For this assignment, we had to shoot 4 photos showing the 'look' of fall. For me, when I think about the look of fall, I associate it with leaves, and with rain. Fall is known for all the leaves changing colour and falling to the ground, and if you live in Vancouver, it's an abrupt end to the warm weather and sunshine of summer. So for my photos, I chose variety of different leaves as the subject(s), mixed in with aspects of rain in a few of them. They explore the different colours of fall in each photo. My favourite ones of this set are the top two: the first one for it's colours and texture, and then the second for it's blur and depth of field. I chose these ones to work together as a set because they all featured a different leaf and colour, and they each show the textures of the leaves. As well, I chose two vertical photos and two horizontal ones so that it would balance when posted. Overall, I feel like I was successful in capturing the colours of fall, but I feel like the fourth photo doesn't click with the set as much as the first three do. If I were to do this project again for a longer period of time, I would want to try and capture different photos of the horizon with the different weather of fall: from the occasional blinding sunshine, to the usual rain and mist
For my choice of assignment / theme, I chose to do architecture, specifically that of Old Montreal. While I was away on a trip to a storytelling convention and then up in Montreal and Toronto to visit universities, I had about one day to shoot pictures while staying in Old Montreal. This consisted of a couple hours aimlessly wandering around this part of the city and taking in all the beautiful old architecture. This turned out some pretty interesting pictures, especially with a focus on the windows and upper parts of the buildings, mostly shot from below on the sidewalk. I feel like most of these pictures successfully captured the complexity of these buildings, and I edited them in a mixture of black-and-white and slightly desaturated photos, to draw one's eyes away from the colours to focus on the details of the buildings themselves. One of my pictures in particular that turned out surprisingly well was the middle photo in the top row, due to its use of negative space and black-and-white. Originally, the bright blue of the sky was overbearing and distracting, but in b&w it brings focus to the building without it having to be in the centre of the photo (rule of thirds!). Other techniques I found myself using were actually similar to the macro leaves project, in cropping closely to the subject. This can be seen in the first and third pictures, where I cropped the edges of the building(s) out to focus on the windows. Overall, I chose these six pictures to represent the theme because they felt connected together, like they belonged in a set, due to their focus on windows and the top edges of buildings. I feel like I was successful in representing the style of some of the old architecture while still having the pictures be connected together with more than just being pictures of Montreal. The two pictures below represent other favourites I had from the trip, but I felt that they didn't connect as well with the other pictures as a whole, so they're just tacked on at the end as a little extra.
Thankfully it did rain this weekend, allowing for everything to be suitably spattered with raindrops enough for this assignment. (or maybe it was the sprinkler system). Photos 2 - 4, the water droplet photos, were all shot using a macro lens. I couldn't decide on which water droplet photo I liked best, so I picked a couple of them. The first water droplet photo is one that I'm especially proud of, because it features raindrops on a tiny spiderweb that I found nestled in grass. It makes the water drops look as if they are suspended in midair, like perfect little spheres. This one was definitely hard to get sharp focus on, but I think I achieved that pretty well. The other three water drop photos all feature leaves, as they had accumulated the largest amount of water (although probably due to the sprinklers and not the rain).
For this panning challenge I made my way down to the highway overpass near my house to photograph cars. This allowed me to have ample opportunity to try the panning technique with the amount of cars, but I only had enough time to take 1 - 2 pictures per car. To my utter disappointment, I missed the chance to shoot a an old, classic car that had passed by. I found that most of my photos had only one half of the car frozen for some reason. The three pictures selected I consider to be most of my successes, with the best one being the first one with the red car. Although, what I did find with shooting on the highway was that many of my pictures looked identical aside from a different car in the centre, and as my sister commented it "looked like I was some sort of strange car enthusiast". This is also partially due to most of the cars being the same colours, with the typical whites, silvers, blacks, and the occasional blue or red. Leading me to be very proud and excited over successfully capturing the third picture of the yellow motorcycle. In doing this again, I would like to try the technique with something other than cars, and preferably be at a better vantage point: being above the highway makes the cars seem a little to far away, but just shooting on the sidewalk was a little too close (e.g. pic 1 vs. pic 2.). However this could be solved with a different lens, like a zoom/telephoto lens for the highway or a wide angle for the sidewalk (as I was only using the standard kit lens). In terms of different subjects, I would just have to find somewhere else with a similar volume of moving objects, like maybe Stanley Park in the summer for cyclists, or a cross-country/sports event might work. In general, it could also be a good technique to remember for capturing moving animals (pets or otherwise). I do really like this technique, because it brings focus to just the moving object, unlike just using a fast shutter speed.
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MoniqueRemember, the camera is your friend. Archives
February 2016
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