Lesson 3

My photography class is currently on Lesson 3. I get to download Lesson 4 today and I have high hopes that I will learn a bit more than I have to this point.  Being the nerd that I am, I have read tons of books about photography and my camera trying to figure the whole thing out. The problem is I never took those books and put them to actual use.  That's the difference with this class. There are assignments that need to be completed which is what makes me actually use the stuff I'm reading about! 

Lesson one basically consisted of photography background, the first cameras, how film works, finding your photographers eye, blah blah blah. The assignment was to create a mat and look through it to find your eye. Ummm, no.  Lesson two had a bit more about Rule of Thirds, touched on aperature (which gets you the fuzzy back ground) but the lesson was about reading the manual that came with the camera.  Let me tell you, I already have.  Twice. Not to mention looking things up continually. I keep it in my camera bag just in case.

Now we are on Lesson 3 and this one is about film.  Considering I have a digital camera, it wasn't super relevant but did learn some interesting facts. Once again, not a lot that i didn't already know but at least the assignment included picking up my camera and taking pictures! And this is where the trouble begins.  We got the option of picking either finding "rule of thirds" photos or messing with the ISO pictures. 

This is an example of a rule of thirds photo:

See how C is to the left third of the pic? This is to make things more visually interesting. Not rocket science I know.  You do see this "technique" a lot in current wedding photography. You know the shot...the bride and groom under the tree and the park to the side or standing on the beach. You see more ocean than couple.

The problem with taking a pic like this is that it is used a lot in portrait photography or landscape.  My kids are not in the mood for pics lately and McHenry county isn't exactly the most scenic place around.  I actually believe it to be some of the most uninspiring land around!  It didn't help that I looked at some of the posted photography and they were really pretty and good and I felt like a dope putting up my stupid pics.

So the other option was ISO.  So our instructor says take your tripod (ummm, don't have one) and head to a dark spot in the woods, or a cave or a dark candlelit church (seriously???) and take some pictures at ISO 100 vs ISO 400. OR, go to a sporting event (check) in bright sunlight (check) and take photos of relatively the same thing at 100 and again at 400 and see the difference.  So I pack up my gear and head to B's flag football practice.  The first shot is taken at ISO 100:

The photo below is taken at ISO 400:

Notice a difference?

Me either. Hmmm.  Now what?  Thank goodness there are still 9 more lessons!!

Expanding my horizons

For Mothers Day my husband and kids got me a Canon XS DSLR. It was the camera I'd been coveting for awhile though any DSLR would have made me happy. For the past several months I have been using my fancy big camera in much the same way I used my crappy little point and shoot just with a better lens. In my defense, our summers are crazy busy with dance and baseball and softball so getting good shots of the kids in their activities was my main goal. I consider that, for the most part, achieved. I created my first ever photo scrapbook for Caden's baseball team and I'm really proud of the end result though I did find some mistakes once I had it in my hands.

So now summer is winding down and the kids are heading back to school in 4 more days! I haven't picked up my camera much during the entire month of August. I wanted to take pics of the kids at a local park in the hopes of blowing one up big and framing it but the heat was really bad coupled with my insecurity of being able to capture what I wanted. Every day was too sunny, too hot, too cloudy... you get the picture.

So I decided to talk my friend Colleen into taking a class at the local college with me. Due to our schedules, however, a sit down classroom class was just out of the question so our class is online. Today is day 2 of a 12 lesson course. I haven't looked at it just yet but the first lesson was pretty easy to understand and follow so I have high hopes for the upcoming lessons. What I'm hoping most to learn is how to use lighting to my advantage instead of always fighting against it!

So expect to see some pics over the next few weeks of random stuff that will be the assignments for my class. Wish me luck!