Random Paradox

I took a look around on the web today to find other "artists/photographers" ideas of paradoxes. Some are really interesting, and other are very simple.

1.) Here is one of the first ones I came upon. I find this piece of art interesting. It looks to be the women's life if she had taken two different "roads" at one point in her life. Ironically the one where she has lost her arm makes her look stronger then then one with both arms, yet it's the same person.

http://www.creepmachine.com/posts/art-of-the-day/page/6

2.) David Spriggs The Paradox of Power, 104 x 124 x 36 inches, Sprayed acrylic paint on multiple sheets of transparent film in display case, detail, 2007

This one took me a few "looks" to atually like it. I thought it was jsut a blury blob, however after reading up on the art piece, I descovered it to be multi layer prints. It has 4 "pictures" of a cow in different positions. What throws you off at first is that it's upside down. But I like that about it. This way you see the art work, think about it, try to figure it out and then actually see what it is. Very interesting.

http://www.davidspriggs.com/paradox%20page.html

3.) Self Paradox
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/grandfather_paradox.html

(photo above is an Excerpt from the Encyclopedia Britannica without permission. )
This could definitely make your head spin. I would say in this instance, to photograph the "paradox" all she/he would need to do is take a self portrait.

4.) Archer Paradox
= The word paradox, here, refers to the fact that in order to strike the center of the target, the arrow must be pointed slightly to its side.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Archers-paradox.svg

Finally Paradox... I Think

FINALLY I believe I came up with a good idea for "paradox". I had this vase full of sunflowers on my desk. They had been sitting there for three days now. Still in good condition. I decided to play around with interesting locations, have them "growing out of places they shouldn't be. OK so since I was sitting at my desk i put them in my pen holder. Boring and not a paradox. I started to head out side, thinking maybe I'd find something better. Then I placed on on the floor in the corner of a room. Even more boring and well just bad. I headed out the front door, the light was still good enough to shoot in, even with out a tripod. So before the sun went down I found a parking lot. How interesting would it be to have them "growing" out of the pavement. I walked around a bit and found a water drain. Perfect, with the added element of water I hoped it would add to the idea that life could be growing. So I stuck the flowers in the drain as if they were growing out of it. I took a few steps back and loved it. I think the bright color of the sunflowers on the white ground makes them stand out. I took a bunch of shots from different angels. Since the sun was setting, and I had no tripod with me, I set the camera to "action" mode to get a quick shutter speed. They came out well. A little dark under on the stems, but that can be fixed some in post editing. (Hmmm I believe I'm using the "Sport" mode too much, and I need to start to adjust the settings more on my own)

STATS
Shutter : 1/200
Aperture : F5.6
Mode : Sport
Focal L. : 55m
ISO : 800
White B. : Auto
Flash : No
Edits : I cropped down the image slightly, turned up the contrast and color slightly

Rifle Range (In Doors)

I went to a fire arms range today and brought the camera. I really wasn't thinking of taking to many pictures because you have to be serious and not get in the way or fool around. However, I did bring the camera JUST in case. While my boyfriend was sighting in the scope on the rifle I had a few minutes to reach in to my bag and grab the camera. Picture one... FLASH! Oops. Not that it was a big deal with the other shooters since we were all in our own little booths, but, I didn't want the flash to bother anyone. I changed the setting on the camera to "action" and closed the flash. OK, the next few shots were... "OK". Then I changed angle and lowered my perspective. MUCH better. I was able to get the feeling of being right over the shoulder looking down the rifle at the target that was down lane. It was good, kind of yellow, but that is from the color temperature of the lights. Again a manual white balance would have helped out here. But like I said I only had a few minutes to snap some shots. If I was going for a "warm" feel, i would have hit it right on the mark.

STATS
Shutter : 1/8
Aperture : F4.5
Mode : Sport
Focal L. : 38m
ISO : 800
White B. : Auto
Flash : No
Edits : None

Looking a Head

I looked ahead on my syllabus to see what projects were coming up. One of the final projects on the list looks really interesting. Take an object and transform part of it in to something else. I think I'm going to have fun with this one. Ironically I took a picture of a wine bottle whit a cork screw with a very simple back ground. I thought to myself.... how interesting would it be to change the cork screw in to something else. I flipped around the net for a bit and came to a picture of a wood pecker. PERFECT I would remove the cork screw and add the wood pecker in it's place.

Stumped

My next project has me stumped. I continue to come up with contradictions and not paradoxes. I thought of having a body builder trying to pick up something small. Showing something seemingly strong having a problem picking up something seemingly light. But that is more a contradiction then a paradox. So I will keep looking. I found a Dunk-n-Donuts next to a weight watchers place. I may go back to take a picture of that, but I'm not sure that is at all a paradox.

Class Day

Again I find it interesting to see other people's work. This always makes me nervous. I don't like being critiqued. I never like it back in college in my film classes. After a few weeks it would grow on me and I'd be less nervous of it because it was always helpful to hear what other people had to say about my work. But I still get butterfly's when it's my turn. It was interesting to see that people pick similar themes as "play". From the most obvious sports teams to a little less obvious like a poetry reading.

As I looked at my images, I actually liked them more and more. Things were pointed out that I never even thought of. For example one of the pictures of the baseball team setting up the field, that I thought was junk, ended up being a good example of different shape elements in the composition of the photo. Also I realized that I got caught in the trap of putting my subject dead center. This i believe came from my love of macro photography, where I would normally focus on the center or close to it. Something I'll have to work on for the next project.

Piper Play

I went home after work to see my dog and play with her in the back yard for a while before the sun went down. And realized she would be perfect for my class assignment "play" So i grabbed a ball and started throwing it around the deck. I set the camera to "sport" and multiple shot. The dog wasn't actually the issue in this photo shot, rather the size of my deck, by the time I threw the ball and put the camera back in position she's practically be back with the ball. I took a whole bunch of shots and as frustrating as it was I think I got a few good ones. She's really quick even for the "sport" mode. Other then placing the camera on a tripod, which I thought would be a bad idea because the deck would "shake" as the dog ran around, should I have used a faster shutter speed and larger aperture?

STATS
Shutter : 1/125
Aperture : F3.8
Mode : Sport
Focal L. : 18m
ISO : 800
White B. : Auto
Flash : No
Edits : Cropped the image down, turned up the contrast a few clicks, and the over all color a few clicks richer.

More Play

Another Archy range day.
I was at the range and had my camera with me. I took some interesting shots of my arrows perfect for my "play" assignment.

STATS
Shutter : 1/125
Aperture : F5.6
Mode : Sport
Focal L. : 55m
ISO : 800
White B. : Auto
Flash : No
Edits : Cropped the picture for "centering" but nothing else.

Camp Fire

I rode my motorcycle to work and managed to bring my camera with me. Nothing. I found nothing I wanted to photograph. That night I went up to NY with my boyfriend to a restaurant we frequent. It was a chilly night, so I decided to ride in the car instead of the bike. I had my camera with me but didn't want to bring it in. As the night went one we decided to light a fire in one of the restaurant's outside fire pits. Perfect opportunity to take a photo for class. It was really beautiful, I have not sat around a fire in years. I think the photos were ok. I could have played with the settings a bit more to brighten up the surroundings. But over all I think it came out ok.

Oh yeah.. I've decided to keep a log of the "stats" of each photo taken for class.

STATS
Shutter : 1/5
Aperture : F3.5
Mode : Program
Focal L : 18m
ISO : 100
White Bal : Auto
Flash : No
Edits : Cropped the image for "centering" but nothing else.

Class Day (Play)

Class was fun, we went over the functions of the camera and discussed the differences of Aperture and Shutter. These two have confused me so much over the years. One of the reasons why I stopped using my Nikon N6006 functions. I always seem to have difficulties getting the two to work well with each other. I always seem to get too long of an exposure and every thing is blurry or dark. I really need to spend a few hours playing with the settings and actually documenting what settings i used so i can go back and refer to it as a what worked and what not to do. My next assignment = Play. Hmmmm... This cold be fun.

Cell Phone Camera

I was at the range again today, with camera. However there were a lot of people so I didn't want to waist time taking photos when people wanted to shot so I left the camera in the car. I was having a pretty good run on the 20 yard target so I decided to move up to the 30 yard target. With a few adjustments on my sight I was ready to go.

Before I started to get too tired I had hit a full round of bulls-eye's. I just had to take a picture of this to show off. So I grabbed my trusty cell phone and took a quick shot. It actually came out really good. It cost me a small fee to send myself the photo from the phone but it was worth it. This time the picture was REALLY bright. I have noticed that the light in the practice range is not direct light from the sun; the sun is always behind the trees resulting in no harsh shadows or highlights. This helps a lot with such a low end camera.

The Moon

There was a full moon out and no clouds. You could see all the dark spots on the moon. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to take a picture. I put the my telephoto lens on the camera and turned it all the way up to 200. Not bad at all i could still see the spots. However when I took the picture all I got was a bright white spot in the sky.

Now I know I've taken pictures of the moon before and never was it washed out. This time I didn't have my tripod with me so I was leaning on my car for support. I could get a sharp image, but still the moon was washed out. I used the flash and then didn't use the flash. Same result. I believe I have to use one of the other settings in the camera. Maybe have a longer shutter speed? I would have needed a tripod for that. I'm hoping next full moon I'll be able to get a good shot and have my tripod with me to try out different shutter speeds.

With Flash

Without Flash

Archery Range Rabbit

Another day at the Archery range. This time I brought my camera with me and I was ready. I was shooting at the 20yards target and out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. There was this little rabbit. It came out on to the range to eat. As quietly as I cold i put down the bow and grabbed my camera. DOH I didn't have my telephoto lens on. My lens was 18-55mm. So I slowly and quietly walked up to the rabbit taking picture after picture. I had set the camera to "fast action" because I was afraid it would take off from the flash. The light was and I wanted to make sure I got a good shot. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK as i walked closer. I was about 6 or 7 ft away from it before it took off in to the woods. I looked through the pictures I took and found that with the low light, and the "fast action" setting. The photos seemed a lot grainier then in "auto" mode. I also realized that even in this mode I should still have a tripod or a mono pod the photos could have been a little bit more in focus if i had.

Forgot my Camera

Yesterday my boyfriend and I took our motorcycles out for a little bit, the weather wasn't looking so great so it was a short ride. I was unable to take a lot of pictures being that I was riding. In fact we didn't stop at all. But I did take mental notes of things along the ride that I would be coming back to when the weather was nicer. The one shot I wish I got was at a soccer field. There were about 50 soccer balls out on the field all in a pile and 2 little Jr soccer players. Would have been a great shot. Next time.....

So today I forgot to grab my camera and every where I went I saw things I would have loved to snapped a photo of. All I can say is... Frustrating. For dinner I went to get Sushi at Japasia. The restaurant is amazing and the food is always prepared with style. And again I didn't have my camera with me. However I remembered that my phone has a camera in it. The normal Sushi chef was out and they had a temp/part timer in and boy was he slow. We sat there for a good 30 minutes before the first course came out. So I thought I would try to get some shots.

With the low lights of the restaurant, the dark wood table, and the fancy flatware it was a perfect shot. IF I had my camera. All I had was my cell phone, but I took the picture anyway. First shot : Too dark. So I set the camera to "night mood" and tried again. Second Shot : better, not the best but it looked good. This will teach me to forget my camera next time....

Random Photography

One of our assignments is to take photos, at random, all week. So the very next morning I started shooting. I took some amazing photos on my way to work of the cars flying down the highways. I love that effect of speeding light past the camera. Then on my way home from work there were multiple opportunities to take pictures. Little girls with umbrellas, rain, car accidents, etc. Since I was on a time crunch I didn’t really want to pull over and get out in the rain, so I continued on home. When I got home I started taking pictures of the rain drops on my windshield. Some were “eh” some were kind of interesting.

I used the camera with out the flash for some of the images and then turned on the flash for others. Ironically, even with the camera right up at the glass, with the flash on I did not get an annoying flash reflection. Instead I found that the camera read the scene completely different, it darkened up the background (outside the window) and brightened up the rain drops outlines. And if I looked close enough in to the rain drop I could see my house reflection. I'm hoping to take the images and crop them down small enough so this is visible clearly.

I then decided to play with the image a little more and I changed the color of the entire photo. Now it looks like water on a red surface. I love how this image came out.

Class Day

Today we went over the photographers that each student chose to present. There were so many amazing photos. It was nice to see a variety of types of images too. From landscapes, to documentary, to portraits, to surreal(to pull in a word from class)

Speaking of the surreal pictures, I still can't get my mind away from how the photographer did his photos. His shots were literally half under water and half above. Each half of the image had a different scene. They all had surfers surfing the waves on top, however below the water you saw much more then just… well water. They staged some rather different scenes… for example there was someone riding a motorcycle, a bedroom set (upside down), girls in bicycles. It was crazy, and almost made you swear you were looking at a photoshoped image. But they were not.

Now… I've taken photos under water with an underwater camera and well... with out proper lighting they come out a bit green. So how would a photographer shoot for above water and below water with out the colors being totally "off"? For underwater photos it's helpful to add a red filter, to fight off the greening and bluing effect of the water. But it's not needed above water, or the photo will have a red tint to it. This photographer printed his photos in black and white and this, I believe, avoided the problem.

Ok so I looked for these photos for a good 20 minutes. Do I dare reflect back to my first day's posting... on how it is impossible to find what you are looking for if you don't know the right terms. Ugh. I'll have to keep looking, they are really amazing and I'd love to share them here.

Blogging

So I have been adding to this blog every day and working on a web page for my photography and I came to the realization that creating a web page is harder then it seems. It's almost like composing a shot. All these little details have to be in perfect order to get the desired design or thought or feeling. However on the flip side the simplest mistake can make a very interesting effect as well. I’m hoping I’ll be writing more each day as the semester goes on and my daily entries are not just random little thoughts of the day.

Joe McNally Backgroud

I did a little research on Joe McNally and found that he's American photographer. His type of photography is... Freelance photographer, Photo Journalism, concept photography, portrait, motion, use of strobe lights. He seems to like new, strange and different angels; hanging from the ceiling, out on a wing of a plane, under an elephant. He suggests putting a “twist” on the angle of the camera to get different point of views. He teaches photography. He has written a book “The Moment It Clicks” He shot the first “all digital” story for the National Geographic”

Cell Phone Photos

I have never owned a cell phone with a camera built in to it that was worth anything... but it has been helpful to have in a pinch. I like to take photos of my days at the archery range to remember a good grouping, photos of fun events with friends, a quick snap shot of my dog, or anything at random I may have needed a quick picture of. The quality is not, to say the least, good. Most shots are very grainy and since there is no flash there is no chance of getting a good image at night or in dark locations

Example of a photo from my cell phone camera.

Polarizing Filter

I did some research on photographing skies and clouds and found that one of the most useful tools is a Polarizing filter. I realized that I try to do this in editing my photos when I brighten the colors of the skies. But I am also interested in how the filters can control the reflection of objects like water, windows, etc. A definite next addition to my photography kit is one if not a set of these filters.
Here are examples from Answers.com

Without, With

Editing my work in the past.

I’ve looked over a lot of my own photography from the last year. I've noticed that I tend to edit the photographs by brightening up the colors and removing haze and pushing the contrast. If the sky isn't bright blue, or if the sun isn't on fire, or if the trees and grass are not neon green enough... I'm usually not happy with it and I will "push" the photo to make it pop. Sometimes I go a little to far, and the image looks to fake or cartoon like. But sometimes I get it just right.

Here is an example of a sunrise I took and then "pushed".

First Assignment

Looking for a photographer... this was harder then thought. I believe the trick is to know the "key words" of the type of style I'm actually interested in, instead of "Famous Digital Photographers". Scrolling through lists of names is not interesting and can be a big waist of time.

While searching around loads of examples of digital photography I found Joe McNally. He is a professional photographer who has a portfolio that caught my eye. I looked through all of his work and loved it. His use of color and light and how he can portray motion was very appealing to me. So I decided to use him as my “photographer” for my next class session.

http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/
http://www.joemcnally.com/portfolio/portfolio.html