Sometimes the good shots take a blood sacrifice

Blood sacrifice you ask? YES! these were taken on a misty, humid day that mosquitoes thrive in. They were all over me as I was trying to lug my camera gear, swat mosquitoes, cross streams, set up a tripod and make camera settings. It was all worth it in the end though. My mission was accomplished... to get those mysterious soft waterfalls that you always see in brochures!

Here's the secret:

The camera MUST be on a tripod. Keep in mind that anything that is moving in the scene will be blurred (that includes blowing leaves and branches). Set your exposure time to something 1/4 of a second or slower.

What I feel like doing right about now...

... sleeping in a hammock. :)















I love photographing children.... most of the time. They can be very fast. A "kodiak millisecond" is more like it. So the best time to capture them is when they are asleep (at least I think so.)

Time

This past semester I was able to work for the University of South Carolina's student newspaper: The Daily Gamecock. It was really cool, I was able to learn a ton. I learned mostly about news style photography, and how to (try to) capture an event. What I quickly came to realize, is that this involves a lot of waiting. But I've come to think that that is what photography is about. When you're trying to capture a moment in time, you have to wait for that moment to come and happen. That's what happened here. I had to take a picture of the candidates for student council. The moderators/people asking questions, were pretty much right behind me to my right when I took this. The debate was set up so that the moderators would ask a question, then all the candidates would answer one at a time. So after the first question, as the last candidate was answering, I got in my position where I knew all the candidates would all be looking at the sam time: right next to the moderators. I had already set up my exposure settings beforehand. I'm pretty okay with how this came out.



I also learned how important it is to figure our settings as quick as possible. Here's an example of when I was in the right spot, but the picture's overexposed a bit. I got a text message one day after class, saying there was a protest to keep a camp open for kids with disabilities. I figured it would be cool to wait for the protesters to walk past me, so I waited by the sidewalk. But I was in the shade; not the best, I learned, for getting even light. Oh well, now I know.

Flowers are usually pretty

So....I'm finally done with school. That should explain a lot. In other words, I will be posting more regularly now for a while. I have so many pictures I've wanted to post. I'll start with this one.

I was walking back to my dorm from something, I think it was some meeting, and it was about 5:30 PM in early March. Golden hour. I walked past these flowers and thought it would make a good picture, so I convinced myself to stop. Pretty much just basic settings, trying to get right exposure and all. I was physically pretty close to the flowers themselves, so that helped a lot with the depth of field.

Lessoned learned: actually trying is half the work.

Snow

Here are some pictures that I took in Colonial Williamsburg during a snow storm! Of course my camera had to go and die on me... ugh.

and now blogger is giving me a hard time.
All par for the course.

Something Different

Thought someone might want to try this.

I think I might.

Fun Stuff

The South finally got some snow! It is always a big event down here, so I went ahead and got out to take some pics even though there was a two hour delay (yes this was as much snow as we got in the pics).

I really like textures, so I was trying to convey the texture of fresh snow in these last ones.

Please let me know what's good and bad. Thanks a ton.

Turn Around

One of the first things I've noticed with my camera is how much lighting changes even by just turning around. For example, when I was at my bro's police academy graduation, I had my settings adjusted for the stage lighting, where my brother would be walking across the stage. But then the speaker asked the parents to stand up. So I saw an opportunity when my ma and pa stood up next to me on my right, I just went ahead and started clicking away. But as you can tell, the lighting was not the same. So, all that to say: I need to learn how to adjust my settings quicker and when to do so.

And a practical tip I've learned the hard way; set your ISO higher before slowing down shutter speed or changing anything else when taking indoor pictures. I've found indoor lighting is almost always darker than you think it is.

UPDATE: 1/7/09
Here, the only difference between these is that the second picture is one f-stop higher. It should have been lower to begin with, but it works for illustration purposes. You can see, that there is almost no detail in the face of the one dog in the second picture, but if I felt like cropping the first one a bit, you could actually see the dog's face a bit more. This is how much difference there is in lighting, just by turning around. 

I hope this helps

And we're back (!!!!!)

First: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I got a camera!! I still can't really believe I actually have this amazing thing. (Canon rebel XS, in case you're wondering)

Here's a few of my first pics I took with it.


I have a lot to learn now, but I am so glad I am now able to really take what I want. Key word there is "able". So please feel very free to be as critical as possible on pics I post from now on. Any pointers would be appreciated.


And along the lines of the actual content; I am being taught the ways of photojournalism at school. The photography group I've been going to lately has been pretty helpful. The main thing I've learned so far is to never take a picture that I can't answer the question "why did you take that". In other words don't take pictures that only serve to look pretty. If someone were to ask, "why did you tilt the camera that way?" make sure you have a very specific reason for that; as to why that visual element helps tell the story of your picture (not just make it look pretty).

But keep in mind that this is for journalistic photos. Photos that help to tell a story. But I think that it is somewhat applicable to any other type of photo too. Just sharing what I learned the hard way a couple weeks ago at school when I took some of my photos to a "portfolio workshop". I learned a lot, but it was the hard way =^ P Oh well, one way or another.


So I hope this helps somewhat, I super excited to have a camera again. Please be super critical. I will definitely be posting more regularly now.

Finally!

My computer has been in the hospital for awhile! It's better now... so I thought I would finally post some more pictures.