So before I start explaining the pictures from this week, there's a couple of key terms you need to know! Aperture (also called f-stop) - How much light the lens allows in (Lower - more open, Higher - more closed) Shutter Speed - How quickly it takes the picture (Faster - less light, Longer - more light) ISO - How much the camera digitally changes the sensitivity (Lower - less sensitive, Higher - more sensitive) Now that you know those, we can talk about what the pictures mean! These pictures are of the same thing, at the same time, with the same ISO and shutter settings (ISO 100, 1/160s) but the aperture has been changed. In the first one the f-stop is f5.6. In the second photo the f-stop is f8. In the last picture the f-stop is f13. As you can see by increasing the f-stop, less light is allowed to enter the lens, therefore making the picture darker! In this set of photos we'll be taking the same subject (the pinecone) in the same spot at the same time of day. This time we'll be changing two factors (though we'll have a direct comparison so it will be like we're only changing one!) The photos will look nearly identical side-by-side, but one has the light behind the subject and the other has the light behind the camera. This should be obvious!
While I changed the f-stop settings once again so you could see that that matters, what we care about here is the lighting of the subject. When the light source (the sun, in this case) is behind the subject and going into the camera, we notice that we lose a lot of detail on the subject! This is, pretty simply, because the subject is casting a shadow on itself (if you want to think of it like that) and therefore there isn't enough light to show you what's going on. When the light is behind the camera, the subject will have a lot more detail stand out! When taking pictures, it's always important to think about what story you're trying to tell. Sometimes it's quite easy to take the pictures you want, sometimes it's literally impossible. When it's impossible that's when you, as the photographer, have to get creative! Now that you know this, go take more pictures!
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At the time of writing, I'm guessing that quite a few of you have seen the video that Mr. Barker and I have created. While I know this doesn't technically fall under the realm of photography, it still involved using a camera and learning how to setup your frame!
I had a ton of fun learning how to setup, film, record, and edit this video. Something that I wasn't expecting to need to do is fixing the audio. Of course making a film/video that's worth watching isn't easy, but it can be incredibly rewarding! Neither Mr. Barker or I expect, nor want, to ever become YouTube famous, but pretending like you are isn't so bad every now and then. Not only did it provide a great technical challenge, it distracted me from everything that's going on around us right now. I think that stepping out of the normal routine you find yourself in is both needed and healthy. Obviously what you choose to do will be different for everyone, but I suggest you do it when you find time! Right now you need to think about your physical health first and foremost, but keep this bit of advice in mind for the future. This week wasn't a technical shoot and, in fact, was quite easy to do. I setup my camera on my tripod and took a few test shots of the original PlayStation controller to dial in things like the ISO, shutter speed, temperature, and white balance. Once I had the settings where I wanted them, I simply replaced which controller I was taking the picture of and posted them to Instagram.
My reason for this week's theme is due to quite a few of you. Talking about video games is something that I have in common with you, and is an experience that I can share with you. The games, and consoles, that I've played may have been different in my childhood than yours, but the experience of learning what a game can be is still as exciting. Next week's project will be a bit more intense than this one, but I still hope you liked it! This week is going to be a short post, sorry!
I am trying to have my last few weeks be something that is visually appealing, but also something that might be difficult to do. This week I spent Wednesday-Friday in Raleigh at a conference so I wasn't able to shoot as much as I'd like. I attempted to take pictures of lights (of varying colors) in low-light settings to see how to do it, but also to see how editing the pictures afterwards would go. This was a bit of a challenging experience, but one that I think will definitely pay off in the long run. I hope to have a more in depth set of pictures (and Blog) for next week! I wanted to try something a little different this week. Of course I'm still working on learning Photoshop, but I wanted to start with something a little bit more personal.
As many of you know, the decision to build the new High School was a contentious one. I won't get into the politics here, but, a new school of some variety was absolutely needed. As many of you also know, I attended Old Davie from 2002-2006, but you might not know I have more history with it than that. From the time that I was old enough to make and remember memories, my childhood was spent at Old Davie. My Mom was a teacher there and as I grew up, I watched Davie change. I remember when K Building and the New Library were built. I remember having to move the old Band Room from A Building to its new home in K Building. I remember helping with fundraisers, unloading trucks, and helping the band that I would one day be a part of. Some of you ask why I don't attend Davie Football games now. The answer is a bit of a selfish one, though I absolutely support all of you who play the sport. From the time I was about 4 until I graduated from Davie at 17, I missed ~5 football games total. That means that ~160 of my Friday nights in the fall were spent watching/supporting/attending Davie Football. I was lucky to be a part of a generation at Davie that happened to be good at almost every sport, and Davie went 42-13 during my time in HS. I also learned a lot about growing up at Davie. I made new friends, had teachers who influence the way I teach you some 10-14 years later, and learned about how to represent your school in a positive way. I also remember setting records my Senior Year for tennis. My team went 17-3 (school record for team wins) and I personally went 20-4 (a then-school record for individual wins) and we won the CPC for the first time in 30 years. I will elaborate more about each picture in the video on my YouTube channel, but these pictures mean a lot to me and hopefully, might mean something to you too. My photos for Week 2 were an attempt at candid portrait photography. I wasn't sure how it would go, or if we would even get any good photos from it.
While we were hanging out on a Friday night, I decided to take my camera with me. With the willingness of the Barkers, Mr. Ward, and my sister, we were able to get some pretty good shots! I think that later on I would like to try actual portrait photography where I can setup the shot exactly how I want it and have the lighting staged, too. The Photoshop component this week provided a different challenge. With a landscape you can take some creative liberties with it and people might like it. However, with a person, you know how they're supposed to look. It's certainly not magazine-cover-worthy, but hopefully they turned out OK! It feels weird being on this side of an assignment once again! Like many of you, I am not sure how this project is going to go, but I'm certainly going to give it my best shot.
I started my Genius Hour project at Quarry Lake in Winston. I left home with the hopes of taking as many pictures as I could so I could get "back in the swing of things" since I've spent some time away from photography. My goal was to get a keeper picture from every fifteen pictures I took. As we arrived at Quarry Lake, it was quickly apparent that it was an incredibly bright day. I had to turn my ISO settings down as much as I could to keep from overexposing my pictures and causing digital graining to occur. Once I realized this, I was able to actually start shooting some pictures! I setup my camera on my tripod and tried to find some images to frame. After we left the lake, we were not sure where to go next. Ultimately we ended up at Pilot Mountain. As we drove to the top we realized that we could see the skyline of Winston in the distance (which we thought would be a cool picture.) It turns out, it was a cool picture! It also turns out I don't have a lens with a long enough focal length to adequately capture it. Oh well. Once I returned home, I loaded the images from my SD Card to my computer and imported a few that I liked into Photoshop. I intentionally did not ask for any help, nor look up any guides so that I could set a baseline for my knowledge. I know that many people can do a much better job with both the photography and Photoshop, but that's what this project is about! |
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