 |
| Young Photographer 24mm 1/160s f/22 ISO 200 |
Our plans for today were to take portraits of each other at my favorite boardwalk. I don't have many pictures of myself because I am always the one behind the camera. The portrait plan didn't work out. We had to be done taking pictures at 3pm because we were going to my brother-in-law's house for dinner. It was noon and we were getting ready to leave, and the sun came out. Usually this is a good thing. A nice sunny day in winter to melt the snow and drabness away. But when you have to take pictures between 12-3 the sun is not your friend. The best time to take pictures is in the morning or the evening. And you never want to take portraits when the sunlight is so harsh. You will get bad shadows, everybody will be squinting, and your shots just won't look good.
I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to do portraits but that wasn't going to happen. I needed an overcast day or I needed to shoot in the evening. The evening was out because of the dinner plans so I had to come up with something. Then I thought of something I read in one of my photography books. It said something about using the light to your advantage. So I thought maybe we could go to a park and take pictures of shadows. Maybe a fence and it's shadow in the snow. It wasn't going to be great but at least it would be something.
Ariana was up for the idea so we headed off to Kensington. When we got to the park I drove around a bit looking for something to catch my eye. The fence I was thinking of had a car parked next to it. That idea out. I started looking for another fence. I found another fence but it was one o'clock and the shadows weren't long enough and didn't look interesting. I drove some more. Then I saw a trail that led back into the woods. Perfect I thought. I turned the car around and showed Ariana the spot. She liked it also.
I chose this picture as my picture for the week. I wanted a portrait and I really liked having her in this shot. I thought she looked adorable wearing her sunglasses and holding the camera. Today might not have gone as planned. That's okay though. Being a photographer you have to be creative. You might have great ideas of what you want to photograph but if you don't look around you might miss the shot you were suppose to take. I love Joe McNally's bit of advice from his book, The Moment It Clicks, "I can't tell you how many pictures I've missed, ignored, trampled, or otherwise lost just 'cause I've been so hell bent on getting the shot I THINK I want," (p. 4).
Another lesson learned today. Always, always, ALWAYS have an UV filter on your lens. Ariana accidently scratched the filter while putting or taking off the lens cap. No big deal. I did that too a few years ago when I first got the camera. You can replace a UV filter for $20. Replacing a lens is another story. That will cost a couple hundred or depending on the lens, over a thousand dollars. Good thing I use UV filters on all my glass.
Here is the picture without Ariana in it:
 |
| A Walk in the Woods 24mm 1/160s f/22 ISO 200 |
And another one from today that I really liked:
 |
| Miss Hollywood the Photographer 70mm 1/3200s f/2.8 ISO 200 |
All my pictures are edited using Photoshop CS4.
No comments:
Post a Comment