Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.  Now that the dust has settled, I am able to get some of the pictures on the computer.  Here are a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure.  (Critiques and comments are always welcome)

Someone wanted to see what I was doing.

Reading a book at her new desk

Just lounging around

Moving right along. The person walking behind Hannah was completely unintentional.  I thought the contrast of the walking and crawling made for a nice picture.

 

Here is Hannah talking to her new doll as her aunt and uncle watch on.

I'm not fond of the shadow from the flash in this picture, but the doorway made for a nice framing device.

On a somewhat related note, Photo Santa was nice to me this year.  I had a new Sigma 15-50 f/2.8 lens waiting for me under my tree.  Also, in the process of getting Christmas stuff together this year, I sat on my department store tripod and broke it. So, a trip this week landed me with a new tripod and head.  I would have liked to have used the tripod I had for a while longer and saved up for a carbon fiber tripod, but I was still able to get a nice aluminum one.

Presents under the tree

After setting up the tree this weekend, I got out the camera and took some pictures.  There pictures are available light pictures with light coming in from the window at about a 90 degree angle.  I was originally planning on using these pictures for one of my photo projects, but they don't meet the project requirements.  I still got a couple nice Christmas pictures out of it.

Don't leave home without it

I was out picking up some Christmas presents today, and I realized why I usually leave my camera in my car.  (Note, I say usually.  I brought it in last night to charge batteries and it did not make it back into the car) 

I was at Gem Designs Jewelers in Tonawanda, NY picking up some necklaces for the girls.  While I was there, someone was purchasing one of the bead necklaces that's all the fad now.  The person at the jewelery store designed the necklace in a way she never had before and really liked the way it looked.  She commented to her son that they should take a picture.  The son grabbed his camera phone and took a picture so they could recreate it for display.  I would have loved to have been able to grab my camera and taken a nice picture of it.  That being said, when I get to the advertising and still life portion of the NYIP course, I may solicit my services to them and see if they would be willing to help an aspiring student photographer.

On a related note, I may bust out my light box and take some pictures of the girls' necklaces either after the girls go to sleep or after Santa comes.

Rec Leauge Hockey

This past Sunday, I had a chance to shoot my brother's hockey game.  He plays for Dupont Blue with Performax Hockey in Amherst, NY.  They lost to the Fighting Hell Fish 5 to 3 in a close game.

This was my first real attempt at sports photography.  The arena posed some challenges in getting good exposure.  Because of the lighting, I was forced to use a high iso and limited to a shutter speed of 1/250 sec at the fastest.  This resulted pictures that were not as sharp as I would have liked and that had a high amount of noise.  In hind sight, I could have opened up the aperture a little more and got a faster shutter speed.  I was able to still get some good shots.  From the approximately 200 shots I took, 25 made it out of lightroom as keepers.  Here are some of the good shots:

The rest of the shots can be viewed here:
http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p437/evelbug/Dupont%20Hockey%2012-5-2010/

NYIP Unit 2 Complete

I'm pleased to report that I have now completed the second unit on the New York Institute of Photography Complete Professional Photographer course.  I sent in my project photos just before Thanksgiving and got my critique back this week.  The comments I got back were very positive and I am pleased with the results.

The focus on unit two was on image composition and exposure.  All three of the project photos utilized different techniques to draw attention on the subject.  The first picture utilizes off center placement to focus attention on the subject.  This technique is commonly referred to as the "Rule of Thirds".  With this technique, the subject is placed off center approximately 1/3 the way into the frame.




In this picture, the subject is sitting by the bank of the Niagara River throwing stones into the river. The subject is place on the right third of the frame looking out to the river on the left.  Attention is further drawn to her by the use of selective focus.  The subject is in sharp focus, while the background is out of focus.  This picture was taken in mid afternoon.  I used a lensbaby lens to give the selective focus effect.  The shot was 1/320 second shutter speed, f/5.6, iso 100.




The second photo assignment was to draw attention to the subject using framing.  This picture was taken through a row of corn stalks.  The subject is framed by the leaves of the corn stalk.  A large aperture was also used in this shot to further define the subject by selective focus, blurring the leaves in the fore and background.  This was shot on an overcast day, iso 400, f/6.3, 1/640 second shutter speed.




The final picture uses leading lines to show distance and draw attention to the subject.  In this shot, the railing of the stairs leads the viewers eye to the subject and gives perspective with the descending stairs.  This was shot in the same corn maze at the previous shot.  This was shot with iso 400, f/6.3 and 1/400 second shutter speed.

I am currently working on the academic portion of unit 3 which focuses mainly on lighting.  I hope to have my pictures for that unit complete by the new year. 

I am also working on going through the approximately 200 pictures I shot at my brother's hockey game last weekend.  Once I get those sorted and pull out the good ones, I will post some on here.