Andy's Idea Factory

As the light begins to extend as we approach Spring Equinox (happy spring!), our bodies want to wake up earlier and stay up later, whether our schedules or minds want them to or not! I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not a morning person, but every photographer will attest that there's something magic about the "magic hours." The "magic hours" are the times around sunrise and sunset where the light is simply magical. It catches the ridgelines and mountainsides turning them to rose, it glistens off water and reflects off the clouds, but while it's magical for some subjects, it's also not good for some. For instance, faces become back-cast, shaded, glared, or blown out, but silhouettes are gorgeous during the magic hour. Action shots are blurred out of focus and again dark or blown out, but the animals are always out at the magic hour, especially in spring. And the spring season adds to the magic hour because the light is still softer due...

March 27, 8:30pm, Your Time Coming up on March 27th is the 3th annual Earth Hour, when individuals, families, businesses, organizations, corporations and governments around the world will come together to make a bold statement about their concern for climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. Earth Hour began as an effort led by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to raise awareness about climate change and show leaders that we are looking for solutions. In 2007, 2.2 million people took part in the world's first Earth Hour in Sydney Australia. Just one year later, 50 million people in 370 cities and towns, in more than 35 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour. Earth Hour 2010 aims to reach more than one billion people in 1000 cities around the world, sending a clear message that we care about this issue and want to turn the lights out on dirty air, dangerous dependency on foreign oil and costly climate change impacts, and ma...