lAsT PoSt!!??!!

A final requirement of the photography course is that we demonstrate that we are able to upload to YouTube. I put my "Shadow" video up last night (and immediately received an email saying that I "may" have infringed on copyright laws by having used the "These Boots are Made for Walking" music made popular by Nancy Sinatra way back then...). SO, maybe, if you hurry and look at it NOW, HERE, the music will not have been removed yet (thus leaving a perhaps-strange series of pictures when not accompanied by music)!

Tonight I will show [part of] one of my more recent slideshows -- the one that uses my Hawaii vacation pictures with some really cool music performed by Hawaiian artists -- as my final project. It runs 18 minutes, and so only the first 3-5 minutes will actually be shown in class. I am pretty happy with it, and think it shows MUCH growth and improvement over the first "Boots" slideshow... the only thing is that, somehow, the lead-in screen with prompt "play video" shows up at the END of the slideshow, instead of at the beginning! (??) It was made using iMovie.

I've also been working on a "Sienna's First Year" video at home using Windows Movie Maker. This one is ALMOST done, and is, of course, much more the "labor of love." I will be able to share it with Jim and Carolina and the rest of the family by (or very soon after) Christmas. It will easily run 20-25 minutes... contains three full-length songs, plus "Happy Birthday to You" -- which (of course) is necessary to end up Sienna's first year, AND mark the place where the SECOND YEAR video will start!!

I haven't thought at all about whether I will continue this blog, now that the photography course is over... I will need to decide if there are possible future uses for it, or if maybe I'll start a new one, instead... or...

I'm No Laser Artist

Okay... LAST assignment (well, last regular assignment before the FINAL assignment is due)! I set my long shutter speed to 5 or 10 seconds, and the ISO to 80. With the flash disabled, I first used a tripod to try some laser art using a regular flashlight(I don't own a laser pen, or even a penlight-style flashlight)-- and then went outside and moved the camera about while taking long shutter shots of cars' tail lights and other peoples' outdoor Christmas decorations.

There is nothing too art-y about any of the images I produced, but, on the up-side ... it worked!

Here is the link to use to see the rest of the photos!

Are We Having Fun Yet?!?!?

Last week I blogged that I was finally in the thick of the old photography class
-- that my camera could both take videos and continuous still shots. I didn't know when I wrote that (because I'd missed the class in which the continuous motion assignment was discussed) that when the teacher talked about cameras that could *take* video and shoot continuous pictures, what he really meant was that some cameras can be set to automatically take photos every couple of seconds... and that some cameras can then reorder those photos in order to use them to *make* a video!

So you see, I was still so NOT in our class' group of in-the-know amateur photographers when I downloaded the shot-as-video sequence I'd taken of my grand-daughter on her first birthday with my point-and-shoot... and that my photo sequences, although continuous, could only be obtained with my constant depression of the camera's shutter (in other words, not as the result of having engaged an automatic timer)! BIGSIGH. How's that learning curve going?!?

This week's assignment was to make a slideshow/movie that incorporates music and tells a story. While I am pleased to finally have completed the assignment, my pleasure has been dissipated somewhat over the last 4 days. On each of those days I tried at home to make the Picasa program for movies work on my computer and with music I'd downloaded from the internet. I was able to import and sequence the pictures without problem, but my music file would not attach. The audio file and the slideshow played well independently of one another. But (grrr) the audio would not play when imported to the slideshow to accompany the pictures! Though it is an .mp3 file, which supposedly is compatible with Picasa, I got messages saying that the music could not be uploaded because its format was not supported by the program. As best as I can figure out, maybe I do not have the version of Windows Media Player that is compatible with Picasa -- OR perhaps I do not have the most recent version of Vista Home Premium for 64 bit systems, or... (who knows)??? I am definitely going to need to figure out what is going on with that if I am to do my final slideshow project at home.

I finally completed the slideshow in the school's photography lab after work today. Here is my slideshow uploaded to Picasa (but I notice that its quality for on-line viewing is much reduced from the quality of the file as it exists on my hard drive).

Videos and Continuous Picture Sequences

This week's assignment was to upload short videos, if your camera can record videos, or continuous picture sequences (if it does not). For once, it is MY CAMERA that can do both things (last week I learned that, plain and simple, my camera does not "do" raw files. So just forget it.)!

I've uploaded a couple of videos that I'd made earlier this semester. But it was SO MUCH MORE FUN to make the continuous photo sequences, and I spent a happy day at work (and after that, at home) coming up with some fun ones -- one longer, and also several shorter ones.

Here are the video uploads.

The shorter continuous shot sequences are here. To get the feeling of the motion that exists between pictures, it works better to quickly click through the individual shots (instead of watching the progression as a slideshow).

You can view the long photo sequence here. Again, to get the feeling of the walk, I recommend clicking through.

Paint It Black (and White, w/Selective Color)

This week's assignment was to use some of our color shots to experiment with modifications using black and white -- and even to play God by allowing shots of color to show up in and accentuate select aspects of otherwise black and white photographs.

I had fun with this exercise. I do not have Photoshop software,* so used the photo editing tools online at Picasa to make my changes.

*(YET!!)

You can view the results of my whimsy right here.

A Different Way of Looking at Things

Our assignment for this week was to use the Macro settings on our camera to take some very up-close pictures. I took my camera to work and got some shots both indoors and out. I took photos in my work space, during my lunch break, and on my way to the car after finishing my work shift for the day. It was fun to notice and photograph all of the "little things" that are always there and yet usually go unnoticed.... and fun to see how little a thing I could get a clear image of with my camera's settings.

You can view all of my Macro shots here.

3 Point Lights, Camera...

I actually did this assignment TWICE -- and it required quite a good chunk of my (AND my husband's!) weekend time. First I worried about having no model except my faithful hubby... but then it turned out that I would have models for TWO sittings, which I scheduled for Saturday night and Sunday morning.

It all started on Friday night when Irv and I went to Walmart to buy shop lights. On Saturday morning, I bought a tripod. Preparations followed on Saturday afternoon when we set up the FIRST studio, which was in the living room (lamps moved from family room to living room, sheet ironed and hung over curtain rod at window, couch and tables pushed towards dining room, and etc.). After we'd returned from church and had dinner, our neighbors Dave and Laurie came over to model for me. I served wine with cheese and crackers first, to loosen them (and myself!) up a little bit.

It was a really fun time, and Dave and Laurie were such good sports, going along with and even furthering my suggestions for poses. I used all manual settings on my camera, though, and was less than satisfied with the quality of my pictures even as I was taking them. They were terribly grainy at the suggested 1600 ISO, even while using the tripod, and though this improved some at 800, it was still not quite right. I kept flipping between the various exposure compensation positions and kept the white balance on tungsten (I didn't think to try the auto white balance setting until after the fact).

On Sunday morning, my husband had to relocate the studio to the basement. This was necessary since the class had been instructed to "start [the set-up of lights] in a dark room" -- and since my first studio had been set up in front of the living room window! Again too late, I wished that I would have thought about this on Saturday afternoon so as to save Irv all of his extra effort... but it never occurred to me then that the living room studio would not work for a morning/almost noon sitting on Sunday. Live and Learn!

Before my friend Evgenia arrived for my second portrait sitting, I took the time to review the on-line materials about three point lighting. As a result of that review, I made several revisions to the second studio. Specifically, I reduced the wattage of the bulbs in the fill and the back lights. On Saturday, I'd had 150 watts in the main light, 150 watts in the back light, and 100 watts in the fill light. On Sunday, the main light was 150 watts, the fill light was 60 watts, and the back light was 60 watts. This time, I used automatic settings for the white balance, ISO, and exposure compensation and disabled the flash function. Each time I turned the camera off to stage the next series of photos, however, the auto flash was re-enabled when I turned the camera back on... and sometimes I did not remember to take care of this until AFTER I'd taken a picture or two... (SIGH!)

My results during the second portrait sitting on Sunday were, on the whole, much better than those from Saturday night. I regret that Dave and Laurie's shots didn't turn out better because I'd really wanted to give them an 8x10" print to frame. I spent quite a lot of time editing their pictures and organizing them to contribute to an entertaining format, though, and I'm hoping that the photos will look okay as 4x6" prints. I plan to make a small photo album to give to them as a gift, instead.



You can view my pictures of Dave and Laurie here.

The pictures of Evgenia are here.