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.