Light

http://www.digitalslrguru.com/low-light-portraits/

http://eco-stylista.blogspot.com/2010/12/merry-christmas.html

http://bkpphoto.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/oh-christmas-tree/

This is my final final in photography, ever. What a sad day. The final this semester is quite different than the one last semester. This semester, we had to pick a theme for all of our picture to fit into and then there were certain photography requirements that they had to fit into. One had to be a rule of thirds, another had to be a leading lines picture, a small depth of field, a large depth of field, a picture showing balance, one showing simplicity, a picture with natural framing, one with an interesting viewpoint and 2 pictures of your choice. All of the pictures had to fit into one theme.

I chose light. It took me a while to get this idea. At first I was thinking something having to do with paint because I have been wanting to take interesting creative pictures of paint for a while but as I kept thinking about it, I couldn’t come up with many ideas for pictures. Then I started thinking about things around my house that I could take pictures of, something that we have a variety of, and I came up with light because the all the lights in our house are very different from each one.

I spent a few days looking up inspiration and I found a few links to pictures that I was going to try, but as I actually took the pictures, I didn’t really get any that matched the first 2 links, however, I did take one similar the the last one. I honestly just ran around the house looking at the lights and thinking of the requirements to try to find interesting subject matter. Even though maybe the pictures weren’t really planned out, I’m still happy with most of them.

Rule of Thirds

I was laying in bed on Sunday morning thinking of the pictures that I had to take, running over our house in my mind trying to think of things that would work for this project. I was looking up at the light thinking of how I could use it for one of the pictures and I knew it would be perfect for Rule of Thirds. I say perfect because the ceiling surrounding the light is plain and boring. I turned the light on because I wasn’t sure if there would be enough light in the room without it on. I didn’t realized the types of shadows it would cast on the ceiling, but I think they really add to the photo because without them, it would have been a relatively boring picture.

Leading Line

This is my leading line picture, and I think it is lame. I couldn’t think of anything else that would really work for leading lines because most of the lights in our house are out of reach. I was envisioning the light leading the eye into the sink to look at the random dishes and such in the sink. Not my favorite picture, its too…..I don’t know, maybe the word is blah.

 

Small Depth of Field

I really just wanted to use these lights because they are pretty when they are on, the glass has a rainbow of colors and its really cool in my opinion. I used this one for the small depth of field because you can see the second light in the background but its completely out of focus and I had an interesting subject matter for it. I wanted to make the lights stand out so I had a small aperture and a fast shutter, it left the background dark enough to where the lights would be bright and bold against it.

Large Depth of Field

This is a fairly boring picture in my opinion and to me it looks more like a leading line picture instead of a large depth of field picture, but the intent of this picture was a large depth of field. I think the tint of it makes it look old fashioned kind of, but I think its a little boring, I don’t have much else to say about it so I’ll move on.

Balance

As soon as I had figured out my theme, I knew I was going to use this picture for my balance picture. I did not set this up at all, this is how my mom decorated this window and it was PERFECT. I had my camera settings low once again, so the light would stand out against the darkness. I wanted the painting on the window sill dark so it wouldn’t take the attention away from the lights, which are the focus of this picture.

Simplicity

This picture was inspired by BKPPhotography (link at top). I was going to use the actual fairy lights and I tried taking pictures of them, but the camera was focusing on the lights and changing how I wanted the picture. I happened to look in the mirror and noticed that the lights were visible in it, so I tried using the mirror instead of the lights and it worked out the way I was hoping it would.

Natural Framing

This picture I had to make sure to get quick because the light coming through the window lasts so long before it goes away until the next morning. I knew it would work for natural framing, but I didn’t know what it should be framing. This was in the kitchen, so I was trying to think of something that would naturally be on the ground in the kitchen, and I decided that cereal would fit quite nicely, so I sprinkled some cheerios on the ground. I don’t like the high contrast of this because it makes it hard to recognize what exactly is in the light, but at the same time, the high contrast emphasizes the light that I was wanting to capture.

Interesting Viewpoint

Not my favorite picture again, but I couldn’t really think of anything else. All I did was take a picture through a light bulb. I think it works for an interesting viewpoint because not many people walk around looking at life through a light bulb.

My Choice 1

I got my idea for this picture after taking the one above. I remember a book cover or something having a similar picture on it and I wanted to try it for myself. The key I discovered for this picture, was have a low enough exposure to be able to see the electricity traveling through the metal stuff in the light bulb. I really like how this turned out, this is really one of my favorites.

My Choice 2

I got this idea from a guy I happened to find in my search on the interwebs, but I can’t remember his name, all I remember is that he did something called “double exposure”, where he would take 2 pictures and put them together, so you could see both in one photo, layered on top of each other.  With this one, I took maybe 5 pictures of a candle flame and then layered them on top of each other, each layer being at a 38% opacity. I think it looks pretty cool.

Thats it for my themed photos. I think I did pretty good, but I should have changed things around a little bit. My large depth of field looks more like a leading lines picture and my leading lines picture looks more like a large depth of field picture, but hey what can you do besides learn and move one, right?

The last thing we had to do was take a professional business portrait. We had to set up the studio equipment all by ourselves and take a good, clean, simple, professional portrait. This is what I got:

(thanks for letting me use your face Brittney)

Thank you Twitchell for the past 3 years, I’ve enjoyed them a lot and have grown a lot in my photography. It has turned into something I enjoy and I credit that to you.

Thank you to everyone else that has allowed me to use their face or other body members and thanks to all the people who have taken the time to look at my blog and comment on it.

I hope to continue in photography, and maybe continue posting the images I capture for the rest of the world to see.

Enjoy your summer and more importantly, enjoy your life!

-Katie May