We went for a quick visit to a park.  Gavin was already missing his nap time but got to enjoy it for a bit.  He was already tired on our way to the park so that meant he was already snoring on our way home.  I think he was awake in the photo below

Our little baby in red.  Who says red is for girls?

Taiwan just wrapped up its municipal elections for city councilors and mayors in all the “tier 2″ counties across the island. Tier 1 cities – Taipei, Xinbei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Tainan – have their municipal elections next year. Mayors and councilors serve four year terms.

Much like the American midterm elections, municipal elections are believed to represent how people feel towards the president’s policies. President Ma Ying-jeou was elected in 2008 with a huge majority in almost ever city and immediately set out on a crusade to improve relations with mainland China. Postal links have been restored, and now you can take a flight directly from Taiwan to mainland China. Ma wants to take the relationship even further, proposing a free trade agreement between the two territories. Though not official, Ma hinted at his desire to meet directly with Chinese president Hu Jintao within the next few years. This would be the first time in over 60 years that the leaders of the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Kuomintang would meet each other. The political implications are HUGE.

So indirectly, you could look at the municipal elections as a referendum on “Do we really want to be friends with China?” The Taiwanese response: “I guess?” The election ended with the Kuomintang losing the mayorships of Hualian and Yilan counties.  Hualian was lost to independent Fu Kun-chi, a former KMTer that got booted from the party after being found guilty of insider trading.  Yilan county went to a DPP member, though this is the 4th time a DPP member won the post in 5 elections. Not exactly a KMT friendly location, although they did support Ma for the presidency in 2008. The KMT held its other 11 counties, and DPP now controls 4.  In total, the KMT won 298 municipal seats to the DPP’s 128.

To me, this is the kind of result I’m expecting in the US 2010 midterms. Voters are saying “we don’t like the guys in charge, but the opposition is even worse.” Not exactly glowing praise, but you take what you can get. Although anything can happen between now and 2012, Ma is looking at a pretty easy reelection so far, and will probably maintain his legislative majority.  China is very happy with these results, no doubt.

Full election results here: http://vote2009.chinatimes.com/people/people.aspx

We got this bib from a gift exchange party last year.  We have been generally getting silent nights so I’m not complaining.

Probably not the most flattering picture. But seriously, 3 colds in the past month? Worse part is that King and I get sick just like Gavin.  I used to wonder why parents don’t wipe off little babies’ runny noses.  Now I know why.  It’s because it is non stop!  You wipe it and even before you remove your wipe cloth, there’s already more stuff running down again.

Histogram:

A representation of the tonality spread across the image. Its analysis is base on the brightness of a pixel scaling from 0 as pure black to 255 as pure white.

The Kitchen View.

Average Contrast Image.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

I found interesting seeing the histogram in camera of this photo with +1 stop increase in exposure. It only showed perhaps half the amount of blown out highlights in camera. It is good to know that there will be a difference between histograms in camera and in editing software. Knowing this I’ll be able to judge more accurately the photos in camera. Of course it is never the same as seen in your monitor screen.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

I was expecting the results in this histogram, the 1 stop darker shows slight shadow clipping but it is not seen in here. The clipping is actually in the corners of the glass on the cupboard doors, wine bottle, charger’s heads and radio. By seeing the histogram you’d expect more clipping.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

This is the shot with no increase or decrease in exposure. Even though it appears bright in view it doesn’t have any shadow or highlight clipping. I would have expected some form of clipping in the bright areas at the end of the kitchen and in the shadows on the glass reflection.

Frosty Leaves.

Low Contrast Image.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

 Again, in this photo you can see some highlight clipping around the middle top of the frame, in camera this was invisible. It is different from the average contrast shot with 0 modifications in exposure (above).  Of course, they have different EV but for an average shot you would expect more similarities in the histogram.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

In this shot you can see some shadow clipping but certainly less than expected, this shot being with -1 stop. I like the fact that for Low Contrast Image the histogram is spread widely with a fair amount of pixels covering near all the tones.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

+1 stop has certainly blown out the highlights and given detail in the shadow area. Comparing this shot with the equaly overexposed by one stop of the kitchen photo it is obvious that the values will be high at the right end of the histogram.

High Contrast Image.

Bathroom View.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

I wanted to capture the low sunlight in the bathroom. I thought that it would come out better than what I see here with the clipping clicked. Everything has been pushed to the left and even though it show blown highlights it is not in the graph! or am I missing something?!

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

This is the -1 stop and it shows clipping highlights when it is in fact less blown out than the one above. Shadow clipping is expected but I have to say that when viewed in the monitor screen you can see some detail.

©2009 Yiannitsa Cegarra

Again surprisingly the graph doesn’t showed highlight been blown out but very visible in the photo, not only in the window but also in its reflection in the mirror. This is quiet shocking because I increased the ISO to 400 and the aperture was wide opened for the focal length.

Conclusion:

Judging by the histograms of these photographs I believe that a well exposed image is that one that has a histogram with pixels spreading widely across the graph and if so it is an image that is High in contrast.

The one I thought was a Low contrast image showed in the histogram that it was actually High in Contrast. Also by increasing or decreasing the exposure a wide range of tones will be missing at either end.

This is such a nerdy project management lingo but this is a kick-off activity.  What do you need?  A calendar.

Gavin brings home a new calendar each month with some art “he makes” with his hands or feet or in this case, both.  Then he gets to show it off on our fridge.

It’s that time again — time for the December Photo Project.

Each day, 1 photo, 25 days, tons of fun.

This year I’m doing it again.