I'm back

Hello friends,

I know it has been a while since I have posted on here.  Sometimes we can't help it when life gets in the way of things. For those of you who are still reading, thank you for sticking with you.  Even though I haven't been as active as I would have liked, I haven't completely let photography go by the wayside. 

In the time I have been away I have finished my NYIP unit three photo assignment.  I will let those pictures be a bridge back to sharing pictures with you.  I welcome your critiques on opinions on these as I do all my pictures.

Photo 1: Using sidelighting to emphasize surface texture.

1/1600 sec at f/3.2 ISO 100 30mm

Even though this is one of the first pictures I took for this unit, this one gave me most trouble.  Whenever I made time to shoot this, I was reminded of the fact that the sun does not shine in Buffalo between the months of December and April.  I had picked this fire hydrant as a potential subject for this shot.  I was lucky enough to catch a brief break in the clouds one late afternoon.  The street behind the hydrant had the potential of being a cluttered and distracting background.  I used a shallow depth of field and framed the hydrant tight in the frame to minimize the distractions in the background.

Photo 2: Using backlighting to enhance the subject.

1/160 sec at f/5.6 ISO 100 50mm

This photo of my daughter was taken at the playground at Four Mile Creek State Park.  The swing set was situated in front of the setting sun and the sun was just at the top of the trees.  I set my exposure based on a meter reading I took away from the sun.  I used the sunlight behind her to give a halo effect to her hair.  Even though her eyes are closed, the expression on her face captures her personality while playing.  If there was one thing I would have done differently, I would have used a slightly faster shutter to reduce the blur from the swinging and get a sharper picture.

Photo 3: Using “open shade” to photograph a person outdoors.

1/100 sec at f/3.5 50mm

This picture was taken this past December at Glen Park in Williamsville, NY.  This park, and the small waterfall in it, is a popular location for wedding photography.  This is the one picture in the unit that I used Aperture Priority instead of manual exposure.  With the trees, snow and water in the park, there was one to two stops difference in lighting throughout the park, and my daughter was moving too quickly for me to keep up in manual.  In this shot she is standing on a cut off branch a couple feet off the ground.   I had some other pictures from this shoot that I had considered using, but my wife liked this one the best.  Since part of being a photographer entails taking pictures other people will like, I chose this one.

Project 52

Someone on the New York Institute of Photography's message board proposed a project for the new year.  The person who proposed is is calling it Project 52.  The purpose of the project is to take at least one picture a week.  The first three weeks of the month will be on a specific theme, and the fourth week will be a wild card week where any subject can be shot. Here are the monthly themes:

January - Bokeh shots
February - Winter scenes
March - Shapes
April - Colors
May - Monochrome (B/W)
June - Textures
July - Macro
August - People
September - Shoes
October - Trees
November - Animals
December - Lights

I invite anyone out there to join me in this project.  If you wish, you can follow the project here.  I will be posting my pictures here and I may set up an online album for them in the future.

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.