Totally unrelated to my lavender macro, I have been watching Sue and Felix on Creative Live today.
I have resisted using flash as much as possible until now because I don’t like how it looks. Seeing natural light recreated with artificial studio light has EXCITED ME! I can’t wait to get some time to try it out.
As a Mum with 3 young boys I only have free time really at night and to be able to shoot then would be a blessing. I am looking forward to exploring it further. Creative Live has opened up a world of education opportunity for me. I have no possibility of getting out, but I can have it going while I watch the boys play or play with my baby. I said to my family earlier tonight that I didn’t like technology, but really it not only is the foundation of my passion for photography, it allows me, a suburban Mum in Adelaide, Australia to take part in a world class education that I could not otherwise access or afford.
I thought I might experiment with one handed selfies. They are so popular at the moment I wanted to see if they were mainly shot up people’s noses out of necessity. Nope. Your arm is long enough to get your chin out and down. Due to the short focal distance there is some distortion of features that occurs with the lens. I used a 35mm. I found shots not looking directly at the camera were better. A distorted, bulbous nose is no friend to any woman’s portrait!
This is out the front of our house. Its as close to the street as my son is allowed to go without supervision. Ever since I Photoshopped him in his cape into a cityscape he has been obsessed with me photographing him as a superhero. That is him being very serious about superheroing. Followed by him being very serious about preventing me photographing him at all by rolling around on the ground. Fortunately it only takes a fraction of a second to get him when he checked to see if I was still watching.
He had to dress up for school as something he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a Park Ranger. He asked me to take a photo to record the day. I decided to pretend he actually was a park ranger. He is squatting in our garden to make the background look appropriate and block out our red car which is directly behind him. It is all practise! I will photograph anything at this stage.
The summer break for my family is spent by the pool. It can get to the mid forties with dry, harsh sun. We can either be found in the pool or directly under an air conditioning vent!
I decided to use my macro lens to take a few shots. Unfortunately it is a prime lens and so focusing proved a challenge. Changing the manual settings for each shot when the circumstances vary so much is hard (at least to me). How do you cope with the challenge of altering the settings so often, so quickly?
I love the shape in the last shot. Such a shame we chose to swim in harsh shadow causing light!
My family and I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for your interest and kind words to me in 2013 and I look forward to more next year. I love to hear your opinions and thoughts on my work. After all I am learning a new skill by sitting in an empty classroom with no teacher.
Learning the Light 