So I found out that I truly enjoy taking pictures. (Mind you I detest being on the other side of the lens.) I tried once before to take a basic digital photography class and wound up dropping out. Being on the second move in two months combined with man troubles tends to put a few things on the back burner that are not absolutely essential. Wish me luck. The second round of classes starts January 29th! I am so excited and will be sharing my assignment pics.
Class One!
Well, there is no assignment for this week. We only got through the initial getting to know your camera type stuff. I can now easily change the F-stops and shutter speed. We were simply instructed to take a few shots while varying the two settings. Thus far I have only taken a couple of series. The first being the lowest F-stop and varying the shutter speed and the other being a constant shutter speed with various F-stops. I plan to do more shots around the home tomorrow if it is too dismal outside.
First Off DEPTH OF FIELD!
Our second class was devoted to depth of field and how to get that blurry background thing to happen. (Oh, and there is a name for the blurriness in the background: bokah.) Come to find out it was all done with your F-stops, or aperture. A higher F-stop, or smaller aperture, creates a shallow depth of field. If you want a greater depth of field, lower the F-stop.
Do you want the movement BLURRED or STEADY?
Class three covered several areas. But the main topic covered was capturing motion. The picture on the left was done using a higher shutter speed than the picture on the right. Therefore you get more of a stop motion effect. Lowering the shutter speed and exposing the image longer creates a greater sense of movement. However, when you start decreasing the shutter speed you also increase the amount of light allowed into the camera. This has to be balanced. One way to do this is to increase or decrease the ISO accordingly. Also white balance can be used to help compensate for the light allowed into the camera.
Downtown Opelika
I was fortunate enough to be able to get out this weekend and take some more pictures...I know big shock right? One of the places I chose to visit was the entertainment district in Opelika. Interesting what one sees when one takes a fresh look at sights seen thousands of times. Take the tracks for instance. The main track is still active but the side tracks lead to a depot that was abandoned for years, until someone looked at it and saw a new possibility. It is now a co working space. It is designed to be a "home office" for those that can do location independent work. The strange thing about the whole area is that up until a few years ago it was not somewhere you wanted to go. Fortunately through various efforts it has seen a wonderful makeover.
I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now.
Aleksandar Hemon