Life Makeover Program in Tel Aviv Completed
In the end of 2002, we finished this year-long program and it was a resounding success for those who participated fully, and a lesser success for those who participated at a lesser level. The adage that you get out of it what you put into it lived up to its truth in this program. Yet, from the continuing reports from the participants, no matter what they put into it, they continue to see the value increase as they slowly come to understand what happened during this intensive year-long program.
Much thanks to everyone who helped to make the Life Makeover program work here in Tel Aviv. ESRA (English Speaking Residents Association) helped tremendously with room arrangements and publicity. Ruth Alfi, my partner in crime on this project, helped keep the energy going and kept me on track. And thanks to everyone who participated, no matter at what level or how much. Keep on living your best life! And thank you for the opportunity to make a difference in the world around me! It has been wonderful fun!
Starting Your Own Life Makeovers Group
While we are done with the project in Tel Aviv, you can continue on with other groups around the world and online. Because our group was so successful, I continue to receive requests to help start new groups. For a listing of Life Makeover and related groups in the world, visit at www.cherylrichardson.com. Here are a list of other helpful sites:
- Extreme Makeover – Etiquetteandimage.com
- Cheryl Richardson’s Life Makeovers Web Page
- Oprah – features a lot of information on Life Makeovers and changing your life
The Story of the Life Makeover Group in Tel Aviv, Israel
Intrigued with the Life Makeover series on the Oprah show, and the book, Life Makeovers by Cheryl Richardson, I and my friend, Ruth Alfi, began a Life Makeover group in Tel Aviv when we couldn’t find one here, especially an English speaking group. Begun in October 2001, we had more than 40 people participating, with the group swelling to sixty or more from time to time. The group was sponsored by ESRA (English Speaking Residents Association) 
and met as a large group once a month. The mission of the group was to help each other improve or change the quality of our lives. In order to accomodate the size of the group, we broke up into small geographical groups (3-5 people) which committed to get in contact with each other at least once a week.
The following were the commitments participants make when they join the group:
- Meet once a month as a whole group
- do an assignment from the book once a week
- Be a part of a small group
- Support and encourage yourself and the others through this process by contacting members in the small group at least once a week (meet in person, phone, email, fax, whatever)
Staying in Touch During the Month – The Essays
It’s important to stay in touch with the group during the month between meetings. To accomplish this, an emailed “newsletter” was sent out at least twice a month. The following are essays from our newsletter to help the group keep up with the homework.:
- Learning Some Rules of Life (Be On Time)
- Learning from Others (Tips and Tricks to Stay on Track)
- What’s Draining You?
- Journal Writing
- Learning and Living Against the Odds
- Pursuing Your Passion
- Pursing Your Passion II: Getting Out of Your Own Way
- Active Listening
- Touching Clues
- Center of the World?
- The Symptoms of Touch with Hiddai Levi
- Social Support and Sharing
- Support and Sharing Form
- The Power of Choice from May 2002 meeting
Unfortunately, oftentimes you spend more time screaming and groaning then rushing to show off. A horrendous experience was had by a famous world-traveling nature photographer, who, after 4 months on the road non-stop covering both poles, Africa, China, and other exotic locales, opened his first package of film to find that he could see through the stack of 18 slides all the way to his light table with nary a darkened bit of emulsion to block the view. The same was true for the next roll of film, and the next and next and next. All of his 400 rolls of film were completely blank. Desperate to solve the mystery (did all those airport x-ray machines really do this kind of damage?), he recalled having both his cameras serviced before his long adventure. He had made the fatal error of not running a roll of test film through each of them. The rest of us can learn greatly from his costly mistake.
camera-shake, use a tripod with a remote shutter release or cable, or brace yourself and your camera against a solid object like a fence or wall. Hold both hands in a tripod formation under and around your camera, your elbows tight together against your chest. Take a breath, then exhale and at the end of the exhale, press the shutter release. Keep shutter speeds higher than 1/125 of a second. Even though some people claim they can get sharp images at slower shutter speeds, odds are those images won’t hold up under a magnifying glass.
isn’t perfect. It can miss. Careful attention must be paid to the focusing “cells”, the placement targets within the viewfinder where the camera senses the focus of the subject. A slight move off the target or subject and the camera may refocus on the foreground or background. Working with closeup subjects or subjects that challenge the autofocus mechanism, photographers may turn off the autofocus feature, but they should remember to turn it back on for the next photograph requiring autofocus. Otherwise, another focusing crime may be committed. [NOTE: See the closeup of this photograph in the sidebar on the right to learn more about detecting the kind of focus crime you are commiting.]
Magnification of Out-of-Focus
Magnification of camera shake
Reflectivity is one of the physical properties of glass and mirrors. The nature photographer 
image in front of or behind your subject, or occasionally in the form of a ghostly smear. To prevent such crimes, use an off camera flash and point it at a 45 degree angle to the glass. This allows the flash to pass through at an angle, reducing the chance of the reflection reaching your film.
reach the subject and a crime is committed. A deviation of the flash fall off crime is lens interference. When the subject is close and the photographer uses a long lens with the flash atop the camera, the flash may illuminate the top of the lens and cast a half moon shadow at the bottom of the scene. Again, by removing the flash from the camera, or by using a shorter lens, this can be prevented. By understanding how the flash weapon works, practicing with it under appropriate circumstances, and using it with care, the photographer can overcome most flash crimes.
mountains slide down the hill and out of the picture. Take care to line up horizon lines within the frame of the viewfinder or, for extreme safety, use an architectural grid viewfinder screen, available for many advanced cameras. Extreme wide angle lenses, such as a 20mm, 17mm, or 14mm, create their own perspective challenges, emphasizing horizon and other lines, so careful inspection and consideration before pressing the shutter is required.
misdeeds. Lens flares are phantoms that haunt photographers, but their appearance is preventable. In order to create more complex lenses and to reduce distortion and aberrations (not apparitions), manufacturers use many layers of glass (called elements) inside the lens. Zoom lenses will often have 12 or 14 elements. The more layers of glass there are, the greater the opportunity for lens flare as the light scatters through the length of lens. Exacerbated by the use of lens filters, colorful flares, often hexagonal in shape, haunt the image. Careful attention to detail allows the photographic detective to spot these crimes before they are imprinted on the film. By shading the lens with a lens shade, a hand, hat, or other shading device, and by keeping the sun off the front of the lens (but not necessarily shading the subject), most lens flare can be prevented. Purchasing shorter zoom lenses, and checking them thoroughly for the number of glass elements (less is best) and flare before purchase is a sound idea.
Trespassing is a crime of unauthorized intrusion. Living life through the viewfinder, the photographer often fails to notice that something unwanted has 
entered the scene. A person wanders into the frame, not paying attention to the photographer behind him. Photographing from a moving vehicle is equally problematic; trees and lamp posts can jump into view as the shutter is pressed. The photographic detective must pay attention to all the details, inside and outside the camera by lifting his or her head and anticipating the movements around him.
While inspecting the image through the viewfinder, even the most dutiful of the photographic detectives often fail to notice evidence of themselves in the picture. With strong light sources behind them, their shadows can creep into the corner of the most breathtaking images. Tripods, reflectors, and other photographic equipment can suddenly appear as shadows or sneak into the edges of the frame. Closeups of subjects’ eyes can reveal the photographer within their glassy depths. The smallest of details reveal themselves in the final product, so inspect the evidence thoroughly before pressing the shutter.
Other crimes committed by the photographer are camera shake from wind during long exposures, mode crimes (when the photographer forgets and leaves the camera on a special mode like multiple exposure or bracketing), duplication errors (when an exposed roll is reloaded into the camera by mistake), 
technological overwhelmance (when the camera is smarter than the photographer), and failure to predict the future results (not understanding the difference between what the eye sees and what the film will record).
is exposed, only the area hit by the light coming through the shutter captures the image. The hidden edges become black when the film is processed. The processor loads the film into a machine using these black lines as a guide for cutting. Most of the time the hatchet job works, but occasionally it doesn’t, resulting in missed cuts. When you get your film back, black lines are found in the middle of your image. You have the end of one image, a black line, and the start of the next image in the final result. If the image is at all salvageable, a plea bargain could be struck and the two “ends” could be re-spliced and digitally reproduced, aligning all the edges together to restore the picture within a computer. Most of the time, this is a very costly process, but the photographer should insist if the image is worth the time and effort.
White bars are the result of indiscriminate light coming in through the camera, exposing the film even when the shutter is closed. Indiscriminate light may leak through as a result of damage or a flaw in the back of the camera body. If the shutter is damaged in any way, light may leak through from the viewfinder or lens front. Only a professional camera detective should check this out, so take the camera immediately to a good photographic repair shop.
Strange ghostly blurs are the result of the camera being picked up during a long exposure. Opening the camera back will completely expose a section of film, often resulting in strange smears. Make sure the film is fully rewound before opening. If the film is jammed or requires inspection while in use, have the camera handled by an expert in a “darkroom” before opening. Or consider the film a loss and toss it.
yourself. Compose for different lighting conditions and check to see if the resulting meter readings match your expectations. If not, you may have a problem with the meter. Also, compare meter readings between two cameras with similar lenses at identical apertures. If there is a difference, you have a problem. The lens aperture also controls the amount of light and the aperture “blades” may be damaged. If the exposure problems correct themselves when you change lenses, get that lens checked. Still puzzled? Take the photographic evidence, and the camera, and visit your local camera repair shop.
Lens flare can look like god-light or rays when used in combination with a symbolic cross atop a church. Blurred, shaken, and stirred images can create interesting patterns and textures, even modern impressionistic art work. Light moving across the film during a long exposure can create interesting streaks when captured intentionally. One photographer made a popular series of photographs using this technique. Dressed in black during long night time exposures, he moved a colored light flashlight around, outlining subjects such as STOP sign letters on the road and the outline of a classic old car.
On a bright sunny day, light dances on top of moving water at the beach or in a stream. By underexposing, only the brightest “lines” and “spots” of light are captured on film, creating interesting abstract images. Brent worked with a stream near Mt. Rainier in Washington State, focusing on the bright 
lights moving across the water. Playing with the aperture, he took some pictures with enough exposure to show the rocks and still capture the lines of light, and then underexposed to show only the abstract lines of light.
While trying to photograph the patterns in the tall trees over my head, I turned my camera lens on the tripod to point straight up. After pressing the shutter, I realized that I was still 
holding the zoom lens. I let go and watched the lens slide down during the exposure. Furious, I used rubber bands to keep the lens from sliding and took more “correct” pictures. When I got the film back, the best shot in the bunch was the “mistake”. This image has sold many times and has also been used as background images to text and other pictures. Not bad for a boo boo.
In most cases, a large depth of field is wanted for 
When the depth of field is in millimeters, so shallow that even a focusing shift can create a completely different image, you have what is called "selective focus". This is where the focus point becomes the subject rather than the subject itself. This is not a series of pictures of a red flower, but much more – artwork.
As your depth of field narrows, your background becomes even more important and critical to the success of the image. Pay close attention to the details in your background and around your subject. When in focus or partially in focus, these have shape and attract attention. By blurring them with a narrow depth of field, they fade to nothing or take on a ghostly shape. Sometimes this is effective, other times the ghostly shape attracts even more attention than the subject, especially if it is brighter than the main subject.
Photographing dark subjects against a light background or the reverse helps the subject stand out against its background. But photographing dark subjects against dark backgrounds (or the reverse) may cause the subject to be lost. Pay careful attention when photographing small animals and insects, noticing when black antenna disappear into black backgrounds. Choosing your background can make the difference between a successful close up image and a throw away.
Working with depth of field preview, you can determine what is in focus and what is out of focus before taking the photograph. Another technique is to unfocus your lens and look through the viewfinder to see if there are any bright or dark spots that will be distracting. Then re-compose and re-focus on your subject.
When you increase your magnification, you enter a new world of 
Expanding upon this notion of selective focus, you can also create your own selective focus "blurs" to enhance your images. Especially when working with wildflowers, you are often challenged with difficult lighting situations as well as distracting foregrounds and backgrounds. By photographing with out-of-focus colorful flower pedals in the foreground, you can create a watercolor wash of color that will hide distracting elements. If the neighboring flowers don’t cooperate, you can pick up some fallen or damaged flowers (we do not recommend picking wildflowers for this process) and hold them up in front of your lens to recreate the same quality. By understanding how your lens sees, and working with the depth of field preview or by experimentation, move the flowers in your hand forwards and backward between the lens and the subject until you achieve the desired result.
On older lenses, estimating your depth of field distance is fairly easy. The barrel of the lens hosted the measurements. With today’s techno cameras, few give you your depth of field distance range. The mathematics of determining the depth of field is based upon your distance from the subject, and a combination of mechanical factors such as your lens length, film size, and aperture. In our 
to the violent attacks. 
For the modern world, terrorism entered the vernacular in 1972 when Palestinian terrorists seized hostages and 
How can Americans empathize with this life and this Intifada? How do you negotiate with such people? 
