Sunday, September 30, 2012

Food, Food, coffee

Food.  What a great thing to take pictures of!  It doesn't move, it looks yummy, and everyone loves to look at it!  So far, I've mostly been shooting objects, haven't tackled people yet.  And food is a great place to start.  Last week my family was having a game night, and of course we needed food so we made popcorn!  I've been trying to stay away from sugar, so I was looking for something yummy and sweet, so I froze yogurt in little molds.  Pretty fun, and yummy.  It was a great time to take pictures....except no.  It was after sun set, very low, bad lighting.  So most of them didn't turn out to well.  I cranked up my ISO, did a pretty slow shutter speed and went for it.

1/5, f/5.6, ISO 1600

1/15, f/5.3, ISO 1600

1/10, f/5.3, ISO 1600
1/25, f/5.6, ISO 1600  Frozen Yogurt and veggie tales :)
1/40, f/5.6, ISO 1600


1/25, f/5.6, ISO 1600








My grandma's are amazing.  They just make the best food ever!!  I hope someday, I'm half as good at cooking as they are.  One of my favorite things they make is homemade jam.  My grandpa goes out and picks strawberries, and they make it into yummy jam for toast!  Add a little peanut butter, on homemade bread = AWESOME and my breakfast :)  And a perfect picture!

1/80, f/5.6, ISO 100 Facing the sun

With the sun behind me.  I like it better :)





1/125, f/5, ISO 100
1/80, f/5.6, ISO 100







Coffee.  What makes better pictures then coffee?  My sister went to get Starbucks the other day, so I had her bring me one home.  I LOVE Starbucks, I also LOVE the pictures I took of my drink on this lovely day! 






In direct sunlight






I just love a good caramel macchiato!


Friday, September 28, 2012

The Photos

I started a new blog for a few reasons:

1.  I wanted to start fresh, try again to be dedicated to writing. 
2.  I wanted to create a place to post Photos since I'm not a huge fan of Facebook.  I don't want to be focused on people comments about my pictures, I want a place I can go back and see where I've grown and how far I've come. 
3.  I want a place to remember the mistakes and bad pictures I took so I'll never do those again.  Right now, trying to learn how to use my DSLR, I find trying something, and if I don't like it, change it.  And I want to know what I did to change it to make it better...or worse. 

So this will primarily be a photo blog but I'll try and write from time to time too :) 
I have wanted a dslr for a few years now.  I just always thought it would be fun to take pictures.  It's art to me.  I can't draw, I tried some crafty things and they didn't come out so lovely, so I'll try Photos!  I was inspired by a mom in Oklahoma who writes a blog about her everyday life as a mom.  She takes pictures of her kids and things they do.  I loved that she was able to capture them in just the regular, everyday life.  I love that, and I wanted to be able to do that someday.  So why not learn now?!  I had saved up some money and decided since best buy was having a sale, it was a good time to get it.  So I got myself a Nikon d3100 and I love it! I am obsessed.  I have watched tons of youtube videos trying to learn as much as I can. 

I took about two pictures on auto mode, and decided I wasn't going to take pictures until I learned how to shoot manually.  So I did and it's the only way to go!  I will almost never, shoot on auto again.  I love controlling how my pictures look and mixing all the things together to make something beautiful!  

These were the first two pictures I took.  These are on semi automatic, the aperture setting.  I was trying to get the blurry background look, but since then I have learned better how to do that.  It is not quite focused, but the shutter speed was really slow and I was trying to hold it.  I just love the color of the walls/floor and how they contrast the bottle :)



                                          1 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 - Both


A few day after that I was working a football game running a small parking lot and it was a slow day.  So I took full advantage of my free time and read my owners manual front to back, watched some youtube videos, and played around with it.

As you can see, I didn't really know what I was doing.  This whole time I was shooting on f/3.5 with an ISO of 100.  The only thing I was changing was the shutter speed.  I was mostly just playing with angles.  The stop sign looks good when I take the light pole out of it.  The chair looks better without signs behind it.   I was trying to get the blurry background but didn't really understand how then. 





 Next, I worked on shooting the stop sign from the ground, but the sky made it too bright.  At this point my ISO was on 200, so for the darker ones I turned it down to 100.  Changed my angle, my shutter speed and got a cool view of the clouds.  



      These two I tried focusing on different things- part of the truck and the chair.  I like them both :) 
                                I just love my truck...I can't help taking tons of pictures of it!


 I was trying to get a cool picture of the
emergency phone, trying some different angles and settings.  They turned out ok. 









On the left, I wanted a picture of the puddle, but didn't get the focus right.  On the right, is the sun peaking through the clouds. 




                                            And classic self portrait of course :)








Then, I watched a wonderful video about aperture :)  And I discovered that zooming in, helps with that lovely bokeh look :)  Like this!


                                                1/60, f/5.6, ISO 200, 55mm
                                                     
                                                          Instead of this :p





                These are for sure some of my favorite pictures so far!  I'm very proud of them :) 

Then, I tried changing my white balance setting for cloudy.  It gave my car the rich tan color which is how it actually looks.  Again, I don't have children, I have a car that I love lots and treat like my child :)  So I love these pictures!


                                                                                   1/13, f/5.6, ISO 100, 55mm














 Not quite focused, but I like it!



                                    
                                                                           This is a personal favorite :)


 This is what it looked like with the while balanced set on auto.  I like it much better with the cloudy setting on!



That was my day :)  I learned a lot and took tons of pictures and had lots of fun too!  Anyone with advice or comments, I am open to any help I can get!

Oh and sorry this post isn't very centered.  I'm still working on the best way to post pictures on here :)