Photography
mlo:
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I shoot some photos, too - but they aren't very...well, artistic.
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I don't do "real" photography because I don't use different lenses, filters, etc., which is what "real" photographers do. I just have a good digital SLR (Sony) with various settings (close up, landscape, nighttime, etc.) which help me shoot what I want. The Sony has a GREAT anti-shake mechanism which lets me shoot things with my shaky hands that I needed a tripod before. This camera is so good I just point and shoot, and most of the time it comes out clear as a bell.
I have learned a lot recently from watching PBS "Travels to the Edge w/ Art Wolfe." He goes all over the world to shoot unusual and spectacular things and gives lessons on photography as he travels. It's very good.
The main thing he teaches is not just to shoot a "snapshot," but to focus on details of something: this is what makes an "artistic" photo...if you are not doing special lenses, settings and filters like Ansel Adams.
So, for example, I wanted to show my Ocotillo bushes all green...they are usually w/out leaves and just brown sticks. I shot one or two snapshots and they looked like nothing: just a bunch of green sticks standing up straight. Then I moved a little closer to shoot a bunch of "branches" together, without showing the whole bush, but it still wasn't right.
Then I realized that what I really wanted to communicate was the green of the Ocotillo leaves themselves, with the sunlight behind them, so I wound up shooting just two branches where they diverged. It took me about ten shots to arrive at the right interpretation, and three different shots of the divergent branch before i got the right angle.
(Of course with digital I have some 250 shots on a single memory card, so you can shoot all you want to eventually get it right.)
So that is how it is done. You think about what it is you REALLY want to communicate--in this case the rare green leaves that only come out a short time on an Ocotillo--and you realize that what you want to shoot are the leaves (and the light coming through them), rather than just a bush itself. It's the leaves that are special at this time of year, not the bush.
Another thing I enjoy is manipulating certain photos using various programs on my computer. Many pics, like Ocotillo Leaves, don't need changing at all. But, for example, in the pic of the Easter morning moonset there was a telephone pole in front of the rocks, which made the image less than aesthetically pleasing.
One of my programs has a function called "clone" where you can easily erase something like this telephone pole, which is what I did in that particular pic. So after the clone function you just get the pure image of the wild rocks with the moon above. (More "artistic" that way.)
Watch "Travels to the Edge" if you can find it, I think it will make your photography more fun. Here's another one for you:
JOSHUA PETALS
view link
I made this one a bit more dramatic by using an editing function that casts a kind of spotlight effect, in this case near the center of the photograph, slightly darker near the edges. It's fun for me to see what I can do to improve what I have in the camera, but it's not always appropriate to do this, you have to be careful not to completely destroy the realism.
If you have a good pic, always sign it, which makes it official!
MLO, thanks for letting me ramble on about my pics.
-Skeeter
===
I shoot some photos, too - but they aren't very...well, artistic.
===
I don't do "real" photography because I don't use different lenses, filters, etc., which is what "real" photographers do. I just have a good digital SLR (Sony) with various settings (close up, landscape, nighttime, etc.) which help me shoot what I want. The Sony has a GREAT anti-shake mechanism which lets me shoot things with my shaky hands that I needed a tripod before. This camera is so good I just point and shoot, and most of the time it comes out clear as a bell.
I have learned a lot recently from watching PBS "Travels to the Edge w/ Art Wolfe." He goes all over the world to shoot unusual and spectacular things and gives lessons on photography as he travels. It's very good.
The main thing he teaches is not just to shoot a "snapshot," but to focus on details of something: this is what makes an "artistic" photo...if you are not doing special lenses, settings and filters like Ansel Adams.
So, for example, I wanted to show my Ocotillo bushes all green...they are usually w/out leaves and just brown sticks. I shot one or two snapshots and they looked like nothing: just a bunch of green sticks standing up straight. Then I moved a little closer to shoot a bunch of "branches" together, without showing the whole bush, but it still wasn't right.
Then I realized that what I really wanted to communicate was the green of the Ocotillo leaves themselves, with the sunlight behind them, so I wound up shooting just two branches where they diverged. It took me about ten shots to arrive at the right interpretation, and three different shots of the divergent branch before i got the right angle.
(Of course with digital I have some 250 shots on a single memory card, so you can shoot all you want to eventually get it right.)
So that is how it is done. You think about what it is you REALLY want to communicate--in this case the rare green leaves that only come out a short time on an Ocotillo--and you realize that what you want to shoot are the leaves (and the light coming through them), rather than just a bush itself. It's the leaves that are special at this time of year, not the bush.
Another thing I enjoy is manipulating certain photos using various programs on my computer. Many pics, like Ocotillo Leaves, don't need changing at all. But, for example, in the pic of the Easter morning moonset there was a telephone pole in front of the rocks, which made the image less than aesthetically pleasing.
One of my programs has a function called "clone" where you can easily erase something like this telephone pole, which is what I did in that particular pic. So after the clone function you just get the pure image of the wild rocks with the moon above. (More "artistic" that way.)
Watch "Travels to the Edge" if you can find it, I think it will make your photography more fun. Here's another one for you:
JOSHUA PETALS
view link
I made this one a bit more dramatic by using an editing function that casts a kind of spotlight effect, in this case near the center of the photograph, slightly darker near the edges. It's fun for me to see what I can do to improve what I have in the camera, but it's not always appropriate to do this, you have to be careful not to completely destroy the realism.
If you have a good pic, always sign it, which makes it official!
MLO, thanks for letting me ramble on about my pics.
-Skeeter
