City Skylines

For my Photography class, I had to take some photos of "Buildings". My instructor wanted tall buildings and living in Cincy, that really only leaves. . . well, Cincy =).

18mm, f/5, SS 1/1600, ISO 320, -.3 EV


50mm, f/4, SS 1.3 seconds. ISO 100

Workshop 2

This week's theme is two fold. My instructor is a delightful Italian man in his 60's and in his exuberance to cater to a class that is mostly interested in children's photography, his intentions were lost in the Italian-English translation. He assigned us the theme "Anxiety". After pondering the class' mixed reaction to the theme he realized that he had meant to say "Curiosity" and the Italian word for that is very similar to the English for anxiety. He offered up either theme or both. We can turn in two pictures (same as last time) and I plan on doing one photo for each theme. The deadline is tomorrow and let me just say, my little models are NOT being cooperative. Here is the best I have so far. If there is anyone out there reading who has any input on any of the images, I welcome it!

Curiosity

Anxiety

I'm leaning toward the black and white of my son as he wanted to keep it as "SOOC" as we could. I did a considerable amount of playing with the other versions of that photo and while I love the results, I think he may want to see a more "bare bones" type of photo for class.

My husband adores that picture of me, but I'm not too fond of it. It has MAJOR noise issues and the color just seems weird to me

Workshop on Hands

I enrolled in a community class for Photography. It was cheap and I figured some live feedback couldn't hurt anything anyway. Our first assignment was "Hands". Preferably "Hands at Work". It had to be two hands, from the same person who had to be an adult. Of course my first thoughts were of both my mother (a massage therapist) and my husband (an IT professional). I was out of town the weekend it was assigned over so I never really got a chance to sit down with my husband and get some good pictures of his "moneymakers" as he likes to call them, so i had to improvise. Here are my two entries which were well received by the instructor.

One Year Photo Shoot

I had a shoot this past week for a friend. Her son Sam just turned one this weekend and I came out to try to get some shots of him. It was beautiful that morning, but I still struggled with my indoor shots. Oh well, that's what practice is for!

Unit One Photo Two Attempt

Photo 2- Using selective focus (and wide aperture) to create a sharp subject and blurred background.


This is my nephew at my son's birthday party this weekend. I think he stands out pretty well. There is a fence, another child and a sprinkler going on behind him. I'm not sure about the kid behind him. Is that blob of the same color too distracting because it fill almost the same amount of frame? Or am I obsessing?

f/5.6 ; SS 40 ; ISO 200
My niece at the same birthday party. There is much less in the background though the fence is still technically there.
f/5.3 ; SS 125 ; ISO 200

Thoughts?

NYIP Unit One Photo One Attempts

Panning shot of my niece on a four wheeler. f/9 ; SS 10 ; ISO 200

My youngest playing with a ball. f/5 ; SS 160 ; ISO 200

Youngest again racing with his brother and his radio flyer rocket! f/20 ; SS 10 ; ISO 200

I love this shot. HATE the tree growing out of his head! Chalk one up to needing to develop my photographers eye! f/5 ; SS 160 ; ISO 200

All of these were taken with my Nikon D80. The first was taken with my 50mm 1.8 and the last three were taken with my 18-200mm.

I personally think the first one is the sharpest while still conveying motion, but I am not thrilled about the background. I like the second one, but feel it's lacking because he's not looking at the camera and his legs are chopped. The third is blurrier than I like and I'm not sure that the background shows enough blur as the grass all blends together anyway. The fourth I have issues with b/c of the tree.

Still trying to get "the" shot. I don't think any of these are it. Panning is SO much harder than I thought it would be! I need to get a tripod. i think that might help with the "follow through".

Thank You!

To everyone who voted, many thanks. I had a slight fiasco yesterday which ended in me only being able to enter four pictures (due to time restrictions) and not being able to use the fire hat photo (the rules did not allow selective coloring. For more information, you can view the melodrama here . I entered photos 1, 3, 4 and 5. Judging is until 5 today- keep your fingers crossed for me!

I'm thinking of entering a photo (or two if I can't decide) in the local fair. If you had to choose, which would it be? I'm going to attempt a poll, but if it doesn't work, leave a comment with your choice.

NYIP Unit One Photo Assignment

Photograph One: Using shutter speed to express a sense of motion or speed. Choose a moving subject and use one of the three following techniques:

• Fast shutter speed to "freeze" the action.
  
• Use a very low shutter speed to blur the image of the moving subject while keeping the background sharp
• Use a slow shutter speed and pan the camera to keep the subject sharp while creating streaks in the background.

Photograph Two: Use selective focus to make the subject stand out. Photograph a person or thing close up and make the subject sharp, but the background blurred.

Photograph Three: Create a feeling of distance by using a great depth of field. Keep everything near and far in focus.

I'll be posting my attempts in this blog. Give me some feedback. Help me decide what's working and what's not! Thanks!