grrlTravels roadside distractions

« September 2006 | Main | December 2006 »

October 20, 2006

More photography talk

My latest assignment is structured to help us start to get the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. Which is good because this is a difficult concept to grasp and no matter how many times I read about it or get someone to explain it to me I can't keep it all that straight. I am determined that this is the absolute last time, though. Seriously.

Part of the assignment deals with aperture and part with shutter speed. The shutter speed part is to take a photograph of a moving subject: streams, vehicles, waterfalls, or attend a sporting event. Take one photograph with a fast shutter speed (stop action) and one with a slow shutter speed (blur action). Ok, so. I want to answer the assignment, but I also want to take an interesting photograph. Vehicles? Could be interesting, but not really to me. I like those blurring moving car shots, but getting excited about taking one? Not so much.

I am stuck with streams or waterfalls I'm afraid. Or a fountain or the ocean. One of the photos has to be crystal clear (so I'm thinking splashing or droplets of water) and the other needs to be blurred--easier to do but harder to make interesting. I'm worried about taking an interesting shot. I can't get an interesting shot in my mind. I suppose I'll try to take some different angles and hope for the best. Sigh.

Posted by grrlTravels at 7:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 17, 2006

Sometimes sunflowers are just too obvious

When you take a beginner's class I guess it's to be expected. Still I found the first assignment a little lacking. I suppose it was just to get everyone in the groove of uploading, etc.

Basic SLR Photography

First assignment: Learn what your camera can do using a checklist. (Helpful, actually, for newbies like me. I learned all kinds of stuff. Not that I will ever use 90% of it, but still.)

Take a photograph of color in nature. Shoot the photo, look at it on the LCD screen, adjust your shot, and retake. Submit two before and after shots and tell what you did to make the shot better.

Perhaps I am just too cynical these days. But I for one went out and took mostly lousy first shots that I knew were terrible and then took a better shot. Also we haven't really gone over aperture and shutter speed, etc so the only way I improved my photos was to get closer, apply the Rule of Thirds, or shift things around a bit.

And I submitted a flower shot. I can't explain it except to say that I got desperate. And the shot was really cool on the huge screen on K.'s MAC and then when I resized it and saved it as a JPEG and uploaded it for the assignment it looked lousy on the Web. Just another flower shot.

Please don't get all defensive if you love flower shots and you take them all the time. I just think they are pretty obvious. Flowers are inherently beautiful and colorful. After the fact I just wished that I had tried to find some other color that was more interesting and a bit less obvious. Oh well.

The instructor chooses one photo from each student that she likes the best and puts it in a folder called Photos of the Week. And she put the sunflowers in there. I liked the mossy photo better, but the sunflowers it is. I feel so lame. Gah!

My Flickr Photoset for Assignment #1

Here's the worst part. I am enjoying the class immensely. But it is a lot of pressure to take the "perfect" shot for each assignment. I go over and over my shots and never feel like any of them are good enough to submit. And. This course is making me really competitive with the other students. I'm not proud of it. At all. But it's hard not to want to take the shots that everyone loves. You all know that I'm a bit skewed and my vision of the world is way out in left field so it's unlikely that anyone will find my shots all that interesting until I do some serious work learning techniques and developing my own personal vision and style.

Posted by grrlTravels at 4:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 15, 2006

Assignments in reverse order

I am loving my photography class through BetterPhoto.com. So I apologize abjectly for my long absence (I have guilt over not posting here, believe me) but I was off learning about my camera and taking photos for the first two assignments, among other things. You can't imagine how much time a house that is on the market and isn't selling can eat up. And K. travels. But still. The crafting must continue.

So it was the right thing to decide to do something for myself and take a class. I am loving it. I am learning. I am taking cool photos. I feel like I might get better some day.

My Flickr Photoset for Assignment #2

I may post some of the photos on my photoblog, but certainly they will not all make it. If you slog through all 21 and your aren't a relative...don't you have better things to do? I mean, thanks. I appreciate it. Leave a comment while you are at it so I know you were there.

More crafting soon. I promise. Shelba and I have a little deal-y going. We are going to craft together. You can join us.

Posted by grrlTravels at 11:01 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 4, 2006

Goodies in the mail

We traveled this past weekend so no project to post this week. Plus I have promised myself that I will finish a ridiculously overdue gift for a friend before going back to anything else, so I must work, work, work like a busy little bee until it's finished.

I have been wanting to post photos of the fun package I got from Shelba. What a surprise! She had wrapped most everything too, so I got to open a ton of little gifts. Sigh. I'm grinning just thinking about it.

My heart beats a little faster when I see this much paper all in one place. There are lots of beautiful papers including some oragami paper that is just lovely. Plus rubber stamps, ink, and little dohickeys. Be still my heart.

Shelba somehow managed to nail me pretty squarely and the books tell this story the best of all. To wit: I am all about Sublime Stitching and I have several of her patterns; the two vintage books are fabulous and have some fun funky ideas in them; the sewing book I can use as my skillz are lacking; there are two fun magazines down there which I shall devour; and then a book by the super talented Claudine who is fabulous and did a lovely collage for us in February. Is it spookier if I tell you that I have a few similar books to these but did not own any of these? Oooooh, spooky.

Shelba knows how to sew and I pretend to. Sewing is a cyclical thing for me. I have sewn plenty of clothing (for myself) and crafty stuff over the years. I tend to get in a sewing phase and then work myself slowly back out of it. I would love to finish a quilt all by myself some day, but that dream is on hold for the foreseeable future. Anyway I now have lots of fun beads to play with and I think the beads are going right into the floss organizer. My favorites are the little glass beads on the top right. They are so pretty!

The fabric she sent is so lovely. The navy floral on the bottom is bright and whimsical. The top piece has an Asian feel with pagodas, bushes with red berries and the best little birds in the world. I love those little birds. The middle piece is books. I can't decide which is my favorite, and I can't imagine using any of the for anything. I love them too much. Yes, I am a packrat and yes, I need to get over it.

Thank you Shelba. You are my photography buddy and a kind and thoughtful friend. I cannot wait to storm some fabric shops with you some day. That whole Mexico / Vegas no-kids weekendy thing sounds like fun too.

Posted by grrlTravels at 2:56 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack