Have a Palette for Life?

That's right. My little sister was painting today and boy is she cute. Sadly people are not part of still life shots, sooooo all those will be put in the family album. But her messy paint stuffs was a perfect little thing to photograph. I quite pleased with the outcome.

Now as the whole outcome was a painting project, I made an effort to Photoshop the first one to have a watercolor paint brush effect. Thought it would be appropriate. Sure I know this one wasn't exactly POW still life, it was still... well still. It gets sort of tough finding proper table space around here to get decent backed out shots, so those I do take aren't always that perfect.

Its definitely tough considering I thought this was going to be a walk in the park. But at least things are going well. I haven't done any looking about at well considered professional still lifers, but that will be tomorrow's endeavor since it will also be our last day of still life. Today was just another day among days. Also had a nice cooking party today with family and friends. English Toffee Bars. They were grand! But they did give me the idea that cooking utensils would be great for my next shot as well. Incidental, it shocks me to realize that most my favorite shots are close ups of utensils. Makeup, paint, and pens. Certainly this says a lot as to subject matter...

I think I'll have to talk to my sources about this notice...
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baggybunny

Stacking Blocks

You know it seems to me that upon looking further at these still life shots all over deviant art and on the net, that I should most certainly be taking a step back. I mean still life captures stillness, and I creep in so close because when I started doing photography I lived in its face. Macro is my safe place. Soooo today is another failure to quite capture what it is that still life is, but I do say that I still like these anyway.

Stacks seem to me a very common thing in still life. A stack of books, a stack of dishes, and even stacks of of pens and pencils. So today I tried picking out a few of my old school novels. Moby Dick is the big one. And then randomly stacking them on my side table. Upon this I discovered that books do NOT like flash. Ever try taking a picture of a book while its open? Not pretty I can assure you. You blind yourself and anyone else in the room, on top of that you can't read anything that was on the page. It reminds me of a white out in Antarctica.

By the way, while taking these photos I had to move the things off my side table and realized... I have perfect still life stuff. A random fake flower bouquet, an old looking bowl with some change in it, and little trinkets that look like leaves. So that will be my attempt throughout tomorrow. To manage to take a far away shot of these things on the table... or a table. You know I haven't quite decided where, but I'll figure it out.

Also I realized old things make for a very fine subject matter. Grainy things like wood for instance. Make a very fine texture shot. We'll see if I can't manage to stack some of the long books too for another shot in my spare time. Not for this of course unless it turns out great because we all know what a mood I get into when I photograph the same subject matter days in a row. Soooo here we go. Which reminds me, the photo below... its not some special diary of secrets, it might not look it there, but its just my plant journal, heh. I'm starting this one out to record how my sunflowers grow this year. So its not as secretive as it looks, haha.

So try it yourselves, its rather fun. Making the simple ordinary things look suspicious.

O.o

I'm not sure about you, but I am getting so tired of missing my updates. I mean I sit here preaching about how I'm going to keep this every day and then I let work get in the way. Well I don't know about you, but that's just bothersome. I'd get rather frustrated with me. Its like those people that I watch on livejournal and they don't update for a week. Bleh.

Anyway, I was going to tell you all about my adventures at work with possibly the most adorable children known to man! but that was interrupted by the fact that I was doing a lot of driving around once again and everything was interrupted this week. So I'm going to use the weekend like Thursday and Friday. Hopefully that will make up for my stupidity.

Now, today I will be doing placement of subject. In my photos, I find it is best to set things off center when doing black and white. Allowing for the light to enter the frame and bring out both the shadows and the contrast. Sooooo I am going to use this opportunity to get some prime people pictures into the game. The first is of the little girl I watch, because I promised you all a soft now contrasted picture. And then later tonight I will post pictures from the endeavor with my almost new cousin at the dress store. She's getting married and well... we need to document.

Exciting!
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baggybunny

Edit: Well my cousin looks amazing in her pictures that I took, but unfortunately I can not post them until her wedding because she doesn't want her soon to be hub to see her pictures. Understandable, so then I will be adding another picture from the baby shoot. Tada!

First Weekend Project!

http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_high_speed_photography_at_home

I have been researching this all week long and have procured over the years, a rather large amount of bb guns. Airsoft really, but not so soft. Anyway, I plan to be attempting this all night and weekend as my first weekend photo attempts. You know this after all, I'm suppose to have weekends off. I am very excited, especially after today's disaster.

The picture you see before you is an empty spot, where there should have been a bottle busting, but I was too amateur with my clicking skills to capture the moment just right. If you look close enough, there is a bit of glass shards all about. At the edges of the frame. This is my first outdoors attempt, but not my last. Once I get the hang of this, there will be no stopping me!! This is what the the super speedy multiple frames setting is for... now if only I could find that...

*Wanders off to locate the manual for the camera*
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baggybunny

Speed Junkies

Indeed, that's what I'd call those crazy cats that spend all their time taking amazing, sometimes hazardous pictures of high speed greatness. I am no where neeearrr as exciting as these people. I mean honestly, if you spend time to look up the high speed junkies of this new era you'll find some wild stuff.

Speaking of, I would like to bring attention how incredibly lame I am, that I did water pictures when there are sooo many different mediums that I could have attempted. But on that note I plan to be quite the rebel and try some interesting shots of my own. Of course I have been quite busy lately and those interesting shots require other people's help because I don't have the equipment necessary for all those complicated shots. So that is my lame explanation for repeating the water experiment. Hopefully this one is at least different enough that no one hates me. ^.^

I dedicate this picture to Martin Waugh, a high speed genius with water. He sculpts water! Its amazing, his work inspires the curiosity in my head. Of course, despite the stunning greatness of this guy, that's not the most popular type of high speed. Of the plethora of types of high speed, the most common is that done with a pistol. They set up an object and then they shoot it. Some of the stuff I've seen getting shot is rather humorous actually. Apples, water balloons, eggs, light bulbs, and more. I mean honestly, to get the one shot, image how many things they have to shoot!

I found most of the popular photographers on WebUrbanist.com and upon studying the pictures from a speed demon contest. There are many interesting pictures out there in high speed. Most the most memorable for me, well the most memorable of HS to me is the Tropicana commercials where they show the drop of orange juice popping up.

But as for the picture I took today, I finally got an entire picture shoot without noise! But I ran into another problem that I have had with great frequency. Reflective surface totally sucks. Everything you take a picture of, if its in a glass bowl, don't expect it to come out. That's just plain trouble. So if you plan on using a bowl for pictures I suggest clear ones or if aim slightly up so that the flash doesn't hit the rim of the bowl. Oh and I would also recommend you do not do your shoot in a big bright sink. Very... shiny. Best of luck!
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baggybunny

Stage Left

Yes, the oh so fascinating story of how to set up the stage for the high speed ballet. Now I found this wonderful site made by this nice person named Mike. Its all about how to set up, so yay. At least I'm not in this endeavor all alone.

Now according to our good friend Mike, the best thing is to keep the set up simple. Make sure you are very, VERY close to the object you are about to photograph because flash is greatly reduced when doing the high speed stuff. Because yesterday's reasoning about how we need to be fast with our flash and also mentioned was the unattached flash mechanism. This time around we won't be using that big hulking thing (because honestly I don't own one). Now, remember close to the object. Try also using that tripod or stool that you may be using to substitute that. This way there is no nasty noise. Ugly nasty noise!

KEEP ISO LOWER than 800!!!!!

This is a tip from Mike because its also one of those things that reduces the nastiness of noise. I honestly hate that noise. I should just put a pair of ear muffs on the camera. Stupid visual static.

After that, play around with your fstop so that you get a chance to see which setting gets you the most appropriate clarity. Now lets hope this works out! Add colored objects for the background. Whootness!


And for the record, these pictures were taken this afternoon with the camera that I bad mouthed yesterday, so remember all... with a lot of studying and attempts, we learn we can do things you could never image.
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baggybunny

The F-Word!!!

That's right guys no picture for yesterday and since the camera doesn't do anything near high speed, I bring here for your enjoyment, the mighty F WORD! I swear at thee evil camera of earth. (For the record I really love that camera so no one tell it I said that). And the f-word that I mean is actually, f-stop, the settings used for high speed photos meaning frame stops. That's right, tonight is settings night.

Now, since I am sick, I studied how to take the picture instead of the ranges of the camera itself. First of all, I definitely need that tripod I've been talking about because the stool just doesn't do for height, and for high speed, same as lowlight, you want a very steady surface because otherwise its going to add a lot of noise. *snickers* That's right, noooiiiisseeee can be heard on a picture. How ridiculous is that, its not a speaker, so why do I have to worry about noise?

Stupid noise. Noise in camera pictures is that stuff that you see that looks like hideous static that makes pictures that are nice and well taken look disgusting. Its awful!

So we need a medium f-word... I mean f-stop. Around f5.0... Next thing you need would be aperture. Remember that the aperture is just about the same as your iris. The more light in your face, the small your iris contracts, and that's what you want with the aperture. Apparently though, most of the people who do high speed pictures stay in a dark dark room with a detached light. They aren't too expensive and on top of that very nice and bright. Good for taking profiles and stuff.

Now since this theme is a 6 day week, I'm going to be continuing this conversation tomorrow based on the set up of the scene. Best of luck to me ^.^ And to all a good night.
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baggybunny