Miye’s Neighborhood

Finished The Shadow Club Rising by Neal Shusterman.

This takes place after the events of The Shadow Club.  Not surprisingly, nobody at their school trusts the members of the (now-disbanded) Shadow Club.  And when a new student (the incredibly obnoxious and unfortunately named Alec Smartz) starts getting hideous pranks played on him, everyone (students, teachers, the principal) believes it's because of The Shadow Club in general and Jared in particular.

So Jared has to prove his innocence.  I preferred this to the first book but still like Unwind most of all. :)

The Shadow Club Rising

Neal Shusterman

Finished Hunger by Michael Grant (the sequel to Gone).

This is more of the same (kids surviving in a world without parents) but there are more bad things thrown in in this one. (No, I'm not getting more specific; if you're curious, read them.)  :)

I think I prefer Susan Beth Pfeffer's books, but these are good, too.

Hunger: A Gone Novel

Michael Grant

I was going through some photos I took at Tumacacri Mission a few weeks back and I saw a lot of photo with diagonal lines.  So I'm just going to post a couple for this quest.  For this one I changed it to black and white added some noise and artistic stuff and lighting.  The diagonal lines are the stones on the grave site.

Crossings II

Grave copy

I played a little more with the next photo.  I selected the church and didn't select the brick tower.  Then I changed the church to black and white, worked some on the contrast and brightness, added an artistic filter and erased the black and white from the top arch and the two diagonal columns.  By added color to the the diagonal lines I wanted to push the viewers eye up to the arch and the cross on top of the church. 

Tumacacri Mission Church I

Tumacacri Mission Church I

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In this photo the main subject the pots are in a diagonal line.  In the original photo the pots where in a dark shadow.  I cropped the photo then selected the shadow and lightened it and added saturation.  Then I selected the light wall that was too light, added contrast, darked the highlights and added saturation.  Now the shadow looks more like a stain or paint on the all and less like a shadow. 

Row Pots

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IMG_4882

The last photos is of the columns supporting the covered over the walkway for the visitor's center.  In this photo the diagonal line formed by the columns draws the eye to the door. 

Yellow

Finished Gone by Michael Grant.

This is a pretty fitting series to start right after reading Life as We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone (and right before Under the Dome), because there are similar themes.

In this one, everyone over the age of 14 disappears, all at once.  (So kids 14 and younger are now responsible for themselves/each other.) 

To make matters more interesting, some of these kids start developing powers.  (Think X-Men style mutations.)

Not surprisingly, they start to break into two camps--Team Sam (good) and Team Caine (awful).

This is an interesting series.  (I'll be starting book 2 tonight or tomorrow; Gone ended with no real sense of resolution.)

Gone

Michael Grant

Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest?  Seems like I started this just a few months ago.  I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.

For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo.  You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject.  The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right.  By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject.  Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.

Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is?  Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter?  Do you remember the rule of thirds?

Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest.  Take some photos using diagonal lines.  Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year.  If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines.  No excuses this time. 

Here is a great article on diagonal lines  http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography.  Any questions...please ask!  Take care and  have a wonderful week.

Finished The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  This is a companion book to Life As We Knew It. 

Alex lives with his parents and two younger sisters in New York City.  When the asteroid hits the moon, his mom is at work (she works in a hospital's OR) and his dad is in Puerto Rico for a funeral. 

Alex has to figure out a way to keep his family safe and together, at least until one or both of his parents comes home.

I think I preferred Life As We Knew It, but this was good, too.

These books (there's going to be a third out in April) are so scary, too.  I don't think I'd do well in a world where I'd have to acquire food someplace that isn't a grocery store (or any of the places where we normally get food) and I certainly don't know how to cook and wash clothes without electricity and running water. 

the dead and the gone

Susan Beth Pfeffer

What are your favorite web or mobile apps? Which ones do you use everyday?

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I Heart Radio.

I have an aux hookup in my car, so I can plug my iPhone in and listen to it through my speakers. I listen to I Heart Radio talk shows like Lex & Terry and Elvis Duran. It has radio stations all over the country. I spend about 2 hours a day in my car, so it helps pass the time. Sometimes it buffers for a while, which can get annoying, but it usually works pretty well for me.

Pandora is a close second.

Yikes there were some very scary photos this week!  Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween.  I miss Halloween so much.  The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween.  Now that I'm retired well, it was even less.  We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here.  Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.

Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time.  Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl.  Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity.  Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier!  Great work there.

Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that.  My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.

Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan.  My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.

Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos!  Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown.  What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice!  It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two.  I loved the pumpkin and  hunted house photo.  The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling.  Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster.  Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.

Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend.  I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute!  So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter!  That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit.  Nice work there!