Photography - Kayla Treat

The final post I will be making involves how you position yourself when trying to take a picture.




"Good photographers are contortionists" (Carroll 110).




The author I believe is trying to say that you may need to get in some uncomfortable positions to get the best shot. You have to be able to see the image you want and that may mean laying on the ground or any other odd position in public. They say that to capture a different and more interesting photo it takes more than a head level image. When I read it clicked in my head that most pictures I really liked have been from more than head level. I put this to the test and tried bending down and changing it up to capture these images.


When I took these images, an issue came up that I cant see the camera screen when I was attempting and realized that I have to get even lower. After uploading these, I realize the odd positioning on the ground was worth it and created images with different angles that I really liked. Have you ever been in the situation where you want that image but you don't want go on the ground? Tell me about it in the comments!! Enjoy these images I took below.

Photography- Kayla Treat

"Natural and artificial light are unequivocally distinct. They convey different moods and are very different in colour" (Carroll 74).


In this chapter of the book, they say that their are two different categories of light; natural and artificial. Natural is from the sun and the sky while artificial is manmade such as a camera flash or light bulbs. What I took away from this is that natural light tends to seem calmer or more relaxed while artificial is more harsh and shows the unwanted details. Overall changes the feel of the two images. I decided to experiment with these two different light options. It was around noon so the sun was up and created a soft light so it was the perfect timing.


Here I photographed with natural light in the bathroom. With this natural lighting, it gives a very calm feeling and highlights the lights and darkens the darks.

With this one, I used the automatic flash on the camera and it brightened up the image and really emphasized the subject matter.  

I prefer the natural light specifically for this photo because it gives off a more smooth feel to it. Maybe the artificial light would be better in certain scenery such as night time but not during the day. What do you think is batter, natural or artificial?

Photography - Kayla Treat

In this chapter of the book I am reading, a tip that caught my eye was to get close and then get closer.


"Very often, nothing kills an image more than keeping your distance" (Carroll 19).


I take this as you not only need to zoom but sometimes you need to get really close to your subject to show detail and enhance the look of the image. This also helps with filing the frame and getting a full picture. The difference between doing this and going back and cropping it is tat it lowers the quality of the image and that cropping is mainly for fixing something or to make something even. As one who loves to take pictures and look at pictures, I agree with this tip and think it really does heighten the image quality. I decided to try this out and the first thing that came to me was an eye. when up close to the eye, you can see all the fine and small details with the eye, eyelashes, and skin tone.

Here, I took the tip to get close. I used my 35mm lens so I could get close without it turning blurry and out of focus. I was maybe 3 inches from my little cousins eye and manually focused onto the eyeball making sure that the other details of her face were included.

  I feel like this tip is a very useful one and one that can be used on most images, specifically vertical images. do you believe that the image I captured would have been not so close or do you prefer it when I used the get close tip?

Photography - Kayla Treat

"Shooting in Manual (M) is a waste of time" (Carroll 54).


This quote in the book caught me by surprise and was kind of the opposite of my opinion. I feel like shooting in manual is a great way to learn about the different aspects to photography. Manual mode is where you have to choose and adjust all of the settings (Exposure, ISO, Shutter speed, etc.). The difference between this and program or auto scene is that those change the settings correctly to the picture and the scene. I then decided to try it out.

This image here I took in manual mode with my DSLR camera. I adjusted my exposure and shutter speed to make the image what I wanted to be and what I wanted to be in focus. For this image I wanted the focus to be the sky rather the tree's and I feel like this mode really captured what I wanted.





Now this image here was taken in Auto scene as well with my DSLR. When I was taking this picture I figured that it would focus on where I wanted t to but it focused in on the trees which caused the sky to be very saturated (bright colored).

 

So, in my opinion I disagree with the author on this one that manual is a waste of your time. I truly think it can really help you in capturing the image you want. This is a opinionated topic so what mode do you feel captured the better image? Let me know in the comments. Happy Holidays!

Photography with Kayla Treat

Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs by Henry Carroll

This book contains many pages of wisdom and tips for the photography basics. I chose photography because it is one of my interests and passions. It all started from my grandpa who would always come to my events to take pictures of me and I just thought that whole idea of capturing a moment for keeps was interesting. When I got my first small compact camera I knew that photography was something that id love to do.

In one of the early pages it gives the tip to "Be offish" (Carroll 22). What he meant by this was to not always have your subject centered right into the middle the shot. It can seem repetitive and lack interest. The way it offers to fix this is to use the rule of thirds. It means by putting a grid of 3x3 over your image and cropping it to have the subject in one of the thirds. Based off of this, I took a photo of mine that had the subject centered and I used the rule of thirds to change it up.

On the other hand of this rule, some professionals don't use it so precisely. "Many photographers will split at the mere sight of the rule of thirds because it can feel too calculated" (Carroll 22). The book says that many don't even use the actual grid. When they take the picture they will purposely just take the shot with it off center. This is just a easier way to add the balance without having to be so precise about it.

Overall the interesting thing about this tip is the simplest change to an image can make a large difference in the image depending on the subject.

Before

Using Rule of Thirds

I feel that this picture can have good aspects to it with or without using the rule. Before the rule it shows nice symmetry and after it shows a balance. Do you think the picture is better with it off center or in the middle of the frame? Feel free to leave your opinion in the comments below.