No, no - don't worry. I don't mean the end of this blog or anything. It's just the end of my photography classes.
But I do feel sort of...bereft. I walked out of class and felt a little bit empty. I've had so much fun and I've learned so much in these classes, and I don't just mean about aperture and shutter speed and stuff like that. I mean that I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned that I can make stuff with a camera in my hand.
See, most of the stuff I make comes with instructions. When I make - sew, knit, crochet, cook, play the piano or whatever - I always follow somebody else's ideas (well, if I'm being completely honest, I usually start with somebody else's idea and alter it to suit my fancy). But when I use a camera, I'm making something that's mine. Even when I have an assignment from a professor, ultimately, the images I take are mine. For the first time in my life, I've had to be brave and present something to a group of people that I made - from start to finish. So, it was a stretch for me, but I did it.
And I feel really good about it.
And you know what else? My final project got a round of applause from the class.
So, for those of you who have endured my endless indecisiveness and looked at version after version of images and helped me with the actual shutter when I couldn't get the job done myself (that's you, Mindy) - thanks. Thanks so much. You guys - my friends - you're just the best.
"What's next?" I asked myself as I walked to my car.
I have a few ideas, but only time will tell which ones will tug hard enough at my heart to pull me along into a new adventure.
Showing posts with label photography class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography class. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Turned In
I did end up turning in several of the butterfly pictures for my homework tonight, after I tweaked them a bit to brighten them up. I also turned in pictures of my ancient camellia bush that lives in my back yard. I'm not going to post the whole series of both here, just a few of my favorite shots in their edited state.
Next week's assignment, and I would presume past next week as well, is pretty Photoshop-intensive. I'll be hunting and gathering lots of images and a few lines of poetry too and I know this isn't one that you guys will want to try at this point. I know some of you are wanting to post some photos related to the last couple of assignments I've had, so now's your chance!
PS
Mom, I promise there will be typewriter pictures soon.
Daily Bliss: chocolate for lunch and kissin' on my baby nephew
Wake-up Playlist: Ordinary World, Duran Duran
Next week's assignment, and I would presume past next week as well, is pretty Photoshop-intensive. I'll be hunting and gathering lots of images and a few lines of poetry too and I know this isn't one that you guys will want to try at this point. I know some of you are wanting to post some photos related to the last couple of assignments I've had, so now's your chance!
PS
Mom, I promise there will be typewriter pictures soon.
Daily Bliss: chocolate for lunch and kissin' on my baby nephew
Wake-up Playlist: Ordinary World, Duran Duran
Friday, January 29, 2010
Assignment
Hey guys. Are you ready for this week's photography assignment? It's a doozy for me, but I think I've finally devised a way for you to do pretty much the same thing.
I will be taking a single-light, white-on-white portrait of someone who is willing to sit still for hours while I move a light around them and diffuse it with various materials to see what I like best. Oh - and I'll be using reflectors too.
Just like a real photographer.
But I don't want you to have to buy lights.
So.
Grab somebody you love and dress them in a white shirt.
Find a window that lets in some decent light - north and south facing windows are usually best. If you are feeling ambitious, use a sheer piece of fabric over the window to diffuse the light - to make it soft and pretty.
Grab a white sheet and tack it up to your wall, throw it over a closet door or just have somebody really tall hold it up as a background.
Now, if your camera has manual settings, set your camera to aperture priority and your aperture to a low-ish range, like 5.6 or so (everybody's camera seems to have different f-stops. You can try a lower one if you'd like to). set your ISO to somewhere between 400 and 800. Take several shots to see what works best.
Adjust your aperture and your ISO until you find a combination that works for you.
Walk around your subject and take notice of how the light carves shadows and creates highlights on their face. Pick a few different angles and take notice of the different effects.
Now, pick your favorite angle and start snappin', baby.
Try it on one of your kids or your hubby or your bestie, or even the weird dude down the street.
If your camera doesn't have manual settings, it might have a "portrait" setting. Give it a try.
Just no flash, please.
And please, please, please share your pretty pictures, even if you don't do white-on-white and just take a window-light portrait of someone. I'd love to see them!
I will be taking a single-light, white-on-white portrait of someone who is willing to sit still for hours while I move a light around them and diffuse it with various materials to see what I like best. Oh - and I'll be using reflectors too.
Just like a real photographer.
But I don't want you to have to buy lights.
So.
Grab somebody you love and dress them in a white shirt.
Find a window that lets in some decent light - north and south facing windows are usually best. If you are feeling ambitious, use a sheer piece of fabric over the window to diffuse the light - to make it soft and pretty.
Grab a white sheet and tack it up to your wall, throw it over a closet door or just have somebody really tall hold it up as a background.
Now, if your camera has manual settings, set your camera to aperture priority and your aperture to a low-ish range, like 5.6 or so (everybody's camera seems to have different f-stops. You can try a lower one if you'd like to). set your ISO to somewhere between 400 and 800. Take several shots to see what works best.
Adjust your aperture and your ISO until you find a combination that works for you.
Walk around your subject and take notice of how the light carves shadows and creates highlights on their face. Pick a few different angles and take notice of the different effects.
Now, pick your favorite angle and start snappin', baby.
Try it on one of your kids or your hubby or your bestie, or even the weird dude down the street.
If your camera doesn't have manual settings, it might have a "portrait" setting. Give it a try.
Just no flash, please.
And please, please, please share your pretty pictures, even if you don't do white-on-white and just take a window-light portrait of someone. I'd love to see them!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Today's Homework
I have waited and waited until the last minute for this week's homework. Mostly it isn't my fault - we've had nothing but clouds this week and these shots needed to be done on a tabletop in window light. The only sunny day was, well, Saturday when we went to Disney. Not exactly going to do a technical camera exercise amid the swarms of people there. Nope.
So, today it was.
I worked with so many ideas for these tone-on-tone tabletops and, frankly, didn't get very impressive results. I have concluded that the camera I am using is just a really good one (I'm using my sister-in-law's nice camera for assignments this semester...). Sometimes I got a result using a gray card and sometimes, the exposure looked exactly the same. The camera seems to be automatically adjusting the white balance even when I've held the shutter halfway down after zeroing in on the gray card.
Oh well.
I think I'll ask about it tonight in class.
Here is one set of pictures where you can see the difference, though, the lighter one being before the gray card, the darker one being after:
They're not my favorite shots of this typewriter, though. He is very photogenic, it turns out. He deserves a post of his own and will have his day, I suspect. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that I was doing this right at some point. The rest of the before-and-afters turned out with little difference between the shots. Here are a few of my favorite pairs, though:
Overall, I'm least happy with the white ones, though after consulting the camera's manual, I think I understand how to fix the problems and get a good white color. I just don't have time to set back up and do it before class. I think it's in setting a custom white balance based on your gray card. It's a little more complicated of a fix. Whatever.
So, today it was.
I worked with so many ideas for these tone-on-tone tabletops and, frankly, didn't get very impressive results. I have concluded that the camera I am using is just a really good one (I'm using my sister-in-law's nice camera for assignments this semester...). Sometimes I got a result using a gray card and sometimes, the exposure looked exactly the same. The camera seems to be automatically adjusting the white balance even when I've held the shutter halfway down after zeroing in on the gray card.
Oh well.
I think I'll ask about it tonight in class.
Here is one set of pictures where you can see the difference, though, the lighter one being before the gray card, the darker one being after:
They're not my favorite shots of this typewriter, though. He is very photogenic, it turns out. He deserves a post of his own and will have his day, I suspect. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that I was doing this right at some point. The rest of the before-and-afters turned out with little difference between the shots. Here are a few of my favorite pairs, though:
Overall, I'm least happy with the white ones, though after consulting the camera's manual, I think I understand how to fix the problems and get a good white color. I just don't have time to set back up and do it before class. I think it's in setting a custom white balance based on your gray card. It's a little more complicated of a fix. Whatever.
Still With Last Week's Assignment
Here are a few more shadow pictures, maybe better than the first group:
I know I said I was soooo over "reflections and shadows," but I just wasn't 100% happy with the images I had - especially the shadows. There were a few more things I had in my head to try and I just couldn't rest until I'd followed through with them - whether they worked or didn't.
And one more reflection shot (also the previous post is a reflection shot of the moon in a cup of coffee) - Nobody else turned in night shots for this assignment, so I though I'd like to try it:
And this one has reflections and shadows:
I know I said I was soooo over "reflections and shadows," but I just wasn't 100% happy with the images I had - especially the shadows. There were a few more things I had in my head to try and I just couldn't rest until I'd followed through with them - whether they worked or didn't.
And one more reflection shot (also the previous post is a reflection shot of the moon in a cup of coffee) - Nobody else turned in night shots for this assignment, so I though I'd like to try it:
And this one has reflections and shadows:
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Metering
Ready for this week's photography assignment? Yeah, me neither. It's actually sort of a technical assignment, so I'll leave you guys with a couple of options after I try to briefly explain the procedure involved.
This week's assignment deals with light metering and gray cards, sort of using manual controls to override our camera's instincts when it comes to recording the light that's reflected off your subject. This isn't meant to be a class or a lesson in itself, and if you feel like getting all technical with it, you can just Google "light metering" and you'll get all sorts of helpful information.
Stated briefly and insufficiently, your camera is seldom going to record an image as your eye sees it. Our brains do a lot of color correcting for us! A piece of white paper looks white to us under lots of different lighting conditions because our brains automatically adjust and correct what we see, but your camera is going to record that piece of paper based on the light that's reflecting off of it (think of how things look under the terrible lights at WalMart compared to how they look under lovey morning light). But there are lots of different tricks you can use to fool your camera into recording the type of image your eye sees.
So, this week, we are doing some experimenting. We will be shooting two tabletop scenes, one black set-up on a black background and one white set-up on a white background, in order to show what the camera would automatically record and to show what you can trick it into doing using a gray card.
Here is where we stop and realize that most of you don't have a gray card.
Here is also where we stop and realize that my professor gave us another week to shoot more shadow and light pictures if we wanted to - he'll grade that work after the extra time has passed.
If you want to keep playing picture games with me and you don't want to learn the wonders of gray cards and white balance and light metering, just skip the rest of this post and take more pretty pictures of shadows.
You need to shoot these pictures in Manual Mode - shutter speed should be pretty fast. Maybe 1/60 or faster. ISO? 200-400. Aperture? Whatever works well once the other two are set. What you may notice is that you do not get true whites or blacks. They're all sort of grayish. HaHAAAAA! Your camera is not as smart as it should be considering how much you paid for it.
Just kidding.
It wants to bring everything in balance to a nice, neutral 18% gray. Are you ready to fool it? Fill the frame with your gray card and take a picture. Don't have a gray card? It's okay. Betcha can find something else gray. Try it out. It might not give you the dramatic results you'd hoped for, and any teacher might kill me for suggesting it, but I still think it's fun to experiment and learn more about your camera and how it works. Maybe you could even Google for an image of a gray card and fill the frame with your computer monitor to take your gray picture. Maybe. I don't really know. Again - not the teacher.
Once your camera has been fooled by your gray card, it's going to take much nicer picture of your monochromatic table settings.
I'll let you know if this doesn't work well for me. But I have a gray card and I want an "A" pretty badly, so I'm going to do whatever I need to do to get it to work!
I'll be posting pictures, but it's going to be a while. I have no idea what to take pictures of. Marshmallows? Chess pieces? Should I spray paint something?
And I'd like to remind you that there's nothing wrong with continuing to take shadows and reflections pictures. Nothing at all. I'm going to continue to take more and I like lookin' at your pictures too. You can also just take pictures of your black stuff and your white stuff with your camera and play with the "levels" sliders in your photo editing software (Photoshop or GIMP). This is not as great as getting the shot right the first time, but still, you'd be amazed at what that can do.
Or you can take pictures of your black stuff and your white stuff and simply be surprised by how your camera seems to make the blacks look washed out and the whites look gray and then don't bother to do anything else about it. You know. Whatevs.
Daily Bliss: my brother and his dog came for dinner this evening
Wake-Up Playlist: "Buffalo Gals" (traditional children's song - and no, I don't know why I woke up singing this one!)
This week's assignment deals with light metering and gray cards, sort of using manual controls to override our camera's instincts when it comes to recording the light that's reflected off your subject. This isn't meant to be a class or a lesson in itself, and if you feel like getting all technical with it, you can just Google "light metering" and you'll get all sorts of helpful information.
Stated briefly and insufficiently, your camera is seldom going to record an image as your eye sees it. Our brains do a lot of color correcting for us! A piece of white paper looks white to us under lots of different lighting conditions because our brains automatically adjust and correct what we see, but your camera is going to record that piece of paper based on the light that's reflecting off of it (think of how things look under the terrible lights at WalMart compared to how they look under lovey morning light). But there are lots of different tricks you can use to fool your camera into recording the type of image your eye sees.
So, this week, we are doing some experimenting. We will be shooting two tabletop scenes, one black set-up on a black background and one white set-up on a white background, in order to show what the camera would automatically record and to show what you can trick it into doing using a gray card.
Here is where we stop and realize that most of you don't have a gray card.
Here is also where we stop and realize that my professor gave us another week to shoot more shadow and light pictures if we wanted to - he'll grade that work after the extra time has passed.
If you want to keep playing picture games with me and you don't want to learn the wonders of gray cards and white balance and light metering, just skip the rest of this post and take more pretty pictures of shadows.
You need to shoot these pictures in Manual Mode - shutter speed should be pretty fast. Maybe 1/60 or faster. ISO? 200-400. Aperture? Whatever works well once the other two are set. What you may notice is that you do not get true whites or blacks. They're all sort of grayish. HaHAAAAA! Your camera is not as smart as it should be considering how much you paid for it.
Just kidding.
It wants to bring everything in balance to a nice, neutral 18% gray. Are you ready to fool it? Fill the frame with your gray card and take a picture. Don't have a gray card? It's okay. Betcha can find something else gray. Try it out. It might not give you the dramatic results you'd hoped for, and any teacher might kill me for suggesting it, but I still think it's fun to experiment and learn more about your camera and how it works. Maybe you could even Google for an image of a gray card and fill the frame with your computer monitor to take your gray picture. Maybe. I don't really know. Again - not the teacher.
Once your camera has been fooled by your gray card, it's going to take much nicer picture of your monochromatic table settings.
I'll let you know if this doesn't work well for me. But I have a gray card and I want an "A" pretty badly, so I'm going to do whatever I need to do to get it to work!
I'll be posting pictures, but it's going to be a while. I have no idea what to take pictures of. Marshmallows? Chess pieces? Should I spray paint something?
And I'd like to remind you that there's nothing wrong with continuing to take shadows and reflections pictures. Nothing at all. I'm going to continue to take more and I like lookin' at your pictures too. You can also just take pictures of your black stuff and your white stuff with your camera and play with the "levels" sliders in your photo editing software (Photoshop or GIMP). This is not as great as getting the shot right the first time, but still, you'd be amazed at what that can do.
Or you can take pictures of your black stuff and your white stuff and simply be surprised by how your camera seems to make the blacks look washed out and the whites look gray and then don't bother to do anything else about it. You know. Whatevs.
Daily Bliss: my brother and his dog came for dinner this evening
Wake-Up Playlist: "Buffalo Gals" (traditional children's song - and no, I don't know why I woke up singing this one!)
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