Fear Through the Lens...

Assignment: Self-portrait with a prop.  I didn't actually enter, but this is what I put together for the assignment.

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No

Lighting set up: Me, camera in front of a mirror with single light near my right shoulder.

Florabunda...

Flowers Revisited....Finished constructing 210 green and pink flowers (many thanks to Dana W. and Albert for doing majority of the grunt work) for my sister's upcoming wedding and as commemoration, did some more shots.  Here's how they turned out...and people seemed to wonder how I really took this photo, so I took a picture of the lighting set up/storage of flowers.

And the set up: 

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

Stu..stu...studio.

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

The set up:

The project objective: Take something small, make it look large, use one light, and anything I have available at home.   (Shampoo bottle is a travel sized bottle approximately 3.5")

How do you take something small and make it look large?  Answer: Dramatic lighting, lower POV for shot, portrait and elongate with lines.  

Lighting: Used black construction paper and hair tie to turn make snood (angled up toward subject to elongate light) and focus light on item and create more dramatic shadow to elongate bottle.  Used plastic folder to diffuse the light.  Used two compact mirrors for side kick lights.  Also, angled side mirrors to create light rays to focus on center image.  

Backdrop: 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper laid against the wall. 

Things I would fix: Increase amount of light and lower the apperature to increase depth of field.  Use a tripod. 

Special thanks to Christine for the construction paper and mirrors.

Take off your pants and jacket...yellow jacket that is!

photographic impressionism

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/25 sec
Aperture: 5.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

Technical: Manually pulled out of focus. Hung some crepe paper flowers from a hanger from a light fixture to get back light and glow effect.  Set White Balance to Fluorescent to get more warm overcompensation of fluorescent "crisp" light. (I don't know how to describe it, but fluorescent gives a light that makes things look white white to the point it looks blue...like a white LED).  Or well that's what I think. 

Artistic: Feeling kind of blue, wanted to make something that felt ethereal and delicate.  I wanted to capture the feeling you get when you look at an impressionist painting...you know how they use the pigment to capture something. You know it's a flower or a lake or a person, but that's not what's important in an impressionist painting, it's the feeling of movement (or this case, i wanted to capture the sense of aliveness -- though it's just crepe paper) or emotion.  

March Showers brought April Flowers

Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i

ISO: 100

Exposure: 1/160 sec

Aperture: 8.0

Focal Length: 55mm

Flash Used: No
Lens: Kit 18-55mm 3.5-5.6f

Higher aperture to get focus at different depths, but still had cool depth of field effects. Found interesting sea star looking thing in the middle of the flower. 

Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No
Lens: Kit 18-55mm 3.5-5.6f


Higher shutter speed because wind blowing.  Had to hold flower still by the stem.  Lower aperture (larger opening) to get shallower depth of field to make the edge of the flower really stand out from the background.  


Critiques:
Photo 1: I should have isolated the flower more, the background leaves and other flowers are really distracting from the central focus of the star in the flower. 
Photo 2: Wish I were less predictable and played more with the shadows/light on the flower.

Defying the Laws of Gravity...

So I was inspired by a series of levitation photos...(and please feel free to translate inspired as I out and out copied).  And mine don't compare to hers at all...BUT!  really what I wanted to do was to get pictures of my brother around his school that are uniquely him.  He is such an amazing person, so unique, creative and just awesome in every way (yes, yes, I know...and NO I'm not just saying that because he's my brother).  Anyway, he was kind enough to jump for me and help me to make complete asses of ourselves, so I could get a neat photo.  It was really hard...she takes somewhere between 10-300 photos to get 1 shot.  We did about 10 the whole day...ours not quite to her standards. =P