Selections in Shutter Speed - Assignment 2

Implied Motion
Shutter Speed 1/25
Aperture f22
ISO 200
Taking Brooke's advice to heart - to practice, practice, practice...I took a ton
of pictures trying various shutter speeds and apertures and even ISOs.
After all that I really was the most happy with just this one shot of blurred motion. The upside is that I am feeling so much more comfortable shooting in manual mode and I think that I'm getting my head more around the concepts and actions.

Frozen Motion
Shutter Speed 1/1600
Aperture f 5.0
ISO 400
The way the water catches the light is interesting.
I wonder why it picks up light from the purple range of the spectrum...

Panning Effect
Shutter Speed 1/60
Aperture f16
ISO 200
This week was so filled with out-of-town company among other pressing matters that I really was able to try panning only once. On the way home from town on Saturday, my husband stopped along the road to our house (not heavily traveled) so I could practice panning on several cars and a motorcycle that passed by before I got this cyclist. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, I was facing west, and I could tell that I had sunspots in each shot...but this was it...my one opportunity to try this technique. I couldn't tell from the rear view screen if I had achieved my goal so was happy when I got home, loaded the photos on the computer and found that the experiment worked! Yay!

Shutter Speed 1/1250
Aperture f 5.0
ISO 400
We were riding in an air boat going about 30 mph with the birds staying beside us or sometimes swooping ahead and then back again. I was shooting away (and yes...I flipped back and forth between manual and automatic in my quest to capture the birds in flight) and I don't really know if this one particular shot was manual or auto, but I like it.

The Wonder that is an Air Boat

One of the best things about living on a ranch in Florida is that occasionally we get to take an airboat ride. Usually it happens when we have out-of-town visitors and this week our daughter, Carina, and her husband, Brady, are visiting - plus our friend, Chris Davis, who just moved to Florida from Virginia came out for the ride. Dale Vaughn, air boat driver extraordinaire, gave us an AWESOMAZING ride to places we had never been before!

Everyone gets a pair of red earmuffs for protection due to the very LOUD noise from the airplane motor that spins the blade to move the flat-bottomed boat over water or land.

It was a beautiful day for a ride!

This flock of birds seemed to want to challenge us to a
race as they flew alongside of us for quite awhile.

Dale knows all the places where the mama gators stay and took us to see some baby gators. This is a few week old baby gator's head (nose pointing left, eyeball in the middle) with his eye reflecting in the water. Dale told us that of the 2 dozen babies that were there, perhaps 2 would make it to adulthood due to predators like large birds, other gators, or turtles.

Adventures with Aperture - Assignment 1

This has been a week of firsts: First time using camera in manual mode...First time creating a blog...First time being audited by the IRS...

Directions: please open lid on head
and pour knowledge directly into brain. :)

SINGLE THEME APERTURE

f4.2 at 1/320 ISO 200
I struggled a little with the 18% gray concept and took a lot of shots that were too dark even when I metered off my palm. So I did that, plus over-exposed these shots. Did I do too much or too little?

f11 at 1/50

f22 at 1/10
Ummm, that morning light is pretty...see how the plate kinda glows on the left side? I like the shallow depth of field in the other shots better.

WHO CARES APERTURE

f22 at 1/6 ISO 400
This is Chris, our 15 year old grandson, who had just finished his share of the weed whacking using his preferred method - a machete. You'll see that in a second. He hates to get his picture taken but condescended to help me as long as he didn't have to wash up first. He's in front of the shed door to get the "all on one plane effect" and I see from this shot that because I was hand-holding the camera and didn't use the rule exception, this shot isn't really sharp.

f11 at 1/25

f 3.3 at 1/400
Of course, Chris likes this shot the best. ;D

STORYTELLING APERTURE

The horse pasture behind our house. I should have taken a ladder to stand on because the dog fennel (the feathery weed) has gotten almost taller than I am.

f25 at 1/125
I like this one the best since that feathery fennel has more detail with a deeper Depth of Field

f 4.2 at 1/4000
Oops, I forgot to mark what ISO setting I was using...AND I can see that the camera sensors need to be cleaned because there are telltale blotches on each shot. I tried cleaning with a bulb thing-y but didn't do much other than move stuff around...Brooke, can you advise me?

f 5/6 at 1/2000
This was supposed to be f8 or f11...what was I thinking?!

Sew Fun...

Every year Nya's mother asks me to make her Halloween costume. So this year I was wondering just what Nya would like to be so I sent her some pictures of patterns I have and she chose - a Car Hop. With a rebate gift card in hand, I crossed the threshold of the new HOBBY LOBBY and made a beeline to the fabrics :), got what I needed, and zipped home to cut and sew. Too bad we couldn't transport Nya across the miles for a fitting....from Florida to Utah all we can do is hope it fits.

Picking up ideas...

One day as I was looking at some blogs I saw a post from a creative someone who had made a "dollar store Halloween wreath" and I thought, "I wonder if I could make a wreath like that?" So at the dollar store I bought a reed wreath, a florescent orange drawstring laundry bag, a glittery foam "Happy Halloween" and 2 flower picks = $5.00.

Since we have an overabundance of SPANISH MOSS hanging from the very large live oak trees in our yard...I gathered a bunch, zapped it in the microwave to kill any...things...that might be there.
The process:
Hot glue the moss to the wreath
Spray paint it all black (already had the paint)
Cut laundry bag into strips, sew together, serge the edges black
Wrap ribbon around the moss
Make a bow and hot glue it on the wreath
Hot glue the flowers and leaves on too
Hot glue the glittery "Happy Halloween"
Thank you to that creative dollar store girl for a fast and cute idea!

I wonder...

Photography - that is what has prompted me to set up a blog. As I have looked at the many, many beautiful photo portraits that are posted on the web I thought, "I wonder if I could do that too?" I mean, I have a Nikon D-50 with 2 suitable lenses after all. Then one day I was talking to my friend Jocelyn. She told me about her cousin, Brooke, who just happens to be a professional photographer and who just happened to be putting together an online photography class. I am lucky enough to be part of Brooke's pilot online class and will use this blog to post my attempts....I emphasize ATTEMPTS...to create beautiful photographs as I learn to be in command of my camera, develop my creativity and grow into being a photographer.

In the meantime there may be other things that I wonder about too...