Photography Tips

Have you ever seen great pictures that people in your family have taken and wondered how they got that good of an image? Have you ever looked at your pictures and been completely unsatisfied? After reading this article, you will be better equipped to leap into the world of digital photography. Develop or have a desire to learn the art of digital photography, Whether you just want to learn something new, take better pictures of your kids, get more interesting photographs, or get a new hobby, you must have a desire to learn. Anything that can take a digital picture can be used for digital photography: a cell phone camera, a $20 mini camera from Walmart, a simple point and shoot, or an advanced DSLR. It doesn’t matter what you use to get the shot, you can get good pictures with anything. There is a plethora of information about photography on the internet. Search for articles on the basics of photography, such as exposure, rule of thirds, and light. The more you learn, the better at photography you will become. Never stop searching for new information. The two major programs are Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. These can be extremely complicated, technical, and hard to use, but once you master the basics you will be very happy that you took the time to learn. For beginning photographers, GIMP is perfect because it is completely free. It is similar to Photoshop, but a little bit less daunting and much less expensive. Start by reading a few articles on how to use GIMP, then spend time experimenting with your own images. These will help you learn new techniques, see professional work, etc. Some good ones include: Chase Jarvis Photography, D-Town TV, Photography 101, The Art of Adventure Photography, and The Art of Photography. Take lots of pictures. Unlike film photography, the cost of taking 10 images and the cost of taking 100 is the same. If you see something you like, take pictures of it. If you see something interesting but don’t think you can get a good shot, take pictures of it. You may be surprised with what you get.Get your friends into photography. They can point out new and interesting pictures to take, and it’s always more fun when you are taking pictures in a group.Don’t get discouraged. If someone leaves you a negative comment on one of your images, realize that it is only an opinion. The only opinion that matters is yours. If you like your pictures, then you succeeded.Pictures are all around you. If you run out of things to photograph, go out into your backyard. If you start looking for pictures to take in familiar environments, they will show up like magic. Look for contrasts, Look for something that stands out from the rest of the shot. In your composition, use the wide end of your zoom (or a wide-angle lens) and get closer and make it so. Look for contrasts of all the things above: colour amid dullness, light among darkness, and so on. If you’re photographing people, try putting (or finding) your subject in a context in which they stand out. Look for happiness in unexpected places. Look for a person in a surrounding in which they appear out-of-place. Or ignore this and take them completely away from their context by opening your lens all the way to blur the background. Look for anything that will hold a viewer’s interest which isn’t a traditional “subject”. As you find your niche, you’ll probably find that you end up going back to taking photographs of subjects again. This is fine. Looking for things which aren’t subjects will improve your photography no end-you’ll soon see a different world altogether. Don’t look at images full size. Ken points out that the most important parts of an image are those that can be seen when the picture is seen at thumbnail size. There are people out there who will pick at flaws they can only see in 100% crops of your photos. That’s okay, because they aren’t really worth listening to. Feel free to pass over anything that doesn’t look great when it takes up a quarter of your screen (or less).

Is an Aetna Life Insurance Policy Right For You?

For many people, an Aetna life insurance policy will be right for them, as this type of insurance can be for many different individuals, as well as groups of people, wanting a particular policy which has special policies for their organization, and who want to provide life insurance to many different individuals within their workforce. However, before you look to take out a life insurance policy, be sure that you actually need it and that it will do you more good than harm. You should remember that even though such policies are named ‘life insurance’, all of the companies that offer these policies usually do not pay out until you have passed away.Who Needs Aetna?If you are self-employed or own/run a business then you should consider a life insurance policy – whether from Aetna life insurance or another life insurance company – and this will be increasingly importance if your family depends on your salary for bills and day to day needs. Additionally, you may want to ensure that your partner is able to pay the mortgage should you pass away, thus choosing to take out a policy would be a viable option. More so, if you and your partner live together with two children, and you have a twenty five year mortgage on your house, then after you do pass away, your mortgage payments will be paid by your life insurance policy, so you can be happy in the fact that your family will not struggle after you have gone.Being stable in financial eyesThere is one main reason why Aetna is so popular for people looking for both life and health insurance, and it is that the company itself is very financially stable in the market. However, before you actually enquire further into Atena life insurance and look at investing in a life insurance policy with them, you should look to see what their current financial company rating is. When you do a search about product comparisons for say a mobile phone, you should be doing the same for life insurance, looking in magazines and seeing what consumer reports are out there. To do this, there are companies that will review consumer impressions and opinions of such insurance businesses and policies that they offer; they will additionally compare the different items on offer too, which will help you choose the most appropriate deal.Standard & Poor is probably the best known company that conducts financial stability ratings on companies. They currently give Aetna life insurance policies an A+ rating, which means that the organization has performed very well during the year and have invested policy holder’s money with some risk, but have seen the financial return and passed that onto the holders of these accounts – as well as increasing the growth of the company and ensuring that they will pay-out. The company has also been rated as a “stable” insurance firm and therefore will be a company that should be on your ‘positive list’ of possible companies to take out a life insurance policy with.Being an Insurance Industry RockMany, many years ago, the insurance capital of America was deemed to be in Hartford, Connecticut; and coincidently this is where Aetna was first formed as a company, in 1850. They still, to this day, have most of their offices and structure in Connecticut and have established themselves to be a national, and international, figure in the insurance industry – they have grown from one employee (in 1854) to almost 34,000 people involved in and around the organization country-wideThe company was also the only life insurance specialist that existed in the early days of the insurance market, and through history, Aetna has offered many different loans, health insurance, dental insurance, end-of-life care and auto insurance to individuals. Their auto insurance devision was the latest introduced area of the company, back in 1907, when they termed it the insurance motor and auto insurance – covering a number of categories within this sector; however, they have become recently known as an industry expert and market leader on life and health insurance policies.

The Importance of English in International Business

The major factor involved in the importance of English in international business is the acceptance of English as the international language of the business community for the purpose of uniformity in communication. Accepting English eliminates the need to explore an alternative language. If not English, then what language works better for the international business community?

English as an International Language

Perspective of English as Global Communication

If English as a global language “means that English has the widest distribution on the most continents, it is true. If it means that English is the language most utilized for international communication between and among language communities, it is true. But if it implies that English is the language of all the peoples of the globe, it is manifestly false” (Harris, 2001, 685). What may be good for the functionality of business may not be accepted as being good for the non-business community. With any new project or venture, research and development of the product or service should be done so that words used to communicate with the new market are not received with offense. Be sensitive and respectful concerning the decisions made in regard to the ways communication is used and worded.

Perspective of English as Learned Communication

“It is crucial that students are equipped with-and be aware of-both the linguistic and strategic repertoire that they can draw from in situations where they use English to communicate with those who do not share their first language and culture. In addition to the development of strategic competence, students also need to be reminded that communication is a two-way road. That is, making one’s own message clear and trying to understand others is not the sole responsibility of non-native speakers or speakers of ‘less standard’ English varieties (however that is defined). Everyone is responsible for overall successful communication, whether it is international or not” (Matsuda and Friedrich, 2011, 340). Be mindful that words can have different meanings in different parts of the same country. Therefore, having words that have different meaning in different parts of the world is a reasonable possibility. There can also be different versions of English in different locations. Business English could also be different from the native English of an English-speaking country. Do not assume; technology has been made available to know for sure what is involved in any given business project or transaction.

English in International Business Communication

“In thinking about the impact of English on international business, there will be two effects: the intra-language effect and the inter-language effect. The intra-language effect would relate to the impact that English has in stimulating international business activity between English-speaking countries” (Hejazi and Ma, 2011, 153). If the native English of each of the two countries is slightly different, it still could have the feel of dealing with a non-English speaking country if time is not spent coming to an agreement defining business English. Business professionals new to a market will benefit by finding out how things work and use the same language the other market stakeholders are using.

“The inter-language, commonly referred to as “lingua franca”, effect refers to the impact English would have on stimulating FDI activities between countries which have different official languages. The inter-language effect would have two dimensions: the first involves the use of English by a non-English-speaking country when carrying out international business with English-speaking countries; the second involves the situation in which English is used as a vehicle language between two non-English-speaking countries that use different official languages” (Hejazi and Ma, 2011, 153). Even though cooperation in using English in both cases may result in positive benefits for the countries involved, sensitivity in communication should be exercised to avoid miscommunication that may offend members of the markets involved. Good judgment with word choice is very important.

Conclusion

The importance of English in international business will depend on the purpose of the communication for which English is involved. Since the importance of English will vary depending on whether its use helps to complete business transactions, the deciding factor will depend of the opinion of the users concerning that fact. The success of communication in business will involve other factors. The more English works in communication for international business, the more it will be used. It will then be used because it is used by the people for whom businesses want to communicate.