Experimental Lighting

 
    This week I began to try out some different lighting strategies. I've never really used a serious light set up but have seen how many photographers have utilized lighting to create some pretty incredible images. Because I dont own any lights besides my flash I decided to play around with a smaller subject and smaller lights. For this I used an elefant model and chess pieces along with some tiny finger lights that I hope to use for more light painting in the future. This allowed me to create a scaled down version of what a photographer's studio might look like. I spent quite a while trying out different lighting angles and avoided using my flash so that I could focus on the placement of the smaller lights.

    I wasn't able to take any truly great shots simply because I was experimenting and don't quite have the equipment needed for taking studio lit quality photos. I also focused less on the subject and more on how different lighting angles affected the image. Overall I thought this experiment was successful, even If I did only got a couple decent shots. Once I have a few real lights and a backdrop I'm sure that this experiment will help me. This also forced me to be a little more creative and gave me a bit of a challenge which makes things more fun.

   Also, I'm not sure how many people consistently check my blog but If anyone who reads this has a suggestion for any photos to take or something interesting to film or even simply to experiment with something related to cameras, just comment and I will try it out and post it one week.

Water Drops

    Today I tried something a little bit different and a little abstract. I took pictures of water. At first you may think that pictures of water aren't very interesting but I discovered some pretty cool things to do with it. First I set up my camera on a tripod with weight attached so that my heavy and expensive dslr wouldn't tip over. I also attached and external flash. Then I set a dish of water with paper around it to prevent shadows under the lens. I first started by practicing my timing and played around with plain water but found it difficult to make look very interesting so I wanted to addd some other color. For this I turned to food coloring. 

     As I added drops of food coloring to the dish of water, mini splashes would occur and I tried to freeze these moments. It is very difficult to time but eventually I got it down and took some good shots. What I find awesome about these pictures is that they are of something as simple as water but remain abstract and interesting with the use of colors. Some of the pictures even appear more like solid figures than liquid. 

    I wasn't quite sure what I was going for when I first started but ideas began developing and I think I got some very nice photos out of the water drops. If I were to do this again, I would probably use additional lights to create a more stable, shadow free pool of water. Also I would use a cleaner white dish because I noticed that even the smallest amount of dust will appear with the use of the flash. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I originally took about fifty but these are the ones I think came out best.

(Click to enlarge) 

Kicks In the Cold

    Just a few weeks ago some of my friends went to play some soccer at the Blair turf. It was in the low 40s but that did not stop them from playing and that did not stop me from bringing my camera and working on my sports photography. I had taken pictures of basketball and a little baseball but never soccer so this was an exciting new opportunity. There is a chance that I will take photos for Silver Chips so every bit of experience helps.  

    While they played I attempted to capture some interesting angles and use the harsh sunlight to my advantage. The one thing that I had to be sure to do was use a high shutter speed because soccer can be very fast paced and you want to capture the moment without any blur. Here are some of the photos I took. Hopefully by next week we will have finished our one minute films and I will post that.

Macro Photography

   For a Christmas gift my aunt gave me a book of Poplar Photography tips and advice. As I was browsing  through the book I came across many interesting ideas for projects and great suggestions I had never thought of before. One image that truly stood out to me was an image of an eye taken with cheap macro photo equipment. This image inspired me to look into getting or making macro equipment of my own. My first obstacle was that I didn't have a macro lens (a key part of taking macro photos). I went to look at prices of a macro lens online but found nothing in a reachable price range. During this search however, I came across another option called macro extension tubes. What these do is extend the lens off of the camera and give an extreme macro effect, allowing you to get centimeters away from your subject. The big plus with these are that they cost a fraction of the price of a decent macro lens. I purchased a set for only $12. When the package arrived I began shooting immediately.

   This first picture is my best attempt at taking a macro image of an eye. Although mine is not as detailed and generally remarkable as the one that inspired me to try this in the first place, it came out pretty well and I now know more about how to go about taking these types of images.

   Here are a few others I took:

  

Moonlit Photography

 
    On my typical bus ride to school I noticed the moon was still out. The reason, I noticed it almost immediately was because it was nearly full and very bright. I seemed to stare at it for the remainder of the bus ride and decided that I would photograph it that weekend.
    Saturday night I went out with a friend and took some photos of the moon and attempted to make a time lapse of clouds flying by the moon. I ended up taking almost 1,300 photos and spent hours uploading and moving these photos into a video. This was a test and really taught me a lot about making time lapses. As you could see in my Colors of Fall video I have made a lime lapse before; however, that was not done in the most professional way. For that clip I simply set my camera in the window and recorded video for about 15 minutes and sped it up. To make this moon time lapse, I used the more professional technique of using a remote and taking continuous pictures for a long period of time. I was probably taking photos for about 10 or 15 minutes and ended up taking almost 1,300 photos.
   During post processing I discovered how long it can take to put these films together and how it can go wrong. For me, I used iMovie which complicated things. Once I managed to get every image into the program, iMovie automatically puts a "Ken Burns" effect on every photo so I needed to fix that. Also iMovie does not let you make the pictures show up for less than .1 seconds. Because of this I needed to move the fastest version into a QuickTime file, then put it back into iMovie and speed it up even more. This sacrificed some picture quality and also made it slightly shaky. Now I know more about what to do next time I make a time lapse. Here is my video and one of my the most interesting time lapses I've seen.

My Video:


Another Great Time lapse (Not mine):

Light Painting

     Last night me and a friend went into my backyard to take some colorful and exciting photos. Earlier that day, I came across a very interesting video showing photos taken with a technique called "light painting." I had seen these types of images in TV commercials and ads before but I was never sure how they were made. In this video the photographer was showing how he was using light painting to advertise an alcohol brand. What I found interesting was that he said he made his own lights just to get the effect he wanted and focused on bringing out the amber color of the liquid with the light. His pictures came out incredible and this got me interested in seeing what else you could do with light painting.

(Don't drink alcohol)

    After watching a couple videos and looking at some examples online I decided that I was going to try this out myself that night. After the sun went down and the yard was near pitch black, we went out and played around with light painting. To do it, I set the camera's shutter speed to 13-30 seconds depending on the image and set the flash to first curtain. This means the flash goes off when you click the shutter button. When the flash goes off, this reveals the subject and the background. After the flash I went behind the subject and moved LED lights (flashlights and headlamps) to create streaks of color. Because there is never light shining directly on me, I don't show up in the picture. 

    Taking images of the chair was a little more complicated. To only reveal the chair and give an interesting lighting effect beneath it, I used a flashlight and lit the chair carefully. I then went behind and created the streaks by pointing the light directly at the lens of the camera.

    Although it was cold out and took several tries to get it right, I think the pictures came out great and we had a lot of fun. I think it is definitely a technique that I will use often in the future because there are so many ways to be creative with it. Here are some of the images I took.

(Click to see larger)

Basketball At TPMS

   This weekend me a some friends went to play basketball at Takoma Park Middle School and I was thinking that I hadn't taken pictures for fun in quite a while, so I decided to bring the camera along. I planned to take a couple specific pictures such as the one of John Ramsey dunking below, however I also just wanted to enjoy myself and capture some of our "intense" games we play most weekends. This was something I enjoyed doing because I can see myself being a sports photographer. I'm not saying that is my ultimate goal in life; however, I think it would be a career that I would really enjoy.

    I'm now going to explain how I shot and edited the picture John dunking. First I had him dunk while I took  a lot of pictures in high speed burst mode. In order to do this you need to keep the camera very  still and be careful not to let the background change behind the subject. I myself had trouble with this because I didn't bring a tripod. Using photoshop, I then pasted the images into separate layers and cut out everything except for John and the ball in each picture besides the last. I then flattened the image and played around with the background so that it look like one picture, not a stack of multiple. Postprocessing for this picture alone, took me about an hour. Here are some other shots I took this weekend that I thought came out well. (Click to view larger)

Nationals NLDS Game 4: Emotions Captured

         Recently my primary interests outside of school have been photography and baseball, so I immediately knew that I was going to document the Nationals playoffs through photography and film;  however, this was before I knew it would be such an incredible experience. 
         When I entered the stadium this Thursday for game 4 of the NLDS with camera in hand, I had a goal of capturing the emotions of the crowd and not the game itself. This is the first time the Nationals have made the playoffs in their not so long existence and they needed a win to stay alive, so naturally the crowd was dedicated to watching every pitch hit the catcher's mitt. 
        Instead of trying to take not so interesting shots of the players, I focused on the audience. Whether it would be a depressing or thrilling game, it was important for me to show that in my photos and video. I often used the technique of only focussing the lens on one fan, with the field in the background, instead of attempting to capture it all with one shot. This created a more dramatic effect and conveyed more feeling. 
        I am confident that I summed up the emotions and intensity of the game quite well, while capturing the greatest moment in Nationals baseball history on video. When Jayson Werth hit the walk off homerun in the bottom off the ninth, I and everyone else in the stadium went into hysteria. The only difference between me and everyone else, was that I had the moment caught on tape. I hope you enjoy seeing the game of baseball from a different perspective as I did tonight.