Photog Class -- Pose or Candid

For today's photography lesson, I'd like to continue addressing the subject of, well, the subject.  :)

Whatever you're shooting--person, place, or thing--there are a few more things you can think about before you look through the viewfinder.

Think about how you want to portray your subject.  How you can show your subject's personality through your photo?  Do you want to capture your children's personalities?  The playfulness of your dog?  The excitement of a sports game?  The hectic atmosphere of a city street scene?  I think one key way to capture these things is based on this quote I recently read:

The whole point of a good photograph

is to show what is going on in your life at the time.

Joel Sartore, Photographing Your Family, page 125

Take a posed shot.  Then take a candid one.  It seems that whenever a camera is pulled out, someone hollers, "Look at the camera!  Smile!"  Those shots are fine if you're taking a portrait shot, maybe for a special occasion or to document an event--to show that these particular people were all there.  But if we truly want to capture what our life is like at that moment, as in Sartore's quote above, I encourage you to take the candid shot.

In the candid shot, the subject is in his/her/its natural environment, doing something he/she/it normally does--playing together, talking, reading a book, participating in a sport, etc.  He (and I'm using he so I don't have to keeping typing he/she/it) is not necessarily looking at the camera.

Danny is voting for the first time...

 The girls are enjoying their new baby sister for the first time...

My dad is "overseeing" the carving of the turkey.

No pose in the below shot, either.  Even though the scene is backlit (not great for capturing faces), Jacob and his grandma were listening to the conversation going on in the room.  I saw Jacob's sweetness and love for his grandma.  I saw my mom smiling because she knew I was clicking away with my camera.  I'm so glad I captured this!

I wanted to capture the people in the above shots in their moments, enjoying their moments.  Those things were going on in their lives, and in mine.  I feel that I captured what was going on in my life at the time.

All that being said, go ahead and pose a shot.  Older kids and (some) adults are good at posing for you, in the way you want them to.  Check out Thomas below.  The family room was a mess, and he needed to pick it up.  I asked him to pose on purpose, and that was the face he made.  I love it.  :)

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Photog Class -- The Subject

I recently put together a simple presentation for our local 4-H class, and I'm going to share much of that here on my blog.  As I share things I've learned, I'll post the links in the tab above marked Photog Class.  Feel free to click and go to that page, and read, at your own pace, about what I've learned about digital photography.

The first thing I'd like to share is The Big Three, or, three key elements to taking a better photo.  These can be very simple, but can also become more complicated the more we plumb their depths.  I'll try to keep things simple and straightforward.  Here they are:

1. The Subject
2. The Composition
3. The Light

I think all three are essential to a great photo--what you're shooting, how you shoot it, and how you're lighting the shot.  For now, I'm focusing on #1:  The Subject.

This is not complicated.  Your subject is what you're shooting.  What are you aiming your viewfinder at?  A person?  An animal?  A scene?  A thing?

Miss M

Sunny

Downtown Naperville

Daisy

All of the above are subjects, whether a person, an animal, a scene, or an individual thing.  Let me share a few words of encouragement regarding the subject you choose:

Choose a subject you're interested in.  I know this sounds elementary, but really.  In this age of digital photography, we tend to shoot everything.  Sometimes it's almost compulsive:  Just aim the camera and shoot.  There's no expense involved, unless you use throw-away batteries.  :)

To answer your question, yes, I am interested in the above trailer tire.  My brother's trailer has been sitting in our back yard for several years now, and every time I wander around with my camera, I have this desire to take this picture.  I'm not sure if it's because of the rust, or the contrast between the white/rust and the green, or what.  You won't see this picture in any of my family photo albums, but I seem to have a yearly picture of this old tire.  There is an interest on my part.  So I take the picture.  And I like the picture.  :)

The thing is, if you are interested in the subject, your interest will automatically create a better photo.  Even if it's blurry, a photo can be meaningful to you if it is something you have an interest in.  Remember, unless you're a professional photographer, you're not trying to create a photo to sell to someone else; you're creating a photo for you.  These are your keepsakes, your treasures, your memories.  Whether you save them just for yourself, or share them on Facebook or with family, they are ultimately for you.  Snap away, if you're interested.  But, please--go through all those photos and save only the ones that are meaningful.  Delete the rest.  :)

Now go ahead and shoot the things you love!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Photog Class -- Intro

When I bought Ellie, I had no idea how to use her.  I just knew I wanted as good a camera as my film camera, which was a Canon.  After much research, I chose the Canon 40D, saved for two years, and finally purchased this really cool camera, which I named Ellie, of course!  (Don't you name your camera?)

Ellie worked great on the fully automatic setting, and I started taking pictures--lots and lots of pictures--right away.  Full auto is very easy, and I got some great shots.  But after shooting through that spring and summer, I knew I was in over my head and figured I should learn what I could really do with my really cool camera.  I found a photography class at my alma mater, North Central College.  The price was right, the time was right, and Danny (then 16) signed up with me since he was constantly "borrowing" Ellie and using up the memory cards with all his snapping away.  I figured we could both learn together.

Our fearless teacher, Tim (who is awesome, by the way)

We found ourselves sitting in class with about nine other adults.  Poor Danny!  He did great, though, and brought some innovative, youthful ideas to the table when it came time to submit images for review each week.

I have to tell you--that first class was so daunting!  Tim told us that he expected us to know how to shoot in manual mode.  It turned out that this particular class was the third one in the series!  I gulped when he asked if we manually set the white balance before we shot.  I half-raised my hand and quavered, "What's white balance?"  (Boy, was I in trouble!)  But Tim was fantastic.  He launched into a discussion about white balance, what it was, how to set it, etc.  A photographer was born that day.  Well, let's say she was always taking pictures, but she suddenly learned that she needed to learn how to take pictures.

Since that class, I've taken a number of other classes, just finishing the most recent one last month.  I know from homeschooling that you learn best what you teach to others, and I've actually had several opportunities to teach basic photography to others.

The 4-H class to whom I presented my first photography class!

Since I also love to write, I plan to combine all this into several posts that will hopefully teach others in the virtual world.  I'm always learning, even if it's solidifying the basic stuff I should know by heart.  Every time I pick up my camera, it's a challenge to put into practice all the stuff I've learned over the years.  Some of it comes naturally, some comes smoothly having been incorporated into my style and routine, and other knowledge has to be implemented on a regular basis.

Even if these blog posts end up being me teaching myself, I don't mind.  Writing it all down helps me remember it better.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Fun with DOF

If you have ever taken photos outside of "full automatic" mode, you already know what DOF is.  If you haven't:  Depth Of Field.  Simple!

Really, it's not that hard.  Once you get the hang of it, it's actually fascinating to play around with, and can be used make your photos more beautiful.  Think of "field" as the entire image you've shot--the subject and everything surrounding it.  The "depth" is just that--how deep you see into the image.  Do you see just the subject, and everything else is blurry?  Or is everything in focus?  That's depth of field.

Shallow depth of field = just the subject (or, even just a part of the subject)

Wide or deep depth of field = everything, or most everything, is in focus

There are times when it's effective to shoot with one, or the other, or somewhere in between.  A lot of the time, it simply comes down to personal preference.  Here are some macro shots I took of an Asiatic lily in my front yard; I took these specifically to experiment with DOF.  For this series of images, I put my Canon 40D on the AP (Aperture Priority) setting.  Um, wait--okay, the photos will be a little further down the page.  :)

The reason I used the AP setting is because APERTURE determines DEPTH OF FIELD.  The word aperture simply means opening, and refers to how open or closed the "hole" in your lens is.  Here's the only tricky part to learn:  The larger the aperture setting, the shallower the DOF is.  The smaller the aperture, the greater the DOF is.  Opposites.  And opposites attract.  :)

With the lenses in my camera bag, the smallest f-stop my Ellie can reach is f1.4, and the largest can go up to f32.  Sometimes even a small change to this number produces dramatic results.  By using the AP mode in the below images, I controlled the aperture, and I let my camera determine the shutter speed.  That way, I focused entirely on the aperture setting without having to worry about anything else.

Okay, now here are my images.  All the images are shot with ISO 100 for clarity, and I used a tripod and my camera's two-second timer to counter camera shake.  (I didn't want to use my remote.)

I set the first shot at f2.8 (the largest aperture for my macro lens), and increased the aperture with each shot.  Notice that when I increased the F-number, that the camera slowed the shutter speed.  That's because as the F-number gets larger, the aperture gets smaller, and the shutter needs to stay open longer to let in the proper amount of light.

f2.8, 1/100 second

f4, 1/50 second

f6.3, 1/20 second

f9, 1/10 second

f11, 1/8 second

f16, 1/4 second

That's as high as I set the F-stop.  The entire field is not yet sharp, but you get the idea.  I like most of these images for different reasons.  I love the f2.8 image because its DOF is so shallow, and I can see only the tips of the pistil and stamens (you'll have to look up flower terminology on your own).  With the f6.3 image, I can see that the whole image is of a flower, but there's still a sense of depth to it--the shadowy base of the center is still a little out-of-focus and mysterious.  I do like the f16 image, too, because there still is a sense of depth, but my eyes are free to explore down into the flower.  I can see the yellow center more clearly, and I can catch more detail on the center parts of the petals.

My favorite?  Probably the f6.3 or the f9 shot.  There is a lot to explore in these images, with a lot of mystery, too.

I hope you learned a little something!  I didn't necessarily post this to teach you, of course; it's just that when I demonstrate how to do something with my camera, then I learn it more thoroughly.  Hence, this little lesson in DOF is really for me.  But I also hope you enjoyed the lesson and my images.  :)


Capturing the moments of life.

Christine

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