Such a Rebel: March 2011

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Monday, March 28, 2011

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sunday Stroll

One of the best parts about having a dog again is that I am pretty much forced to find time for walking!

Sometimes I’m just so impressed with the quality of my point & shoot shots.

Soon Miss Chibi isn’t going to need her ridiculous parka.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Friday, March 25, 2011

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Nope, I didn’t screw up the title… I sort of haven’t done assignment #4 yet. We’ll come back to it, I promise. It was to do with learning about zoom features, which I already understood and just never made time to shoot.

Assignment #5 was WAY cooler anyway. :) Night time class field trip to Chinatown!

The goal was to practice learning which aperture and exposure to use in different lighting situations. There were also some situations to play with our flash (which I avoid as much as possible!) and my favourite was playing with quick zoom shots (I’m sure there’s an actual name for this).

As I walked up the street to meet the class I saw a couple of signs that I knew I wanted to use as the subject for my first set of shots. I wanted to capture the neon of the FanTan Cafe sign alongside the metal FanTan Alley street sign. It was actually fun fiddling to get my tripod in the right position, my camera on the right angle, and then choosing the right settings.

Starting point:

Close-up no flash:

Close-up with flash:

I did take quite a number of shots but this final one ended up being my favourite because it captured both signs pretty much perfectly and I love how straight it is!

My next idea was a simple neon sign I saw in a window across the street.

I played with the zoom as my camera captured the shot:

Neat right?? I shot these on F5.6 (Av mode…which gave a 1 sec. exposure). When discussing them with my instructor he suggested trying a lower aperture like F22 or lower to give a REALLY long exposure…during which you turn your zoom REALLY slowly to get a super fun shot…like this:

In some regards it was too bad it was raining (I got wet and freezing cold pretty fast) but it actually worked for us as far as the lights and wet road and sidewalks went.

My favourite shot of the night:

So many different lights captured, almost perfectly straight (based on the light post on the left), sky and ground included…and the best part is that some of my classmates are actually in the shot! :)

I wish we had more fun lit up places like this in Victoria…I would totally go play around taking shots again. It was fun!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Assignment Review

Well here I am, way behind on assignment recaps again!

Last we spoke about photography class we had just completed our snow day field trip to Beacon Hill Park.

I handed in the three photos I posted last time and got great feedback.

For the bridge shot my instructor only pointed out that he would have liked to have been able to read the whole sign at the back of the scene. My reasoning for not featuring the whole sign was because if I had taken that big step to the right to get the correct angle I would have lost the composition of the tree and the bamboo that I was going for. I also really liked my angle on the bridge.

Side note: Charmaine was shooting about 2 feet away from me so I would have either stepped into her shot or stepped on her!! :)

For the tree shots, my handing in two versions of the same shot totally worked. He liked my first shot focusing on the tree, but was quick to draw attention to that little building that looks like a hat in the background. Again he wanted me to step to my right and hide that hat (but there was stuff over to the left that I didn’t want in the background…so either way there was something!).

But when my second shot with the focus changed to the greenery in the foreground came up, everyone liked it! The background blur took the emphasis off the little building and softened the whole shot. Exactly what I was hoping he would say. :)

So I guess maybe I am learning something! haha.