for colors of the spectrum.)
• Expression/Word (A word or phrase in which each letter, or the first letter of each word, represents one item from the list. A lot of acronyms fall into this category.)
• Model (These are graphical; the food guide pyramid, Maslow's hierarchy of needs or the cycle of water through the atmosphere.)
• Ode/Rhyme ("In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." or "i before e except after c, or when sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh".)
• Note Organization (Think of flash cards or the question cards used in games like Trivial Pursuit.)
• Image Connection (Silly pictures or sketches, imagined or actually drawn, that represent something else. Such as a depressed bat who's taken the three main types of depressant drugs.
• Spelling (For example remembering that longitude, because it contains the letter "N", runs North and South; therefore latitude, which does not contain an "N", must run East-West.)

Here are more than 100 really cool mnemonics. Hold your mouse cursor over each one to view the data it represents.:

You must log in to view them all, plus see additional clarification on the ones shown here.

General Knowledge

• Compass points: NEWS (alternate: "Never Eat Shredded Wheat")
• The Great Lakes: Homes
• The Great Lakes (in order by size): Sam's Horse Must Eat Oats
• The planets: My very exciting magic carpet just sailed under nine palace elephants
• Colors of the spectrum: ROY G. BIV
• The ingredients on a Big Mac
• Screw threads: "Lefty, loosey. Righty, tighty."
• Months of the year: "Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. Thirty-one the rest do carry, with the exception of February. It has twenty-eight and that's just fine, except in a leap year when it has twenty-nine."

Mathematics

• The value of Pi: How I wish I could calculate Pi
• Mathematical order of operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

Spelling Words

• BECAUSE - Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants
• ARITHMETIC - A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream
• GEOGRAPHY - General Eisenhower's Oldest Girl Rode A Pony Home Yesterday
• RHYTHM - Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move
• TOGETHER - If you go "to get her", you'll be together.

Medical/Scientific

• The amino acids: Pvt. Tim Hall
• General properties of matter: We Must Decide Violence (matters)
• Five parts of a deciduous forest: Under Leaves Should Give Shade
• Mohs hardness scale: Toronto Girls Can Flirt, And Other Queer Things Can Do
• Since blood is RED, remember when you see it to: Rest, Elevate, apply Direct pressure.

Political

• Ranking order of British peerage: Does Mi'lord Ever Visit Brighton Beach?
• U.S. Presidential Cabinet Secretaries: See the huge dog jump in a circle; leave her home to entertain editors vivaciously

Other

• A Bactrian camel has two humps (just like a capital letter "B") but a Dromedary only has one hump (like a capital letter "D").
• Spanish conquistadores: COCOA 19, PIPs 31
• Order of the most well-known Greek philosophers: Greek SPA
• Factors that affect water evaporation: WHAT
• In aircraft, if temperature or pressure drops, you will be lower (in altitude) than the aircraft's instruments suggest if they are left uncorrected. On the other hand, a rise in temperature or pressure will result in the opposite effect. This is remembered by the poem: "High to Low; look out below. Low to High; clear blue sky."

Compiled both from my own memory and from a long list of web sources.