Your Home, Garden and Travel

Come on back to the family room.

It's so hot outside in the garden; let's go indoors where it is cool so that I can show you a decorating project that's fun and easy for anyone with a digital camera and a computer.

Every few years, I like to change the "art" on my walls. I use the word "art" in the sense of being creative with what's unique and original in my life, rather than owning any masterpieces. The photos that I've chosen make me smile.

Previously, I've used framed photos from our travels in Italy. Recently, I decided to swap out Italy photos with those from Paris, France.

Architecture is a favorite photographic subject of mine. I'm not a professional photographer, but there are favorite photos that please me enough to view on my walls. Color photos don't really work with our family room color scheme and furniture. Therefore, I use a little photo editing magic (iPhoto® on my MacBook®) to convert my photos to sepia tone for framing. I then upload my photos to Shutterfly® and purchase 8 x 10 prints for under $3.00 per print.

My frames were purchased in 2006, therefore, I didn't have to purchase new frames. All of my frames came from Pottery Barn® and were purchased on sale. The mats were included with the purchase of the frames.

Inexpensive. Unique. Original. Memories.

To decide which of your photos will work, the resolution must be sufficient for the size of the print you want. One of the reasons that I like Shutterfly® is because their software will tell you whether your photo has the quality (in pixels) to be printed anywhere from as large as a poster down to a postcard.

If you go this route, pay attention to the edges of the photos. Shutterfly will ask you if the cropping is okay. They automatically set the cropping, but you may shift your image within the allowed space to ensure that no parts are cut off. Always preview the cropped image online before you put the order in the shopping cart.

The Louvre original in color, before cropped.

The Louvre photo as sepia and cropped.

Just a few of my candidates for framing. I created a side-by-side collage to use to decide which photos to print. Not all were chosen.

When grouping photos I like for them to "relate" to each other. For example, a set of four photos are building facades. I also use parts of bridges as a set; steeples as a set; or, sculptures as a set. Here is an example of the four building facades used in a photo grouping.

Matted and framed: Top (L to R): The Louvre; Notre Dame Bottom: Saint-Michel; Sacre Coeur Paris, France.

The four photos shown on the wall to the right of the family heirloom mirror.

On another wall, the photos are related to three different bridges in Paris. These frames are the standard "gallery" style sold by Pottery Barn®.

Don't hesitate to use your photos to decorate your house. Whether you choose color, black and white, sepia or other special effects—your favorite photos reflect your experiences and memories. Go for what makes you happy!

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Travelers, gardeners and bloggers have one thing in common—they take lots of photos. For a few years, I've been in pursuit of a camera that handles the majority of my issues.

When I travel, I don't check bags anymore, but that's another story. I pack all of my clothes and belongings in one bag, but that's also another story. So, I require a small and lightweight camera to meet my limited baggage space. Given my past experience with a SLR camera and the flexibility of multiple lenses, I prefer having wide angle and zoom capabilities.

For the last two years, I've been using a Canon SX10 IS camera with a 20x zoom lens. The body resembles a DSLR, but the zoom and wide angle lens are built-in to the camera, so there are no extra pieces to carry on a trip. The camera weighs 1.5 lbs, uses four AA batteries and does not fit in a pocket. To use the full capability of the zoom, it is best to use a tripod for stability. I don't want to haul a tripod to Europe. After carrying the camera around Paris in 2009, I was "over it" from the inconvenience of the size and weight. That said, the lens flexibility is wonderful and I am very pleased with the quality of the images, both at home in the garden and on trips. My only complaint is in hauling the camera around.

Since then, I've been following camera reviews for "Compact Super Zoom Travel Cameras" that are small, point-and-shoot with manual options, but have a long enough lens to meet my demands. Based upon the reviews, I decided to try the Samsung HZ35W model (but, I got the HZ30W without the GPS capability). I waited months for the camera to go on sale before purchasing it—and the price was so unbelievable that Circuit City has sold out as of the writing of this story! (Use the links to the reviews and to the Circuit City site to read about all the details about the camera.)

I took the camera to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro to try out the capabilities, image quality, color accuracy, ease-of-use and portability.

For most of the shots, I decided to use the "Automatic" setting so that I didn't have to keep track of any manual tinkering that is possible. The Samsung is 12.2 MP with a lens capable of 24-360mm. There is a 15x optical zoom and a 5x digital zoom. For the longest zoom (the elephants), I used the "Scene" mode in "landscape" to stretch the length as the elephants were far and away across a large pasture from the observation point.

Samsung HZ30W in automatic mode using the optical zoom at 15x. Full sun; moving animals.

Samsung HZ30W in landscape ("Scene") mode using both the optical and digital zoom for 75x! No tripod was used, but the stabilization capability worked well. Full sun; moving elephant.

The wonderful world of true colors! Red is such a difficult color to capture accurately. This Samsung delivers the best color accuracy that I've ever experienced with a digital camera in automatic mode!

For this review, I did no post-processing on these photos to balance exposure, color or brighten shadows. I reduced the size for faster uploading. (click photos to enlarge)

At home--red and white flowers indoors with no flash. Macro setting.

Scarlet Ibis inside the zoo aviary. Automatic mode using 15x optical zoom.

A duck of many colors inside the aviary. Automatic mode with 15x zoom.

Hummingbird in flight; through glass window; indoors; partial zoom; automatic mode.

Macro with automatic setting. Indoors without a flash in the aviary.

I am thrilled with the image quality, macro and zoom results in the automatic setting. However, the Samsung has a big bag of tricks for those who wish to play with the manual settings—adjusting the exposure, compensating for backlighting, shutter speed and more. There is a dual (optical and digital) stabilization capability to reduce camera shake. There are many point-and-shoot options for face detection, smile detection, blink detection and scene composition.

The camera takes 720p HD quality video at 30 frames per second (I tried this out, but didn't want to upload 45mb of an elephant swaying). You can also record memos separately—a handy option when you want to remember what you are photographing during travels or the different flowers in the garden.

There is a HDMI connection if you want to connect to a high-definition TV. The charger uses the USB adapter so that you can charge the battery while it is installed in the camera. An independent battery-only charger is a separate purchase.

Photos can be edited on the camera, or you may upload to your computer to use an editing package of your preference. I've not yet tried in-camera editing, but the options are similar to those in my Apple® iPhoto software.

There is no viewfinder, but the back 3-inch AMOLED screen is large and easy to view, even when wearing sunglasses. The camera allows you to read all of the options in text, instead of just symbols, on the screen. The grip is easy and comfortable, so I don't feel like I'm in danger of dropping the camera.

As for meeting my travel requirements, the Samsung fits easily into my purse when not in use. It's a bit larger (2.38"H x 4.21"W x 1.13" D) than some other compact cameras, but men with a jacket pocket will have no problem stowing this one away. The macro and zoom lens satisfies my desire for a wide range of distance focusing.

Whether snapping garden shots or travel memories, the flexibility of the Samsung and the quality of the images make this camera well worth the sale price of $151, including shipping!

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Seeing a Monarch butterfly—in any stage of the lifecycle—is, and continues to be, the biggest thrill for me. Capturing this shot of a Monarch caterpillar as it begins the formation of a chrysalis is the photo that makes me happiest.

What I like about the photo (click to enlarge) is the depth-of-field, the lavender bloom of the lantana and the detail of the caterpillar attached to the arched plume of fountain grass. The background is the gray flagstone of my garden walk.

This caterpillar left the planting of milkweed in the garden and chose to use a container arrangement for the chrysalis! The Monarch butterfly successfully emerged and was also captured by my camera.

The Monarch butterflies will hopefully return to my area soon. There is now even more milkweed in my garden, a Monarch Waystation, ready to host the amazing stages of the Monarch lifecycle.

This photo is my entry for the Gardening Gone Wild Picture This Photo Contest for June.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel.

I have over 10,000 photographs stored on my computer. I would have more, but I decided to be ruthless and delete a few thousand. I'm sure I'll soon regret that action, so the photos are still sitting in the electronic trash can. Dumpster-diving on a computer isn't too messy.

I store the photos month-by-month throughout the calendar year. After the year ends, I decide how to reorganize the photos so that I can easily find a certain flower that bloomed in.... was it May or June?

Last year, I started adding keywords (tags) to my photos so that I could filter my search. For tags, I used the location in the garden as well as color (magenta, orange, red, yellow, etc.). I'd like to tag every flower by variety, but that seems like too much work... from Agastache to Zinnia.

I'm on to a new idea that will take the gardening world by storm!

I use an Apple MacBook with iPhoto. The iPhoto software has "face recognition" capabilities. I tried it out for everyone in our family and it worked beautifully! Searching those 10,000 photos, it recognized each and everyone of us.

The most amazing thing is that this face recognition software can pick a face out of a crowd! Yes! It picked up faces in places that I didn't even know were in the photos! I was relieved that Osama bin Laden nor any other terrorists were found among my thousands of photos.

This iPhoto feature posts all of the "Faces" on a corkboard background. Click on a person. Magic. All of the photos of that person are displayed. Easy, cute, clever and it works great!

Of course, being the technical geek that I am, I decided to try this face recognition software on flower photos.

The coneflower (echinacea) has a very recognizable "face" in my opinion. I pulled up a happy flower face and told iPhoto to "Name" it "Coneflower."

Unfortunately, iPhoto couldn't recognize Coneflower's face among the thousands of photos. Hmm... Is it unrecognizable because the coneflower doesn't have two eyes?

Undaunted, I tried Gaillardia's face, but had no results.

Just think. If we had flower recognition software, we could easily organize our gardening photos. Flower Recognition Software would be able to pick a coneflower out of a garden full of gaillardias.

Excuse me, but I'm off to write an email to Apple's iPhoto development team!



Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

May I see your identification please? Theft comes in many forms and recently garden bloggers have discovered that there are bad guys who will steal our content.

Including a blog name and link in a "signature" on your posts allows the reader to click back to the original source. It would take some effort for a thief to remove a signature from every post, so they may move on to easier targets.

Using a blog post template is an easy and automatic way to add that "blog signature" information for all new posts!

With a template, you don't have to retype the same information over-and-over again. However, you are still free to change the wording slightly if you want to make the information unique for a specific blog post.

My instructions are for using Blogger from Google™. If you are using another host, such as Wordpress™, then there is probably a similar option available.

Go to your Dashboard in Blogger. Listed under your blog name, choose Settings

Click on the tab Formatting

Scroll down to Post Template

In the box to the right, you can enter text and code that you want to appear in the Blogger EDITOR whenever you create a NEW POST.

My example links to my blog so that a reader can always click back to the original source. You don't have to include a link, of course. Save the settings when you are finished. You can come back and edit this again at any time and it will be used on all subsequent new posts.

The example in the purple box below shows the code magnified. You can copy and paste this code into your post temple, then just substitute your information where I have included my name, blog url address and blog name.

Since I'm a freelance writer, I include my name as a byline. Many bloggers want to remain anonymous and will not add their real name. Edit the information to fit your needs.

Remember - Only include the information that you want to share with the world!

(Note: I typically put the period outside the blog name url as shown in the magnified code. To make the code easier for you to read in the next examples, it is part of the blog name)

Below is the coding shown line-by-line so that you can see the different parts of the example.

I use a smaller font size than my blog post by applying the "-2" html coding. I also use italics for my signature. These are optional codes that you may not want to use. Please note that each line has a wrapper, meaning that there is code to begin the formatting and code to end the formatting. The matching codes are shown in matching font colors.

When you create a NEW POST within the "Edit Html" mode, then the text will automatically appear in the Blogger EDITOR window as Html code.

If you create a NEW POST with the "Compose" mode, then your text will appear as normal without the Html codes shown. (You may click back-and-forth between the html and the compose modes if you wish.)

You may edit the text and code if you want to add a date, location, other information to change the wording to apply to an individual post. To write your post, just start typing in front of the automatic code.

Html Mode:



Compose Mode:

The result:

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel.

Dear Readers,

Before I left for a week in sunny Southern California, the content of my blog, other garden blogs, as well as garden magazines was scraped off (stolen) by another website. With the help of fellow bloggers and big corporations, the battle was won! Here's how:

Carolyn at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago was the first to let me know about the content theft. Thank you Carolyn!

I posted a story about the theft and contacted Google via some instructions posted on ProBlogger (link provided by fellow blogger at Secrets of a Seed Scatterer). Thank you, ProBlogger and Nell Jean!

I also contacted, and received a response from, The Home Depot®. The thieving website was also misusing that company's name in order to steal page ranking from them as well as my garden blog. They were happy to know and joined the battle. Thank you, Home Depot!

Meanwhile, rather than writing new content to be stolen, I reposted past stories (scheduled to post during my absence) and turned off comments and gadgets to subscribe to my blog with RSS feeds. Since I was away on vacation to have fun, I didn't want to deal with more drama!

I did have my iPod Touch with me, so I was able to check on the progress of the battle against the content thieves.


Due to the efforts of Google™, the website no longer has our content and with a little indexing wizardry, that url redirects to the legitimate website of The Home Depot.

Google, who owns Feedburner and Blogger, apparently blocked the IP address of the thieves so that they couldn't scrape content off of my blog. I imagine that they probably blocked that IP address for all feeds and blogs under their power. Thank you, Google!

To make sure that your blog posts are always attributed to your blog, I recommend that you "sign" the post with your blog name. I have been adding my name to my posts for well over a year and am now including a hyperlink back to my blog. It is easy to create a hyperlink:

1. Write your blog name at the end of your post (i.e. Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel)


2. Highlight the blog name


3. Click on the "link" icon in your editor (it looks like a chain link in Blogger)


4. Type the url address of your blog (i.e., http://definingyourhome.blogspot.com)
in the link box

You can also include the information in your blog template so that you don't have to always remember to add the information to each post... and, I'll tell you how to do that in my next blog post!


Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All other company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Dear Readers,

Hundreds of pages of my content and photos have been stolen by a Turkish website http://homedepotgarden.net. They have also stolen content from other garden bloggers and Garden Design Magazine.

I have reported them to Home Depot since the site is obviously trying to obtain the page ranking from that company and stealing the use of their name.

I have reported them to Google by submitting a spam report for http://homedepotgarden.net. What Google can do is remove them from their page ranking index so that when someone searches for garden information, they will not be pointed to that site.

It appears that site is building up as they hit 126 pages of my blog today alone. I expect them to try to get approval for using ads on their site to try to make money off of ad clicks. That is usually the scheme for such a site.

Fortunately, I have been putting my name at the end of my blog posts for over a year now. So, my content can be identified as mine. However, the content stolen from others has no identification. There are no blog names, no link backs to the original writers.

Right now, I am reposting older stories of mine instead of writing new content for them to steal.

You will notice that for the last few days, I've added a hyperlink to my name where I have a list of published articles as well as a hyperlink back to my blog. By including this in the text of my posts, stolen content will carry the link back here unless the thieves go to the trouble to break the links.

Fellow bloggers - I recommend that each of you start adding your blog name at the bottom of every post and include a hyperlink back.

For now, I am going to turn off comments.

Thank you for your patience.



Written for Defining Your Home Garden and Travel

Do you want to include captions with your garden blog photos? There are two ways this can be done. One way is to use purchased software and the other way is to write free html codes.

Most of the time, I use a software program (ImageWell by Xtralean Software) to add a caption before uploading the photo.

By adding the caption to the photo before uploading, the two are attached. So, if someone copies the photo, the caption is part of the image. Using software, it is very easy to change the font size, font color and position of the text.

However, it's difficult to use a hyperlink within the caption. Also, note that in the photo below, the caption is small. When I uploaded this photo, I selected the "small" format and Blogger adjusted the entire image.

Photo by Defining Your Home Garden

In the second photo, I added the caption using html codes. I also included an optional hyperlink to my blog.

To use html codes for captions, first upload your photo.

In the code below, the red text shows you the html "table" tag that I used to anchor the caption with the photo in the blog. I also set the font style, size and position of the caption. I kept this caption short enough to fit under the photo because I don't want to complicate the coding.

By using the "table" tags, I am treating the photo as one row of data and the caption as another row of data.

The "tr" tag represents a table row.
The "td" tag is used for table data.


The green text indicates the caption wording. The blue text indicates the hyperlink coding. I set the link to open in another window by using the "target" option.

The text in black was generated by Blogger when I uploaded the photo. I just wrapped the Blogger code with my table tags.

You can copy these pieces of code to play around with your own photo captions. The downside of using html codes is that it is a bit tedious. However, if you store these wrapper pieces in a text editor and then cut and paste the code around your photo code, it is a bit easier.

With the winter days keeping most of us indoors, this is a great time to share non-gardening tips. Next time, I'll show you how to use html to position two photos side-by-side.

This story was originally posted in February 2009. All photos and instructions by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel