These are for You, Mom.

I know being a mom myself that you're probably tired of seeing photos of everyone and everything else and want to see some of your own baby, who is so far away. My midterm assignment is to collect 3 photos of myself and 3 photos of others in under 200 exposures. 3 of my 6 photos ended up being profile or silhouette type photos because that is a skill I had not tackled before and I ended up having fun with it. Each photo, for the assignment, has to tell a story ... or at least be an amazing use of light. I admit, these aren't anywhere near as inventive as I'd imagined, but they are both decent and simple and I did them without any assistance while watching my children, during a week that was almost completely cloudy.

Now, here are your grand babies and some really great light.

Freckles

I told her to be ready for a spur of the moment visit and there I was at her doorstep as soon as we had some snow (a good reflector for some soft natural portrait light). My friend here is a beauty and I desperately needed her freckles for my midterm assignment. I spot metered off of her face and the snow appeared white as it should instead of grey, which can happen in matrix meter mode if you do not overexpose to compensate.

Which one of the three tells the best story? And is the story the youthful freckles alone or is it the content and concerned mom looking over her children falling in the first snow of the year while finally getting to drink her coffee hours after it was poured? See, there, now I left nothing for your imagination!

Milk and Cookies

This family of three makes me feel better inside than warm chocolate chip cookies and cold milk.

We had scheduled this session for today, mid October, with snow in mind at Chena River Park in the Chena Lake Recreation Area. We did not have snow and we did not have sun and we (I mostly) almost postponed because of it. I am glad we did not because THEY made these memories as sunny or as snowy as it gets with their energy, personality, and love.

This set, I cannot wait to edit. I shot in RAW format and good thing because I realized early on that Auto white balance was going to be too cool (or blue) and Cloudy and Shady settings were going to be too warm (or orange). For the first time, I used Auto White balance as the default and decided to fine-tune them to the Kelvin scale later in Adobe Camera Raw. They are going to be even more vibrant than they are here unedited ... something maybe one could not ever notice until it's printed. This is my third family session (see here and here) and this time I did not forget, not even once, to check my light meter. I also adjusted the aperture and shutter speed often. I prefer the most shallow depth of field possible for any given situation in portrait photography. This is a milestone for me ... especially since I am by nature a poor multi-tasker and might have also been playing soccer, running, or telling a joke in the mix). Today was a really good experience for me. Thanks for the opportunity.

Negative Space: The Moon

A friend gave me a heads up that the full-moon was going to be arriving and that it might be a good way to practice night photography and the use of negative space in my frame. The moon, the stars, and the aurora were all on my hit list and the moon was the last to be tried so I jumped on it. However, I caught it a bit too late in the night. You can see how little of the frame the moon takes up at 9pm--even at 300mm which is extremely zoomed in. Catching it just after it rises of course is best because it is largest ... which of course isn't possible in complete darkness yet because we still have too much daylight in October. But, I did learn a few other things that I can use next time:

1) at such a long focal length the remote shutter release (which I did find Nikon brand for only $27 locally) is essential. Even at fast shutter speeds, you do not want your hand anywhere near the camera and this is mostly because

2) you need a very sturdy tripod with a long focal length, which I do not have, especially when the moon is high like it is here (say maybe 60 degrees above the horizon). I was holding my tripod to keep it from tipping onto myself. I ran into the same problem with the aurora (even though then I was using a much lighter lens and a longer exposure). And not only does the tripod need to be sturdy to prevent camera shake but it needs to have a decent ball head for extreme upward rotation if you want to catch things high in the sky.

Auora vs Moon. Although (generally) for the aurora you use a long exposure and the shortest focal length money can buy (wide angle if you can) and for the moon you use short exposure and the longest focal length you can get your hands on, the remote shutter release is ideal for both. And I'm glad I decided on the one that plugs into the camera instead of the true remote so I am able to stay behind the camera at all times (plus not have to deal with two batteries). Another difference between the two types of night photography is that the aurora requires manual focus completely. It is not possible to focus on the aurora automatically or manually. You really need a bright light on some trees in the foreground for a focal point or to focus on infinity. The moon is bright enough however that you can auto focus on it and then switch the lens to manual mode to lock it into place while you work on the correct exposure. Like any frame with a lot of black, to capture the detail on the moon, the photo must be underexposed and in this case more stops than I could keep track off. I am curious to see if I catch the moon on the horizon if I can get away with only a couple of stops of underexposure. The aurora on the other hand may be overexposed or longer exposed because this can capture more detail and movement.

I really needed this challenge to get me excited again. If we have clear skies again tomorrow, I'm going to get the kids in bed as early as I can and try to catch the moon earlier.

We are far from studying negative space. Actually, we've been talking about abstraction, perspectives, angles, and patterns. I took most of my photos for this assignment at an appliance junk yard. But, I would've liked to do something like this. I have a feeling this landscape was pieced together. But, if it wasn't it sure has all of the elements we've been talking about. The shape of the dandelions in the foreground mimic the shape of the full-moon and the clouds create many more repeating bubble around the moon. The bright colors of the grass at night make it abstract even though the perspective from ground level and the anchor or the mountains gives it a realistic feel. My favorite perspectives are those that have a real element to them. A kid looking down at the art he just made. A photo of the sky the includes a bit of the foreground or at least clouds. A photo that makes you feel like you're there. I don't really identify much with photos that don't provide a sense of scale or have some realistic element to them. I guess I don't see the purpose of the effort necessary to create the art unless the brain can eventually relate the image to something it know. Because of the digital editing software available you see a lot of photos that are over-saturated to create either an unrealistic effect or a photo that looks better than real life. I am not a fan of this. I think you can catch good enough light with a camera and over-editing is cheating. I'll end at that. If you were reading, hopefully you stopped before this last paragraph :) It is part of my latest journal assignment on angles and preferences.

Motion and the Aurora Borealis

30 second exposure

Motion photography can be broken down into three main categories: Stop, blur, and pan. In general, "stop" photography is catching something in focus that your eye would normally see in motion; you have to use a fast shutter speed, probably more than 1/60 second, to do this. Examples are a kid blowing bubbles, embers flying away from a fire that was just disturbed, a chainsaw spewing sawdust, etc. "Pan" is moving your camera parallel (or in another direction) with the subject so that the focal point is clear but the background is blurry. The typical shot that displays this is someone riding a bike. And "blur" is the opposite of "pan;" the subject is moving in a blur but the background is in clear and motionless. "Pan" requires almost a second of exposure and "blur" usually requires longer exposures. Above, the aurora is an example of blur photography. At 30 seconds of open shutter, the aurora's color is enhanced and it is able to be seen in multiple locations yet the foreground, the trees, are clear.

For aurora and star photography, I read in an article about aurora photography that ISO should be as close to 400 as possible. If the aurora is quite dull, a higher ISO might be needed. It is a good idea to go into the menu of the camera and turn on the long exposure noise reduction feature. An exposure of at least 15 seconds is probably ideal. This means if you do not have a sturdy tripod, it should be set low, you should not move around it, and of course it won't work if it's windy. The shutter release should be depressed not by your finger but by using the timer function. For my camera, for exposures longer than 30 seconds you must use "bulb" which means you can have exposures up to 30 minutes as long as you hold down the shutter release button the entire time. This introduces slight camera shake (from my hand) seen below, but you can tell how much the extra 53 seconds grabs the red light from the nearby city and the neighbor's homes. I need to run to the photography shop and grab a remote to plug into my camera. Another student said the generic brands run as cheap as 20 dollars nowadays. I do not have a wide-angle lens and that is why the strange angles. Although my 50mm lens has a largest aperture of 1.8 thereby letting in more light, my 18mm at its largest aperture of 3.5 can capture a much larger view of the sky so is a compromise. If I wanted to catch just one constellation, I think I would opt for the 50mm because I could get by probably with a shorter exposure and therefore have less noise.

I am supposed to mention an inspiring motion photograph so now I'll mention a family friend Tony Rath (Photography) out of Belize. I grew up next to his parents and he does some amazing things with stop and blur. He recently posted some 90 second exposure photos of the stars on small island we visited a couple of years ago, South Water Caye as well as some stop photographs of dirt bike races and beach volleyball. I can't link to the photos individually, but here is one of his websites.

83 second exposure (using "bulb")