A Budding Artist?

I found this on the floor of the nursery today. I am not quite sure how to categorise it, but the position and relevance to the setting reminded me of Installation Art works. Heheh.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: From above

Its a bit late but…

Macro Series: Photo 7

The other day my boys played in the front yard. I took my iphone and a cheap macro lens outside with them. These are the photos I took.

Silhouette Photography

Sometimes my favourite shots are those that I hadn’t intended on taking. This silhouette of my husband was taken when I turned around in the midst of taking a series of photographs of an old rural shed and gate. As I turned around I thank whatever is out there for giving me enough composure to recognise a good composition quickly. I call that progress of sorts. Yay!

Instagram Portraits

A few shots of W taken on my iPhone on the run. I liked the composition and light in the first and his expression in the second. I thought I would share my Instagram version. They aren’t very good quality, but you can see what I am talking about.

My Headspace

Recently I have been increasingly frustrated by my photographs.

I came upon this blog post by Otto von Münchow accidentally in my browsing about photographic vision and it dawned on me that my frustration is twofold.

Firstly, I am impatient at the gap between my creative mind and my photographic skill. My ability to manouvre and capture with my camera the images that I see in my head are worlds apart. There is little I can do about that except practise and take as many opportunities to try and try again in order to see improvement over time. I accept that. I am cutting myself a break. I have only been doing this since May. I can’t expect miracles.

Secondly, I have been taking opportunistic photos. I have my camera handy when possible and snap a quick photo here and there. The blog post, along with a comment that photographer and fellow blogger Mel Mann left for me asking me whether I felt that I had captured the feeling of air, made me think. YES, THINK. I really should have been thinking more often, earlier. I can only say that I am swept up in the rush of life with young children and that I am trying to fit everything in. But I can see upon reflection that my frustration was in the lack of intent in many of my photos. Looking back at many of them I see plenty of objects, but my favourites include images that tell a story. My children ‘hunting’ a shadow speaks of the imagination and fun of childhood, a couple in my photography class in an intimate moment supporting each other in their learning, even a flower in my garden showing the delicacy of its nature using light. All of these photos were taken with intent. I had a vision of what I wanted to show and tried to convey it in an image. Whether or not other people liked them is largely irrelevent to me because I am satisfied with them.

So it is my resolve to try (where possible – I am realistic and I know that I have limited time) more often to start with a vision and try to create it. I have no idea whether I am capable of that. I am sure the results will be highly varied in their success. I can only try. If I keep trying eventually I will get better at it.

Homework Part 2: Shutter speed and motion

Waahoo!

I found an hour today to go out and try to complete the second part of my homework. I had to take a photo of something moving with a fast shutter speed and a slower shutter speed to see what effect it has on the feeling of movement in a photo.

Fast shutter speed = clear, no feeling of motion.

Slower shutter speed = blurred object, motion evident

For anyone who read my previous post on this week’s homework you may remember that I was a bit perplexed about how to get a steady shot of a fast moving object hand panning. After reading advice left from excellent photographers and fellow bloggers Mel Mann and Edith Levy (thank you both so much for leaving your comments, I found them invaluable and I think they really helped me get something useable) I grabbed my camera bag and drove to an area in Tea Tree Gully that I thought had plenty of traffic and some interesting things to photograph if I had trouble and needed cheering up!

I found it difficult, although not impossible, to get the panning speed right and ended up with about 4 shots that I was happy enough to use, so I HAD TO PICK ONE! I didn’t think THAT would be an issue, haha.

I also found that panning a car going directly past me was easier than trying to get them coming toward me at an angle. That may be obvious? But I had no idea. Still don’t really.

The other thing I actually found really frustrating was that I wanted to slow my shutter speed down below 1/3 to get a long trail for the stationary background, but I couldn’t get my camera meter to a correct light exposure with the shutter so slow. Anyway, I had to settle for a couple of pretty average shots. As you can see in the absence of the ability to make the moving object particularly interesting I tried to at least make the scene slightly interesting. Again, any suggestions of  how to improve my settings would be appreciated because it is now obsessively occupying my mind.

A special mention to the man sitting on the pub verandah looking perplexed as I lay down on the footpath of a main road to try to get some stability by using my elbows as a makeshift tripod. He really did look like he thought I had lost my mind. He obviously doesn’t understand that my mind has been lost…to photography.

I will improve.

Stop taking photos of you taking photos!

Today my family was on another long drive. My husband and I always argue over who gets to do the driving because we both like to drive, it doesn’t matter where we are going. Anyway, today he got to do the driving. So I decided that the best way to spend my time was to take a million photos from the moving vehicle. It can be pretty hard to get a clear focus of the trees whizzing past, but our car and us were consistent so I took a photo of me…again. Another self  portrait! As an aside, I am particularly proud of the pinky flair happening in the photo! Who knew I take photos the same way you might drink a cup of tea? Does make for a pleasing shape though. Let’s pretend I did it on purpose for the composition.

Portrait of a Pelican

I wanted to share a few of my personal favourite photos. I have mentioned before that I love Pelicans and I had an opportunity to photograph one at close proximity. I love the sense of intimacy I feel in these photos. I realise the first one is a bit abstract, but it is one of my favourites of all the photos I have taken. I would have liked the second image to be fractionally lower to include all of the bill, but it just didn’t work out.

S is for swim

S is for swim.

This was a safe swim for W through a backyard full of clover that was nearly higher than he was. There is something about the composition I like. The green sea around him and the shot of the top of his head. It’s definitely not a perfect photo. Not really even a great photo. It’s probably that as the mother you always are looking at the top or back of their head. I love to look at the direction his hair is growing. It swirls around like a crop circle! Haha, I think that is enough of an insight into my inner thought processes tonight. I hope you can enjoy the photo even if perhaps not in the same way I do.

S is also for sick boy sleeping and the mother that sleeps beside him to make sure he is safe.