Assignment One: Contrasts

The brief for the Assignment is to create eight pairs of images demonstrating contrast, plus one additional image demonstrating internal contrast.   The subject is not specified, but specific contrasts are.

As I noted in a post on my Learning Log, my intention was to focus on one subject.  I wanted to create a set of consistent looking images, and as my technical skills are still underdeveloped, limiting subject matter is one way of achieving such. 

I spent three days shooting at the Dubai Fruit and Vegetable Market.  Two visits were in the morning, one in the late afternoon.  During my first visit I shot almost entirely based on whatever presented itself.  My second and third visits consisted of shooting for specific images to fit the contrasts specified in the assignment.  I shot approximately 200 photos, far more than the 17 required of the assignment. 

All images were shot on a Nikon D5100 with a Nikkor 18-55mm.  Most images were taken using Aperture Priority mode.  Post-processing was done in Lightroom.

Exercise 11: Vertical and Horizontal Frames, Part 2

I never expected to spend so much time on this exercise.  It seemed straightforward enough.  Find a place to photograph to which you could return.  Shoot the subject in vertical, examine the photos, then return and shoot in horizontal.   The purpose here was to examine shooting habits, to see whether shooting vertical might be equally as rewarding, and to discover how frame orientation may influence shooting choices.

An initial post on the exercise with a bit of background on the subject matter that can be found here.

Exercise 11: Vertical and Horizontal Frames

It's been too long since I last posted any photos.  I've been shooting and images have been accumulating while trying to sort out how to use Lightroom, as well as iPad.  You can read about the latter here.

I returned to the UAE in late August and began a new life in Dubai.  Previously I lived in a rural area about 100km north.  As I'm in new surroundings, one of my photographic projects has been to record images of my surroundings for friends and relatives in far away places.  That fit in nicely with the most recent exercise.

Exercise 10: Positioning the Horizon

As Freeman remarks in the course notes, every photo has an implied division.  One of the most basic divisions is along the horizontal plane – where to place the horizon.  This exercise asks the student to take a series of photos of a landscape with an uncluttered horizon in order to consider how horizon affects framing.

Exercise 9: Balance

This is an analytical exercise based on previously taken photographs.  We are to investigate how the elements of the photo achieve balance.  

Exercise 8: Focal Lengths and Different Viewpoints

This morning some of the family went out to visit dad in the nursing home.  On the way back some of them wanted to stop in the town of Senoia for a little shopping.  I took the opportunity to shoot some photos and to complete the next exercise.

Exercise 7: Focal Lengths

Because I’m visiting a semi-rural area with no transportation of my own, I’ve been relegated to shooting what’s available:  the homes, yards, streets, and people of the neighborhood.   Not a bad project, really, as it forces you to search and look a little deeper.  I set out yesterday morning with two goals in mind:  images of the area’s signage and completing the latest exercise.

Exercise 6: A Sequence of Composition

The last couple of weeks it doesn’t seem there was much time for photographing.  My father was admitted to a nursing home and I’ve been spending time with mom getting everything sorted out.  I did do some shooting around the neighborhood, but there was nothing in my schedule to fulfill the requirements for this exercise.

Exercise 5: Subject in Different Positions in the Frame

Yesterday my wife and I were out for a bit of shopping and as we followed the directions suggested by my mother, we passed down a two-lane road rolling through some beautifully manicured countryside, including a couple of horse farms.  We stopped at one where the animals were out near the road to look and to take a few photos.

Exercise 4: Fitting the Frame to the Subject

I wasn’t planning to shoot this assignment at a hospital, but since arriving in the US three days ago there hasn’t been much time for work.   My father had to be admitted to the ER yesterday for a non-fatal condition.  Several family members were in attendance and while we waited for the doctor and for tests I slipped out with my camera for a walk and found a lovely park on the hospital grounds.

Exercise 3: Focus at Different Apertures

This exercise is similar to the last in exploring how aperture affects focus.  I haven't yet been able to figure out the physics, but the result is this - the smaller the aperture (the larger the f-stop), the more clearly in focus will be objects at near and far depths.

I set out to demonstrate this yesterday evening in a walk around my neighborhood. I was planning to shoot a row of cars.  In fact I did shoot a row of cars.  But I also found something unusual that demonstrates the effect better than the car photos, bands of neon tubing wrapped around a column, which I shot with my body against the column, camera point up.

Exercise 2: Focus with a set aperture

Wherever we turn the attention of our eye we find objects in focus.   While you are looking at these words, try bringing your attention to things on either side of the screen.  You are aware of their presence, maybe their shapes and colors, but they are not in focus.  Now look at something across the room and notice that the things close to you fall out of focus.

In this respect, your camera functions much the same as your eye when set at low apertures.  It tends to focus on objects at one distance, but not more than one.  (At high apertures you can achieve with your camera something you cannot with your eye, focusing on everything within the frame.)  The object of this assignment is to demonstrate the camera's focusing ability, to note how to change the area of focus with a fixed aperture, and to investigate the relative area of focus. 

Exercise 1: Focal Length and Angle of View

The assignment was to set up the camera, mark the spot from which photos would be taken, and to then shoot three photos of the same scene (if using a lens with adjustable focal length, as I am):  one at either extreme (for me, 18mm and 55mm), and the other at whichever length best replicated the image seen with the naked eye.  

Then have the three photos printed, return with prints in hand to the spot marked, hold up the photos, and notice how close or how far they have to be held from the eye in order that the photo represents the size of the objects viewed with the naked eye. 

I didn’t understand this exercise until I saw this student’s blog.  

Then I got it:  how does the lens affect what you are seeing?