Where does the time go?

It's been a week since I posted but my excuse is that I've been practising...lots. I've also invested in a good all round zoom lens. I was initially going to invest in the Canon model (£699 or thereabouts) but after consultation with my husband and a really helpful sales girl in the Peterborough branch of Jessops (thank you Anabelle) I've bought the Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4.5 Macro (£254). In the end I reasoned that the Canon may be heaps better but at my 'entry level' standard I'm not going to notice £450 worth of better. I'll have lots of fun with the Sigma until my knowledge increases to level that I actually notice its limitations, if it has any. I'll then be in a better position to know what to replace it with and in the mean time I won't have to sell a kidney.


Well one week on and I'm not improving at the pace I'd like but I'm pretty sure I am improving. I'm braver anyway.


Open Studio is a brilliant tool and there are a few people on there from whom I've taken great inspiration. Saffy, in particular has such a good eye for a shot and has really got into using Photoshop Elements. She's also brilliant at portraiture. Up until now my portraits have looked a bit staid...or gormless (not my hubby's fault...he's definitely not gormless, yet in my 'not very flattering' shots he looks like someone you'd cross the street to avoid!) So I've studied the EXIF data of all the portraits I admire and today I finally cracked it. I have a really nice shot of my son which I'm proud to call a portrait.


Portraits aside, this week has been all about capturing motion and taking photographs in tricky lighting conditions. It's been challenging to say the least but I've really tried hard and I'm actually getting somewhere. It does sometimes feel like two steps forward and one back though. I'm still getting the shutter speed wrong for the aperture and prevailing light conditions more often than I'm getting it right. One plus side to this is that I'm being forced to learn how to use Elements properly.


In fact my best shot this week arose from a mistake. I was trying to capture the motion of my four year old tearing along on his bike and I hopelessly over exposed the shot in the strong evening sunlight. I half heartedly tinkered with it in Elements and BINGO I suddenly had a very arty shot which I posted on Open Studio. It's received lots of great comments and I feel very happy with it. This photography lark is a bit like a drug. When you get it right you get a 'high' and you just have to go back for more.

Sparkly Spokey Dokeys

I took this using a tripod in our garden using ISO 1600, shutter speed 5 secs, aperture 5.0. I thought it was quite fun and the wheel lights made a great pattern.

SPLASH 1, 2 and 3

Actually there were about 36 takes . I was trying to catch the motion of the water when it was broken by a rock and it's very difficult to get an enthusiastic four year old to throw a rock exactly where you need it to be. For the first two I used ISO 200, F16 and shutter speed 1/500. These gave the best results but were still very dark so I lifted them a little by nudging the darkest bits of the brightness curves in Elements. I'm quite please with them now. For the last one I used ISO 200, F22 and shutter speed 1/200. This gave a better brightness result but a less spectacular splash.

Tunnel

This was an attempt to capture the bright area and detail of my son at the far end of the tunnel. I used ISO 400, F 16 and 1/500 shutter speed. It's not terribly successful. it was so dark I had to lift the bright area at the end of the tunnel in Elements but that introduced loads of noise. I do like the composition though. I think it has potential so I'll have a few more attempts at this shot in the future.

Balloon

Nothing to do with the assignment. It drifted over the park while we were there and was too good a photo opportunity to miss.

Barbed Wire with Weed

Just liked this one too.

Speedy Biker Boy 1 and 2

Number 1 was my most successful motion shot straight off the camera. I took about 30 in total so I tried loads of settings. This was at ISO 200, F22 and shutter speed 1/30. I was panning to keep my son in shot.

Number 2 was a mistake. it was hopelessly over exposed in the bright evening sunlight and I would have discarded it but I was playing with the curves tool in Elements to see what I could do and suddenly I has this lovely, bright, fun, arty shot.

It's a Long Way Home

This is my best portrait shot so far. I'm really pleased with it as it captures my son's usually serious expression perfectly.

Boy and Pumpkin

This was an experimental shot I took last week and forgot to post but it also covers this week's brief. My son arrived home from school with a pumpkin he'd designed and carved himself. Rather amazingly he still had all his fingers and he asked me to commemorate his prize possession. I used speed 1/4 sec, F-stop 4.5, ISO 800 and I'd like to thank Stephen Counsell and Dave Hudspeth for all their input. I was pretty clueless as to which settings to use and how to achieve the effect.

Week 3

This is about Exposure and it's all very interesting. After years of point, shoot and hope, the idea that I can actually control some of this stuff is quite intoxicating, especially to a control-freak like me.


Having read through Session 3 for the first time I now feel ready to make a start on the assignment which reads:


Capture and share five well exposed images from at least three of the following categories of varied and challenging lighting conditions:Creative motion blur in low or normal light conditions (e.g. walking, cycling, cars, sugar falling from a spoon, running water, car lights after dark). For this task you will need to steady your camera by either resting it on something or using a tripod. Avoid camera shake.Low light high speed (high ISO) still photography (e.g. moonlight, street lights). This can be hand-held if the shutter speed is fast enough or using a tripod or other camera support as appropriate. Avoid camera shake. High contrast photography (bright indoor lights or bright daylight or highly reflective subjects)


Unfortunately, unhooked from my precious automatic settings, I have 'control' only in the loosest sense of the word. Most of my initial shots are out of focus, over exposed, under exposed or just plain pants.


I therefore throw a tantrum worthy of my four-year-old and declare that the OU is a waste of money and I'm giving up...right now.


Fortunately, my other half has been through this early stage of an OU course before and, as with my four-year-old, he knows it's just a phase I'm going through and that I'll grow out of it given time, patience and a spell on the naughty step.


Eventually I calm down enough to have another go. I drag my long-suffering son to the park in search of 'motion'. His eyes light up at the sight of a Zip slide and I tell him that he can have as many goes as he wants, as long as he tries to point himself in my direction as he whizzes past.


He's up to the challenge and gamely makes fly-by after fly-by while I fiddle and faff and generally makes a dog's breakfast of every shot. Finally he zooms by and I manage to catch him...perfect.


'Hooray!' I yell.


'Brilliant,' he says, 'Please can I go on something else now mummy 'cause my bum is getting sore.'


Watching my husband playing in the sandpit (yes I know he's 39 but boys will be boys) I have an idea. I get him to trickle sand through his fingers while I try to catch the motion. Thirty shots later I have a couple of usable ones. Return home, marvelling at how patient my family are and vowing to bake a big chocolate cake for them...as soon as I've uploaded the shots...

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Sand Slipping through Fingers

Concentrating

Boy in Forest


Berries after a Shower

A Lesson Learned

This afternoon I decided I needed some great photo opportunities. So, with my hubby and son, I decided on Fermyn Woods. a fair old drive from our house. It has nice, tree lined paths, interesting little grottoes and a great kiddies' park with a zip slide...just the thing for nice action shots.

It was only as I was poised to take a great landscape shot from the top of a hill I realised I'd left my memory card in the PC and the spare memory card on my desk. Aaaaaaaaargh...stupid, stupid woman! No memory card, no photos.

I was lamenting my predicament when hubby remarked that my son had his digital camera with him. I sulkily replied that it was a rubbish camera (£24.99 from TESCO) and that it would take rubbish photos.

Then I remembered what a fellow student had posted on the OU forum: There are no poor cameras, only poor photographers...oh well, why not, I was there anyway.

One small bribe later (it involved chocolate) and I had my four year old's cheap digital in my possession.

Now it might be a cheap digital but we had at least had the foresight to buy a 1GB memory card for it! Four year olds are not selective in their choice of subjects and we quickly discovered that nothing fills up a camera's limited memory faster than 30+ shots of said four year old's feet.

So I had plenty of memory to play with but the limitations of the camera became apparent pretty quickly. There are about two seconds between depressing the shutter and the camera leaping into action. My son has trained himself to stand stock still between pressing and the blue indicator light flashing. I now understood why.

Motion shots were not really going to be an option. It was all too unpredictable and after a few attempts at capturing my son leaping off a log I could see that my usually willing model's patience was wearing a bit thin...'MUMMY! I've REALLY had ENOUGH now.'

So I practised a bit of macro photography. I was pleasantly surprised to find that for my £25 I had (or rather my son had) this facility. Macro is a bit tricky using an LCD screen but I had a crack at it.

On our return home I uploaded the images to the computer. The quality of the images was adequate if not brilliant and there was a slight magenta colour cast over everything but I was pleasantly surprised how many useable shots I had.

I tweaked the best ones in Photoshop Elements...I removed the colour cast as best I could by adjusting the colour balance; brightened a couple which were a bit under exposed and toned down a couple which were over exposed. Finally I cropped to give the best effect. See what you think.

All photos were taken on a Technika SH-340T (£24.99 from TESCO). As a beginner's camera for a four year old I think it's pretty good!

I will conclude with Deb's handy photography hint no. 1. BEFORE SETTING OUT ON A PHOTOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT ALWAYS CHECK YOU HAVE YOUR MEMORY CARD / BATTERY / SPARE BATTERY etc and, failing that, drag your better prepared four-year-old along.

Father and Son

Sun Rays

Shady Path

Shiny Hips

Thistle Head


Teeny Fungii

Fallen Tree

Balancing

When is it my turn?

Critiques

This is very new to me. I'm the woman who has owned a digital SLR camera for over a year and never used it on any setting except portrait or landscape. I only found out it had an auto setting two days ago! Now I'm supposed to critique the work of others...right.

It's a bit like me critiquing someone's surgical technique when the most dangerous implement I've ever wielded is a potato peeler. Still, in for a penny as they say.

At the moment I'm sticking to what I know. Given that I'm only part way through week 2 that doesn't amount to a whole lot but I've found that even a numpty like me can praise someone's use of the 'rule of thirds', comment on their exposure and suggest a different way of cropping an image. Ok, it's not much, but it's more than I could do 10 days ago. I've even been brave and suggested that something might be edited a little in Photoshop Elements (though I've had to admit I haven't a clue how I'd set about it).

Amazingly my comments have been taken in good part by everyone...except one...and as he doesn't seem to have taken criticism by anyone in good part I'll try not to lose much sleep over it.

All I'd say to anyone who is too timid to venture beyond 'nice picture' and 'I like this' is, just dive in and have a go. No-one is expecting us to be David Bailey. I try to say something nice about a piccie and then say what I feel I might have done differently and I try to do it in a polite way...the way I hope people will critique my own work.

In fact critiquing is easier than taking photos. It's MUCH easier to see where someone has gone wrong after the event than it is to see it yourself before you take your own photos. Theatre and restaurant critics take note: those at the sharp end are trying their best and if the results aren't gold-standard every time...well you bl**dy well try it and see if you can do any better!

Finally...

Managed to get some photos of Finedon wind farm yesterday evening. The light was a bit weak and watery but I did my best and ended up with a couple of usable shots.

I now just have to get a couple more of my husband and son!

In the mean time I've taken a couple of post-rain close-ups of plants in my garden...I do love my garden.

Wind Farm at Finedon

After the Rain - Blue cones on a Korean Pine

After the Rain - Bright Berries and Faded Foliage

Best Laid Plans 2

Set alarm for 6am. Wanted to be up bright and early as today I need to get to Finedon wind farm at daybreak to get some great shots (been reading about maximising the chance of great exposure with out door shots) then get back to take son to school.

I'm up dressed and breakfasted before opening the blinds...Oops it's bucketing down. OK, no problem, I'll get some great atmospheric rainy grey shots of wind farm today then return for some other 'better weather' shots later.

Drive up to wind farm. Road blocked off because of accident. Nice policeman tells me they'll be half an hour or so. No problem. I'll take son to school first then return via wind farm for my photos.

Drop son at school. 8.45am. So dark and rainy now that I have to put my headlights on again.

Drive past wind farm. It's gone! Someone has stolen my wind farm! Peer into mist and rain. Can vaguely make out one turbine in the gloom. Make executive decision to return home for cup of restorative hot choc, monitor weather and leap into action should things clear up a bit.

This photography lark isn't half frustrating.

Family Planning

The week 2 assignment is as follows:

In this session’s photo assignment you are asked to take six pictures. The pictures should be of someone, somewhere or something that you really like. You can take six pictures on the same topic or go for a combination of pictures. Spend up to four hours on the assignment.

Remember what you learned in the first session about composition and bear that in mind. But think about what you have learned in this session about technical details and think carefully about your ISO settings, the focal length that you choose (if you have a choice), and consider the lighting of the scene and whether this accurately reflects what you want to take.

Having applied some thought to the subject matter I have decided that three of my six photos will be of my favourite people, (hubby and son) and three of my favourite local place, the wind farm at Finedon.

So last night I arranged for hubby to read the bed time story. Lots of opportunity for cuddly, snuggly shots there.

You think?

"No not that story Daddy I want Stinky Face." Daddy dutifully exchanges book, selects alternative and climbs on to bed while I try to work out what ISO setting I might need to produce the requisite effect.

"Not that Stinky Face story...the other one." Daddy dutifully climbs down (bed is elevated 'ladder and slide design...great in theory, not terribly practical for adults) and selects another book. I wonder if flash will wash everything out.

Hubby and son snuggle down for story. I stand at foot of bed ready to capture father-son bonding moment.

"Please can I have a cup of water before we start daddy?" I say I will get it and dive downstairs for requested beverage.

Drink is downed in one and we settle down for story and photo shoot.

"I want mummy to read it. She reads it better." Daddy looks hurt. I soothe husband and reassure son that his daddy is perfectly capable of reading a bedtime story. Son's bottom lip trembles. Reassure son I will read the story again afterwards or indeed any other story he likes as long as he lets me take a few darn photos.

Take a couple then decide I need to be more elevated. I climb on to bed too...to amusement of son who thinks it's great to have mummy and daddy in bed with him, and consternation of husband who has met my Rheumatologist and knows the state of my knees and hips.

Finally, I'm ready to go...Aaargh! I've just realised hubby has white T shirt on. I've been struggling with white. This could make or break my shot. Would he mind changing?

Silent look tells me that he will not change his *!@!!**! T shirt and may even have to divorce me for suggesting it.

Take the best shots I can, given precarious perch and mutinous family in wrong-coloured clothing. I'm developing a healthy respect for professional photographers.


I've tried the same shot here twice, once in black and white. Not sure which one works best really.

Storytime Snuggles

Storytime Snuggles B&W

Best Laid Plans and all that...

Haven't had a lot of time during the past three or four days. Work has kept me busy plus I had to attend an all day conference on Sunday. Not many photo opportunities there...just 8 hours sitting in darkened lecture halls listening to eminent speakers from around the world expound about the latest research on a diverse range of topics: from a quick canter through the thorny issue of avoiding professional disciplinary proceedings, right through to current trends in retinal and optic nerve diagnosis taking in immunology, cataract surgery and the grading scales and diagnostic dyes used in everyday practice along the way!

But now I'm back and snapping away again.

We're on week two and here are my observations:

The video tutorials are useful but the presentation is as dry as the Sahara in most cases.

It's strange not having tutor input. For the most part the only feedback given comes from other students. Now there are clearly some students who are professional photographers (or who should be). They are incredibly helpful and supportive of those of us who are completely pants but it does beg the question Why are they on an introductory course and what are they getting for their 165 squids?

This comment came up on the forums and there seem to be two reasons why the course is run this way:

1. It's cheaper...there are 1500 students and to break them into groups of fifteen or so with a 'qualified' photography tutor would ramp up the costs involved considerably.

2. Nowadays it is felt that peer review and feedback is the way to go. The comments are 'real', often instant and should provoke lively debate thus helping to produce more dynamic, vibrant work. Waiting for feedback from a professional each time might actually stifle creativity and experimentation.

Experimentation is what digital photography is all about. You don't have to get everything right first time. You can take hundreds of shots and then delete all but two or three if you like. Digital photography is all about freedom.


Now, having said that there is little in the way of tutor or moderator feedback I have to tell you that one moderator passed on these marvellous words of wisdom:

Quote

When I did my degree in Photography we had one tutor in particular whose critical approach was one of the best I have encountered, he never criticised an image (well one of mine at least) he would look at it thoughtfully, then turn and ask you what you thought of it, then he would ask you what do you think would happen if you had done x, y or z when taking the picture, this then led you to be self critical of your own images ... next time you have produced an image look at it, ask yourself these questions ...

Is it what I envisaged?

Is it well exposed?

Is it well produced?

Could I have done better?

And how could I have done better?

At the end of this course you should hopefully be able to extract from your camera and software all the possibilities they can offer ... the rest is up to you ... almost

Dave H
Moderator for T189

I thank him very much for this. I have printed out the comments and pinned them on the wall where I can see them when I glance up from my PC as I'm downloading my masterpieces / disasters (delete as applicable).

Hitting the Bottle! Exercise 1.5.1

Couldn't find a bottle for this the other day. Can you believe it? Milk comes in plastic cartons, my perfume comes in an uninspiring opaque metal bottle and I was all out of squash so even plastic was out. Anyway, what I really wanted was glass...nice, reflective glass.


So I raided the next door neighbour's recycling box this morning for a wine bottle The neighbours are fairly used to my eccentricities by now so this didn't raise any eyebrows.

Take three photos of a bottle in different ways. Take no more than 20 minutes to do this. Try to focus on the following qualities in each shot:

• colour
  
• light


• view point.

You should end up with three shots, each of which emphasises a different quality.

So here goes. I'm more pleased with these because for two of the shots I braved manual focus. It's the first time I've ever twiddled bits by myself, hence the ridiculous 'chuffed to bits' feeling.

Garden Through a Stolen Wine Bottle

Down the Neck of a Stolen Wine Bottle

Translucence

Assignment 1.9.1

This week's assignment is as follows:

Select six letters from the alphabet and take a picture for each letter. Do not just look for letters on signs; think creatively about the shapes in nature and of objects – for example a rope laid on the ground may become an s or a w.

OR Take six images of familiar subjects from below waist height or above head height (not at the normal head height). Try to find a subject that you can photograph from above and below and from the side. Take at least one shot which is close up to the subject and one which is taken from a distance. Use this opportunity to give an unusual perspective on a familiar subject.

OR Take pictures of a place, a person and a still life. For each subject take two shots, one using landscape format and the other using portrait format, i.e. with the camera held horizontally and vertically.

I chose option 1 and these are the results taken with the Canon EOS 350D:

So far I've taken four of the six shots.

'C'

I used some of my son's marbles to compose the shot above. I had in my head the idea that they'd look bright and colourful but the whole shot looks slightly grey even though I used the best natural light I could. The flash just washed everything out so the result above is without flash. I used my Canon EOS 350D but used the portrait setting as I didn't know how to get a reasonable shot otherwise. I have little or no knowledge about how to use light as you can see, hence the slightly grey image.

'S'

Here I made an S with my son's train set. I tried a straightforward 'above' shot but it looked a bit flat so I tried to get perspective on my side by using smaller track curves nearer to me then taking the shot from an angle.

'O'

Put my lunch to work here. I obviously need a DAZ button on my camera as all my whites look grey!

'D'

I used just the bells to begin with but they seemed a bit lost so I brought in some more musical instruments to give a bit of context.

I've received loads of helpful comments and discovered that I have an auto setting on my camera so I don't have to use portrait all the time!

It was suggested that getting lower down, nearer to the final 'music' still life would give more depth and that stronger, more directional illumination would help too. I just have to work out how to rig something up now.

Exercise 1.1.1

Ooh first exercise:

Spend an hour looking at photos on Flickr. View as many images as you can, and pause on the ones that interest you in some way. Bookmark any images that you really like so that you can find them again. You can bookmark an image in your web browser using the 'Favorites' option on the menu bar.Choose five images and then think about why these images have caught your eye and also about how they might be improved.

Interesting exercise.

Image 1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zebaislam/1410263752/

Why I like this image

I like photos which tell a story and this is a tiny vignette. The fact it is in black and white seems to draw you in to the boys’ faces. The composition is lovely.

How I think it could be improved

I’d like to lose the ‘burnt’ edges and I’d love to see it in colour.

Image 2

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefaniepetersen/1425452180/

Why I like this image

Again, there’s a story here. Where is this poor chap going? He’s not dressed for the weather. I like the contrast between the dark foreground and the white blizzard outside and black and white is the perfect choice for the image.

How I think it could be improved

I might have cropped it slightly differently:

At the moment the eye is drawn to the figure in the foreground. If you lost the right hand edge to the shelter so that the figure was shifted further right in the composition, I think the viewer’s eye would be drawn into the image more forcing us to see the two people ahead and the path off into the distance, heightening the awareness of the uncomfortable journey this chap has ahead of him. It would obey the rule of thirds better (I've picked up something from my read-through ;-)

Image 3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29428276@N00/1408245623/

Why I like this image

I like the fact that there is barely any depth to this picture. The broken down door fills the frame. What’s behind it? Where is it? As a viewer you want to open the door to have a peek. Although the subject of the photo is the door itself somehow this feels slightly uncomfortable and creates tension. The door is blocking our way to seeing what’s beyond.

The tones work well and the quality of light and style of the door both look continental. There are clues but not enough of them. This picture makes you ask questions.

How I think it could be improved

There is something intruding into the foreground on the right hand side, not sure what, which detracts slightly from the door and keeps drawing the eye (well mine anyway). I think I’d like to see the photo taken again with the door pushed open, just a crack. That might be even more tantalising but I appreciate that it may not have been possible.

Image 4

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80176513@N00/1411798544/

Why I like this image

I love the dramatic sky reflected in the, unusually, green water. I like the symmetry involved and the colours. You want to cross the lake to visit the Spanish village on the other side.

How I think it could be improved

Apparently this lake at Calpe is a mass of flamingos during certain months of the year. It would certainly make a dramatic shot to see them.

Image 5

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76185114@N00/1403334949/

Why I like this image

Human hands are so expressive and the henna decoration here enhances the beauty of their form. The black background is perfect.

How I think it could be improved

I’ve looked and looked at this and cannot think of a single way I could improve it. To me it is perfect.

T189 Study Diary

Ok. Today I start my new OU course T189 Digital Photography and very excited I am about it too. I have my cameras at the ready: Canon EOS 350D, (an SLR) and a small Olympus FE-100 ‘pocket-sized’ model, and my software (Photoshop Elements) loaded.

I hasten to add that I didn’t buy the cameras for the course, I had them anyway. I use my pocket sized one mostly because it has fewer knobs and buttons. The Canon puts the fear of God into me if I’m honest, hence signing up for ten weeks intensive training.

However, the Canon does come into its own when I want to take action shots of my son and dog, neither of whom sit still long enough for me to be able use the Olympus. Because of the delay between me clicking the button and the camera ‘firing’ I generally manage to snap thin air, a foot, or the tip of a tail!

The course looks interesting. Think I’ll read through Session 1 first then go back to attempt the exercises and this week’s assignment.