Photo Play #7: Color, Light, Focus

My Guy and I have a date day tomorrow, a photography and hiking expedition followed by lunch out.  Since I'm still really behind on posting my photography improvement journey, I wanted to get a second photography post up this week and there won't be time tomorrow. (Besides doing anything to avoid doing taxes is more appealing at the moment.)

All the photos in this post were taken with a Canon 70D, though the lens changes with each set. The photos have not been edited other than to reduce the file size for posting. 

Color, light and focus are all keys to good photographs.  The challenge is to capture the color, the light, and keep items in focus (or not).  I learned more about light, focus and my camera lens with exercise 5.  The goal was to take 20 photos of my surroundings when I first wake up in the morning using a normal lens (LensBaby Velvet 56mm).  The problem, we usually get up at 4:30 AM, it's pitch black.  My first 5 photos were pitch black, even with a slow shutter speed. The LensBaby is a 100% manual lens and I really struggled to get it set so it would register anything. The only photos out of the set that came out were two taken at close range to a light source. 

I like the soft light in this shot.  I also like the geometrics, the lamp shade makes a triangle of light against a darker triangle.  Was that my intent? No. I was just struggling to get any kind of image. My second "success" that morning isn't a perfect shot either. 

Most of this image is out of focus, but I like the fuzziness. To be honest, my eyes aren't all that sharp in the morning, which is probably why the focus isn't so hot. The LensBaby is manual focus only.  This is the pile of books that were on my night stand. I like the fade from the well illuminated to the dark as you view from left to right. The bright, almost blown out brightness, becomes the focal point of the picture. Thankfully that's also the most in focus part of the photo, which is why I think this shot works. 

My next practice session was along one of the walking trails in full sunlight. It was still February when these shots were taken, so it was still full winter.  The struggle on my walks at the end of February was to find something new to photograph. All photos taken with my go to Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens.  

 

The blue, blue sky contrasted with the green/black of this evergreen is what drew me to this photo.  The background is all out of focus and highlights the geometric shape of the evergreen. I took this shot because I typically don't look very closely at the evergreens. It definitely reinforces the point that you have to look to see. 

I've commented before that my photography leans heavily towards macro photography. It's a stretch for me to go wide angle, mainly because I'm don't feel those shots are my best.  I usually leave that view point to My Guy as he is so good at it.  But as this was practice and you practice what you aren't good at I gave it a go. My purpose was to show what the walking trail looks like in full winter. It's a lot of tan, brown and blacks.  I like this photo, the blue sky is a nice contrast for the bare trees.  Plus it gives a sense of time and place. There is such quiet and a feeling of isolation on these paths. I'd be curious of your reaction to this photo. One thing I did differently for this shot was to kneel down and shot upwards, it changes the perspective greatly, providing that towering over feeling the other versions of this shot didn't capture.   

I was so excited to get this last shot. 

 

I love the sparkle from flowing water, but I've never really captured it before. This photo looks like how I think of water flowing in the sun should look. I used a small aperture, slow shutter speed and high ISO speed to capture "sparkles".  Of course it took 18 tries with different settings to get this image, but sometimes you have to experiment to get it right.  There are filters that will give you this effect, but I'm doing well to figure out my settings without a filter. Maybe at some point, I'll give those a try as well.  

What did I learn?

1.  When you are lens limited, keep trying. You may not get the shot you were expecting, but it will promote consideration of a shot you normally wouldn't take. 

2. Changing your perspective (what and how) opens up other options.  

3. Changing camera settings in a consistent pattern is another way to change your perspective.