PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER

An awards show for teen viewers was the idea of Bob Bain and Michael Burg, who sought to target a youth demographic a bit older than those that were the focus of Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards. Beginning in 1999, Fox has presented the Teen Choice Awards in honor of teen viewers’ picks for the year’s greatest achievements in film, TV, music, fashion, athletics, and beyond. The show is complete with celebrity appearances and musical performances with teen appeal for their voting audience ranging in age from 13-19.

In the years 1999 and 2000, the awards took place at Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar. Since 2001, the show has taken place at the Gibson Amphitheatre located in Universal City, CA. Occasionally the show has a live broadcast, but more often it airs a day later. Each year, teens are invited to fill the stands as guests.

The Teen Choice Awards include 56 categories, among them honors for:

• Film – The basic Choice (Best) Movie categories for various genres to honor actors, actresses, and movies themselves in Action, Drama, Romantic Comedy, Thriller, Comedy, Fantasy, Animation, and Sci-Fi, along with additional movie awards for Choice Breakout Male, Choice Breakout Female, Choice Fight, Choice Kiss, Choice Villain, and Choice Hissy Fit

• Television – The basic Choice Show categories for various genres to honor actors, actresses, participants and shows themselves in Drama, Action/Adventure, Comedy, Reality, Reality Competition, Late Night, and Animation, along with additional television awards for Choice Breakout Series, Choice Actor/Actress Breakout, Choice Parental Unit, Choice Sidekick, Choice Villain, Choice Personality, and Choice Female/Male Scene Stealer

• Music – The basic music categories including “choice” artists and albums in various genres, along with Choice Breakout Artist Male/Female and more off-beat categories like Choice Love Song, Choice Hook Up Song, Choice Tour, and Choice Soundtrack.

• Summer – Honors for summer’s choice song, choice movies in various genres, choice film and television actors and actresses, and Choice Summer Hissy Fit

• Miscellaneous categories including Choice Hottie Male/Female, Choice Red Carpet Icon Male/Female, Choice Web Star, Choice Twit Award, Choice Fab-u-lous!, Choice Fanatic Fans, and Choice Smile

In the beginning there was just one person living on the earth and he was named Adam. He was a very happy and well-adjusted fellow because there was no one around to say otherwise and also because he never had to contend with any traumatic childhood memories whatsoever. In fact, he never even had a childhood, but rather began life as a fully functioning adult. Even so, he began with more childlike wonder than anyone who has ever lived, just as surely as he was forced to carry a great deal more regret than the worst villain in any story. Such is the stuff of which fascinating tales are made, however, and it’s about time someone got this particular story straight once and for all.

Now as the first human, Adam was designed and then brought into existence by Creator, who has over time acquired more different names than anyone could ever need. It might be best if we just stick with Creator here, I think.

Creator, as the name implies, really, really, really enjoys making things. And while the things he makes seem simple enough from a distance, nearly everything Creator creates is very precise and extremely complicated. So complicated, in fact, that the smartest people who have ever lived with the help of the biggest computers ever built and using some of the coolest machines ever manufactured still cannot figure out how and why Creator’s creation works the way it does. So even though much of creation (that’s what we call Creator’s designed and finished product – “creation”) is simple enough for most people to understand, some parts will apparently always remain just beyond human ability to really explain to anyone’s lasting satisfaction. Gravity, bumblebees and wave-particle duality come to mind here.

To keep Adam safe and occupied with making healthy life choices, Creator gave his very first human a lovely green garden in which to live. It was stocked with mostly friendly animals, scenic vistas and plenty of vegetation, much of which was delicious to eat year round. Creator was overly generous and even let Adam name all of the animals absolutely anything he wanted (“gnu,” in case you were wondering, is an acronym). However, and this part is rather integral to the story, Adam was instructed that he could eat just about anything that grew in the garden except for the fruit of one particular tree called “the tree of good and evil.” That was the one exclusive part of the rather sizable garden area where Creator told Adam to stay away. You will quickly observe that the garden was a pretty simple setup for the first man. Enjoy yourself and your surroundings every day you are here, but whatever you do, do not eat from that one tree over there in the corner. What could possibly go wrong?

Whether you are a famous painter or an aspiring artist, you must never compromise on the quality of the art materials you use.

Quality materials are essential regardless of your artistic ability as it does not matter if you create paintings for a living or you are just a hobbyist because how good your supplies are will directly impact on the art you make.

Shopping for art materials on the internet can be confusing as it is often difficult to ascertain how good the supplies actually are because there is sometimes a big difference in price between similar products.

It can be common to discover one tube of paint that costs five pounds while the same amount of a competing brand may be priced at double that, so what is it that makes it cost so much more and how will this affect your art?

One example why a paint product may be more expensive than a rival brand is that it might contain high quality ingredients that will result in the artist producing a better standard of painting.

Oil paint that contains just poor quality oil will be much cheaper compared to a product which has superior oil, more pigment and better preservers as the expensive paint will produce a more aesthetically pleasing finish.

Acrylic and pastel paints follow the same rule of thumb as oil paints so, as with most things in life, the more you can afford to spend then the better the art you will be able to create.

In terms of paint brushes, you will find that synthetic brushes are nearly always cheaper than brushes made from real animal hair although you may prefer to use the former if you object to operating with animal art materials.

Cheap art materials can be hard to find and if you do discover a discount, you must be wary as there are some products you should never buy such as plastic brushes which can seriously hinder how you paint.

There are different ways of changing a VHS to DVD. Probably the most common way is to buy a capture device (usually plugs into an available USB port) and hook up a VCR to it using RCA cables. Hit play on the VCR and Capture (or Record) on the capture device. Once the video file is captured, you can easily drop it into an DVD authoring program to create a movie to share with your friends and family. You can even upload the video file to YouTube or Facebook to share with even more people than physical DVDs can reach!

The nice part about using the computer is that one can make chapters, transitions, add any words, titles, etc. that are wanted. They offer many different fonts, styles, and colors; you get a lot more choice and can make a first class movie. There is a lot of information on line so it would be worth your time to browse and compare software.

A quick note about kits that advertise as VHS to DVD conversion kits: be careful when buying them. A number of them are over-priced and don’t work as well as advertised. Do your research on Amazon or by Googling “review”. Stick to well-known brands with good reviews if you go this route, though it’s often cheaper and almost as easy to buy a simple 30-40 dollar capture device and use free software like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie to create your movies.

Another option is to purchase a transfer machine that is a combination of DVD writer and VCR. These are much more costly than buying the equipment for the computer. They can be hooked up to a TV, be sure you have the correct imputs, so you can view what you are copying. A tape is inserted in one side and a DVD in the other side. However long the movie is that is how long it takes to copy. These devices work well if you have a lot of VHS tapes and don’t want to deal with the hassle including a computer in the process can introduce. These are easy to use and generally well documented to just read the instruction manual and you should be good to go.