Friday, February 24, 2012

Photography Challenge - Week 3

This third week of the Photography Challenge required me to actually perform research, something I wasn't counting on when I signed up for this gig.  I Googled "Bokeh", read and reread my camera manual to better understand the settings that would allow me to take Long Exposure photos, and looked through hundreds of examples of Faceless Self Portraits.  But despite spending quite a few hours on research, I'm not all that happy with the results.

My biggest roadblock is time.  I have only a brief window of time each day to take that day's picture.  Now I know what you're thinking..."Erin, it takes like .7 seconds to snap a photo.  Surely you can find the time in between painting your toenails and baking cupcakes to take a couple of pictures."  That's what I thought too.  But it turns out that certain kinds of photos require a great deal of preparation.  The Long Exposure photo, not including the amount of time I spent reading my camera manual, took close to 30 minutes to capture because I had to figure out how to stabilize my camera without a tripod (our tripod is in Tom's lab for an experiment), vary the camera settings, and try different colors of light sabers to determine which one looked best.  Thankfully the picture involved Will sword fighting, something he loves to do; if I'd asked Will to do anything else I'd have lost him five or so minutes in.

Time is also a challenge for me in terms of lighting.  Certain kinds of pictures require specific outdoor lighting, and sometimes that specific outdoor lighting doesn't match up with when I have time to take photos.  The Silhouette photo isn't a true silhouette (the subject isn't completely dark) in part because I couldn't work on the project at the right time of day. 

Sorry for all that complaining...moving on!  

Day 15: Silhouette



Day 16: Long Exposure



Day 17: Technology



Day 18: Shoes



Day 19: Something Orange



Day 20: Bokeh



Day 21: Faceless Self-Portrait



A couple of notes, beyond what I mentioned above:
- Red light sabers don't work nearly as well as blue and green light sabers for Long Exposure photos.
- In case you can't tell, my Technology photo is me taking a picture of me taking a picture.  Will thought this was funnier than when Hallie yelled "bagina" out the window while I was ordering Happy Meals at the McDonald's drive thru window.
- I love my Shoes picture.  And I love Hallie's "magic" freckle on her tummy.
- I also love my Something Orange picture.  I love orange, I love berries, and I love taking pictures of things that don't cry, argue, or run away from me.
- My Bokeh picture is of something growing on a tree at the park near our house.  Sometimes the unfamiliarity of the flora and fauna here scares me a little.
- I don't like my Faceless Self-Portrait.  There were so many other ideas I had for this picture, and I couldn't manage to get any of them to work out.  Argh.

See you next week!

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