Assignment number one is to
take at least one abstract photo based entirely on some of the compositional rules we talked about. Subjects should not be recognizable.
The compositional rules discussed in lesson one were
For the Rule of Thirds this was my take
For the Golden Mean
The Triangle
Frame within a frame
Leading Lines
Circle
Rhythm
So, are they unrecognizable? Probably not. I’m sure you can figure out what everything is. I’m not very good at finding the abstract in the ordinary but it was a fun assignment to try to "see" things that way. I plan to watch the world around me to see if I can see more ways to apply the rules. Thanks for looking!
Remember last fall when I wanted to capture the new rainboots? Well, I finally got a picture I like. The two oldest were playing in the down spout with their boots on and this is what I got.
According to Jodie over at the morguefile.com, a triangle makes for good composition. Is that why I like this picture? Do you see a triangle in there?
I’m working on Assignment 1 from Lesson 1 today. Since this picture isn’t abstract, I can’t use it for the assignment. Besides, I want to attempt to find something fresh and not sort through old work when completing the assignments. Hopefully, I’ll post some results for you later today.
I’ve got a big ‘ole bee in my bonnet wanting to take a photography course. Problem is, I live out in po-dunk and there is not much around me in the way of photography courses. The other problem is that hubby has an erratic work schedule at times and I still have three little ducklings in my care to work the scheduling around. So what is a girl to do?! I have been longing to take Wendy Schulz’ beginner course for ages. I recently signed up to get on her waitlist. Her work just talks to me. She is very busy and doesn’t have a class ready for me to start any time soon so I had to move forward. (FYI – I’m going to take at least one course from her someday.)
I discovered that Bryan Peterson – the same Bryan Peterson who wrote Understanding Exposure – has founded a website called The Picture Perfect School of Photography. There are several classes offered at this site – one of which is called Understanding Exposure in which he co-teaches. The cost for this class is $395 and the next one begins in March. Oh, yeah! Baby I want to sign up for that! Maybe I will too. Assuming there is still space available when I get my fanny in gear with the cash to back up my plan.
Then I found one to start TONIGHT. I want someone out there to follow along with me. Will you? It’s free. You heard me right, free. Technically she did the course back in 2004. But the course is archived and still available for us to follow along as if she were teaching it today. What do we have to lose, right? Let’s do it. Who’s with me?!
It is taught by Jodie Coston who apparently makes her living at stock photography. I’ve read through lesson one and in my opinion this woman knows what she is talking about. I got some interesting perspective on composition and I’m anxious to do the assignments. Here is lesson one. Read it and let me know what you think. Leave a comment if you plan to play along and be sure to leave a link to your blog so we can all see your assignments too.
Did I mention that I recently took the plunge and bought Photoshop Elements 6? I can’t recall. Anyway, I did and I’ve finally begun to play with it. I have been nervous to play with editing software much. First, I’d prefer to just get a great image in the camera. Second, the software intimidated me. I hadn’t found one that I thought was intuitive and easy to learn. Third, I was afraid of over editing my photographs and having them look fake.
I’m happy to report that Photoshop Elements is very user friendly for a beginner. I think it has some amazing features in it that will allow me to grow as an editer too. I checked out a book from the library on PSE 6 which I’ve barely touched. I’m looking forward to reading through it to see all that this program can do. In the meantime, I started playing in the software last night and found it to be very easy to manipulate my pictures in a satisfactory way. I have a lot to learn but so far, I’m very pleased.
Here are some of my examples from yesterday. They don’t look too much different until you make them full size.
Before the edit – Above. After the edit – Below.
If you are on the fence about purchasing this software package… I heard a rumor that Costco has a coupon book out right now with a coupon in it that would allow you to buy the software $30 off. Since they sell it for $80 that means you can buy the software at $50 – which is 50% off the retail price. Swing by Costco for that book now and then go back on January 21 to get your software half price!
Back in mid December, one of my girlfriends called me to ask for help. It seems her buddy C wanted some pictures of his Christmas lights to send to his dying mother. Apparently, when he was a boy, his mother insisted on decorating the tree with blue lights. The story goes that the blue lights had some reference to the Virgin Mary for her. I didn’t quite understand that part. When C was a boy, some of his most vivid Christmas memories involved going to the store and picking out the strands of colored lights. Apparently, the two of them would sit on the floor in the aisle and pull all the blue lights from all the other strands and put them in the strand they intended to purchase while taking all other colors from the strand to be purchased and putting them in the other strands for sale. Since his mother was dying, he thought he would honor this memory by decorating the outside of his house with blue lights. Then he thought he should take a picture to send to his mother since she couldn’t travel anymore. Both C and my girlfriend attempted to take pictures of the lights on their own but were not satisfied with the result. So, she called me.
After all this leading up to it, you’d be expecting a house decked out in blue Christmas lights, right? Nope. It was a strand that ran along the fence on the side of the house ending with a bush covered in larger blue lights. Still, it was a chance for me to practice photographing something else so I took it.
Here is what I got.
Just to give you the full effect of what we were dealing with here… I offer you the picture below. Complete with porch light on that I was trying to work around.
I tried to see outside the box and change my perspective and all that. But there is only so much you can do with a strand of blue lights! Still, girlfriend and C where quite happy with the result and he wrote a poem and framed one of the pictures and mailed it to his mother. I hope she liked it.
Guess what I did last night… I got my very own domain name! Since I don’t plan to run a website on it yet… I bought the most basic thing I could find. I also signed up with Typepad to bump my blog to the next level – which means I only pay $2.70 more a month (I found a lifetime 15% off coupon) and I get three blogs and I can customize them more. Being small time right now… one of the other blogs will be strictly business related portfolio stuff that I’d put on a website if I had one. That will be the blog that is tied to my domain name. Cool, eh? If you are considering getting your own domain name for your blog or website, I found Netfirms to be the cheapest thing going. It was $5.95 a year to own the name. Naturally, they offer upgrades but I’m not in a position to need any of that now. I’m psyched! One step closer to seeing this thing happen.
My new laptop came with very basic photo editing software on it. Although it’s great for what it does, I decided that if I could find Photoshop Elements for less than $100 anywhere, I’d buy it. I stopped in to Costco today and found PhotoShop Elements 6 for $80. I snapped that puppy up on the spot! I know that real photographers would scoff at using Elements instead of the real PhotoShop deal… but I’ve had PhotoShop CS on my old computer for months along with a book all about it sitting on my shelf and I haven’t touched it. It overwhelms me. It’s not user friendly. I figure I’ll get familiar in Elements and work my way up to the real deal someday when a) I actually need it b) I can afford it and c) I can get the latest version for the time in question.
I can’t load it up now but I’m planning to have a good time with it tonight! I hope your plans for this evening inspire you as much as mine do for me!
Would you like to see our Christmas card this year? On a total whim, I grabbed the three kids, plopped them in front of the Christmas tree and started snapping away secretly thinking in the back of my head that if I got anything good, I’d use it for the card. Take a look at it. It’s obviously just a whim with NO preplanning! One kid is in his PJs, one in a dress with a cute bow on her head and the other is wearing sweatpants! Can you get anymore unmatched than that? I wasn’t going for some spectacular portrait or anything. I just wanted everyone smiling at me. As is usually the case… it didn’t work out that way. When I pulled them up on the screen I laughed out loud. I decided I HAD to use these for the sake of every parent at home who has attempted the forsaken home portrait for the card session. Here ya go. This is my reality.
