ten thousand hours

"... ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert - in anything..." - Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.

I suppose if one was to practice something for ten thousand hours, it would be something he/she is passionate about.  The first thing that comes to my mind that I have practiced over ten thousand hours is accounting.  Having worked at a public accounting firm for over five years, that tips me over ten thousand hours.  I feel like I have achieved the level of mastery to a certain extent and I also have to admit that I do enjoy my field of work, most of the time.

However, aside from work, I have a creative side.  I have many many hobbies, but none of which I have committed a significant amount of time to.  I took violin classes for a few years back in grade school and a semester of piano in college, but I never reached the point where I feel comfortable with the instrument.  At times I would think it's because I don't have the "ears", being practically tone death, but I found hope!

"The closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play..." - Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

So perhaps I could master a musical instrument... I will start working on my ten thousand hours with my electric keyboard, and one day, when I am able to play fluently, I shall reward myself with an acoustic piano.

<3tingtinging

fotor

As promised, more Bay Bridge photos:

This time, I played around with the special effects using the FOTOR app.  The special effects are noted in the photo.  The intensity of the special effects could be adjusted.  The exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, blur/sharpen, and white balance adjustments are also nice features that are simple to use.

It is estimated that it'll take about three years to deconstruct and remove the old Eastern span... I'll have to remember revisit in a few years and do a similar shoot after the deconstruction.

<3tingtinging

shutter speed

With the excitement of the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge, I took the opportunity to work on low light photography.

According to wiki... "In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time a camera's shutter is open when taking a photograph. The amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor is proportional to the exposure time."

In the first photo above, I set the shutter speed to .0125 (1/80) seconds.  In the second photo, shutter speed was at 0.02 (1/50) seconds with all other settings remaining the same.  In the last photo, the shutter speed was set at 0.1 (1/10) seconds, again with all other settings remaining constant.  Notice that with a longer shutter speed, the camera was able to pick up much more light.  We can now even see a part of the old Bay Bridge.

On average, we could hold the camera steadily without support for about 0.01 (1/100) second.  With the longer shutter speed in the shots above, I rested the camera on a still object to capture the photo.

More photos of the bridge to come... till next time!

<3tingtinging