In Motion...

Do you know what happens when I'm bored while watching Kevin and some friends play ping pong?!? I take photos and do some experimenting with motion :)

My first attempts were taken with the camera flash still on. With the use of the flash everything is frozen in the picture except what is moving ReaLLY fast (the ball). Here is what I got...

Then I turned the flash off and took more pictures. With the flash off anything and everything that moves during the ~3 seconds the picture is being taken is blurred. There really can be motion lines in real life! (Earlier today some of my friends and I were saying it would be cool to have motion lines like in the cartoons.) Here is the second set of photos... BTW the ball is yellow, so look for the faint yellow streaks.

Then I just felt like messing around with this picture, boosting the contrast all the way up...

This one is just because he's cute :)

I might do some photo editing tutorials with these pics sometime soon...

A new studio...

...Where I photographed the new bag I made with my new zippers...it's just a new kind of day. I think this is the best bag I've ever made.



























When I say new studio, it's actually a white sheet duct taped to the wall above the desk in my dorm room. But it's the best I can do for now. It's kind of fun to see what you can do with a limited amount of money and equipment :)




















I don't know about everyone else, but the lighting in my room is pretty crummy. When I use a flash the colors get washed out and it creates weird looking shadows. So I use the $20 tripod I got at Wal-Mart and turn my flash off. It creates much better looking photographs. It's also easiest to use a solid colored evenly lighted backdrop. Even though I'm having fun improvising, once I make $50 I'm driving straight to Wal-Mart and buying the small light kit they have there :)

A Silver Dollar City Christmas...Part 3

Ok so once it got dark at Silver Dollar City the park got even more beautiful and magical then before. As I was walking around all I wanted to do was capture the magic on camera. So here are my attempts. They aren't perfect but I will show you what I did to improve them.

When trying to photograph Christmas lights there are a few things to remember. The flash is going to ruin it. I'm serious...

The first photo was taken using flash, the second was without a flash.

The colors are much more brilliant in the second photo because the photo allowed more of the surrounding light to come in. The problem with the second photo is camera shake. The way to avoid that is a tripod. However most of us don't carry a tripod strapped on our back at all times....I know I don't :) In order to get the effect of using a tripod find any steady object...a fence post, trash can lid, table, etc. and rest your camera on it while still holding on to it to take the picture.

With both sets the first pic was taken just holding the camera; for the second I used a fence post to keep my camera steady.

These pictures took 15-20 seconds each to take in order to allow enough light to get into the camera. Because of the long period of time anything that is moving in the camera view ends up blurred. That is why people look a little ghostly. (That can be used to your benefit at times...but that is a whole other story and in fact a project I did for photography II class). I hope my information and tips are helpful to you and don't come too late to take some great photos during this holiday season.