32 posts tagged “photography”

I took an online photography course this spring and one of the lessons was on using a telephoto lens and photographing the sun and moon. I don't have a real telephoto lens so I practiced with my camera's 3x optical zoom lens. In the area where I live now it's hard to find a place to capture a good sunset shot and I'm not much of a morning person so getting organized for photography at dawn is pretty much out of the question. So no sun photos for the course homework. I also tried photographing the moon but none of the pictures turned out.

I had to try again.

In May I visited my hometown on the shores of Lake Huron, a great location for sunset photography. I did have a two good sunset evenings and also tried again for pictures of the moon.

Then, after my return to Vancouver Island, I photographed a sun halo that occurred on May 25th. Cool, eh?

 

I'm taking another photography course. This one is all about photographing nature - plants, animals, landscapes, etc. Here are two of the photos I finished for the Small Animals assignment.

They were taken in direct sunlight which results in exposure issues so I'm actually not that happy with either photo. If I get better birds and bees shots I'll post them too so you can see the difference.

 

March 1 - Got a puppy. Then, for two weeks, was much too busy to take any pictures except when he was sleeping.

March 15 - It snowed again. Dogs went outside. I stayed inside and experimented with pictures of fire.

March 19 - Went to the beach.

March 21 - Had guests from Winnipeg and visited the Malahat Lookout.

March 24 - Did my Photographing Nature course homework.

March 25 - Took pictures of the setting sun. None of them turned out to be any good.

March 26 - Found the quarry.

March 27 - Watered 15 newly planted trees.

March 29 - Went back to the quarry, this time with neighbours from up our street.

March 30 - Saw Carter, small in our backyard forest.

We got more snow than expected yesterday. Not as much as Nanaimo which got 40 cm, maybe 18 to 20 cm (7 or 8 inches for you Imperials). By the time the snow stopped, the depth surpassed the height of my rain gauge.

After the cloudy, rainy gloom of the last few weeks, the snow makes it seem as bright as summertime. But much colder.

I watch the post-snowfall action out my home office window. Neighbours driving by fast in big trucks. Other neighbours crawling along slow in a small car with balding summer tires. A couple kissing. ATVs outfitted with plows pulling sleds ridden by the kids. Dog walkers. A small flock of Juncos looking for food in the tall grass at the side of the ditch. Our next door neighbours venturing out with the baby wrapped in blankets.

 

 

Later on I took a few more pictures. By 3:10 in the afternoon the sun is very low in the west. This creates great lighting conditions for photography.

Last week the whole class went together on a photography "field trip" to downtown Duncan and here are the photos I finished for the final class of our course.

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy taking pictures of buildings. Mostly they're square and boring. And there's always crap in the way like hydro wires, parked cars, garbage cans, distracting window reflections, ugly signs, and dirt. Also, the buildings in a town or city are all packed in close together so you can't get far enough away to take decent overall shots unless you stand in the middle of the street and risk getting run over or rent an airplane to get an aerial view.

On Saturday afternoon I looked at my photos from the morning's efforts and didn't like any of them. Three days later I looked again and thought I might be able to salvage enough to show in class if I spent a few hours in Photoshop Elements. Here are the results. Not so bad I think. And I learned a bit about using Photoshop Elements at the same time.

Perspective: I cropped off the messy stuff that was on both sides of this shot and applied one of Photoshop Element's special effects to the building to emphasize the texture of the stucco. It's like a painting now.

The Gate: I cropped the photo so that the gate fills most of the image. Then I jazzed up the colours by turning up the saturation. Maybe a little too much (the leaves almost went neon on me) but I like it.

Veronika`s Window: Cropped a little bit. Used the cloning tool to get rid of the edge of a sign to the left of the window. Increased the contrast.

Local Colour: Created a duplicate layer that I converted to black and white. Then I cut out the part of the layer over the sign so that the sign in the original coloured layer showed through. I missed a little spot in the "A". Changed the colour of the sign to bright red. Flattened the layers together.

Outsider: Cropped. I don`t remember exactly but I think I might have increased the contrast and also turned up the saturation a little bit. I didn't like the windows or the bush at the lower left but I thought I could make them less noticeable in b&w. So I created a duplicate layer and converted it to black and white selecting a softer lower contrast b&w than I had for Local Colour. Cut out the sections of the b&w layer over the sign and the sculpture. This took a long time. I had to learn how to use the lasso selection tool to do it. Flattened the layers together.

Imagine That: Cropped.

Seeing: Cropped.

Window View: Cropped. Increased contrast a little bit. Used the cloning tool to get rid of the distracting reflections in the dark window. Can you see the cat?

Photographer: Cropped a little bit. Used the cloning tool to remove a pole that was sticking out of the top of Randy`s head.

 

Oh no, not more leaves!

I think this leaf obsession is getting tiresome. My photography class colleagues are too polite to say but I'm sure they would like to see pictures of something else. Anything else!

 

 

Well this is the last bunch. The maple leaves are now all off the trees and rotting on the ground so I won't be taking any more leafy pictures until they grow back next spring.

I'm thinking of moving on to photographing water. The winter monsoons started this week and for the next five or six months it's going to be pretty hard to take pictures outdoors that don't include water.

I might try photographing some rocks too. Wet rocks. Wet rocks with leaves on them.

These colourful trees are Bigleaf Maple. This area where we live now has lots and lots of these trees all over the place. This photo was taken at Mason's Beach on Shawnigan Lake.

This sea gull shot is just a so-so picture but I included it in my homework because there are a few aspects of it that I particularly like - the fact that I was able to get close enough to the sea gulls to take a decent picture, capturing one bird in flight, and the angle of the concrete boat launch across the bottom of the picture.

They are considered a weedy nuisance here but I have always liked Ivy so I couldn't resist taking pictures when I found this enormous ivy bush taking over a fence and wall.

 

 

I did ferns last week and here is another one this week. The green frond contrasts with the orange fallen maple leaves in the background.

More maple tree leaves below.

 

Also, a picture of Ingot from across the road. I worked hard scrambling up a muddy slope through 4-foot alder saplings, getting scratched by prickly bushes, fighting with my camera's exposure settings while the sun peeked in and out of clouds to get this picture and I'm still not happy with it. I am going to try again on a cloudy day. Too bad all the leaves have fallen off that maple tree since I took this picture.

I'm taking another photography class and this is my first set of homework pictures. Our instructor is a professional photographer Paul Fletcher.

We have to shoot in manual mode so I am adjusting ISO, shutter speed, and aperture for every shot. It's time consuming and frustrating but it sure helps you understand more about how your camera works and how to adjust for different light conditions.

 

In these photographs I was mainly trying to get exposure right. I also worked on depth of field and thought about composition. My favourites in this set are the fern frond pictures.

Re the Mack truck: The Big Guy and I walk by this truck every day on our after-supper walk. He says the truck seems threatening and dangerous. It gives him the shivers. He watched a horror movie once about a Mack truck running down people and vehicles. I tried to capture that malevolence in the head-on shot of the truck. Not sure if I succeeded.

I haven't been on VOX much lately because I've been away and not spending much time online. Now the holiday's almost over and in a couple of hours I'll print my online boarding pass for tomorrow's flight out west. I'll spend a couple of days in Vancouver before returning home by bus and ferry to Vancouver Island.

I keep thinking that I have lots of great pictures to post here but then I remember I have to buy a new computer first! It might be awhile before I'm fully operational computer-wise. First, on the new computer, I have to recover and update my financial records and make sure all the investments and bills that need attention get handled. Then I have to see how much better my favourite games run on a bigger faster PC with an up-to-date high-end graphics card and new LCD monitor (I think I'll get a 22-inch widescreen). Third priority is recovering my photography catalog and downloading the new images off my camera. After that, the eBay stuff.

September going to be a busy month.