For The Sake of Photography

Yes, I haven't posted in a while.  I apologize.  I have been preoccupied with things like school and grades and stuff like that.

But, this past Friday night, I decided 1) because I have a car and I can do what I want and 2) I have been severely neglecting my need for photography, to go out a little before sunset and take some photos for the sake of photography.

My main goal/theme was: sunbursts.  My friend from school was showing me some of her photos and one particularly caught my eye.  It was a picture of the sky, and somehow she had achieved a sunburst at a beautiful point in the picture.  I thought: Why can't I do that?

(By the way, this friend has an Instagram and you should definitely go and follow her: @jenandizzy)

So, I dragged my mom with me to the end of Powell Road where it curves and takes you to the "great beyond".  We parked, took photos, and trespassed on people's land.  It was so much fun.

Here is some of what we got:

The problem I had most of the night was this: if I had the sun in the picture, then the sky would be colored and the land would be dark, or the sky would be completely washed out (above) and the land would be able to be seen.

I tried to counteract that effect in this photo, but I lost some of the glow on the subject.  Ugh!

Here is an example of when its good to play around with basic things like brightness and contrast.  I was just playing around with this cool picture (that didn't seem very cool at the time), when I discovered my new best friend.  Saturation!

By turning up both the contrast and saturation, I was able to make the grass a little more bold and the rusty wire a little more rusted.  Most of this came from contrast, but by messing with the saturation a bit, I was able to make it just a smidge more intense.

Now this one made my trip a mission accomplished.  Look at that beautiful sunburst!!! Yay!!  I turned up the contrast when I posted this photo on Instagram so that the corn would be more of a silhouette.  

As we were driving home, the red sun was staying its goodbyes, and I just couldn't resist. The fact that the construction workers were driving their landmovers around, stirring up dust, made for a really cool effect.

And it was all for the sake of photography.

Au revoir,

Snap

Raindrops on Grass Blades and Whiskers on Doggies

"These are a few of my favorite things!":

What I find so interesting are the pros and cons of these two pictures.

The only difference between these two is the shutter speed.  In the darker picture, the shutter speed is at 1/1000, and in the lighter picture, the shutter speed is at 1/500.  When the SS is faster, it doesn't let as much light in, as shown in the picture above.  I think the top picture is too dark, but I don't think the bottom picture is much better.  I like that it is lighter, but it is light to the point that it is almost washed out. I suppose, if I turn up the contrast, it could help a bit.  The top picture has a lot of contrast and it helps to highlight the sunlight reflecting in the raindrop.  I could turn down the contrast on that one a bit.  It all depend on your taste.

This one is bright-- brighter than the picture above it, but it works!  SS is at 1/500 just like the darker one...hmmm...odd....

I love this picture of Maggie.  She looks so natural.  The SS is higher, but the aperture is small, so as to make up for the high SS.  I usually turn up the SS when I am taking pictures of my dogs, because, no matter what, they cannot keep still!  Then, I can capture their motion with little or no blur.

She loves to just walk around and sniff and explore.

Now, to get Brody involved and doing something, I had to put a little peanut butter (his favorite) on a tennis ball and throw it a couple times.  Once he realized that the peanut butter was on the ball and not in my hands, this worked pretty well.  The grass is green, the sky is blue, and I couldn't ask for more.

Well, I guess I could crop it a bit...

And turn up the saturation...

Better?

I think so.  It really helped with the grass!

Mission accomplished.

-Snap

Officially Sweet

So, it was my birthday, and I was bored, so I decided to take some fun pictures.  No, I did not fulfill my promise on "confetti, sprinkles, the works", but I thought these were even better.

This one was taken before I found out that I 1) needed a better background and 2) needed to tuck in my shirt.

Here in front of the brick wall in my house, there was not weird shadow on my face, and the image is much clearer and more pleasing to the eye.

This one is probably my favorite!  It was hard to do, but I jumped at just the right time.  For both of these photos, I had the aperture as small as possible for my camera (f-8) and a pretty fast shutter speed (1/1000).  Most of the things I see from other blogs I have read say that your shutter speed needs to be at least 1/250 to capture motion cleanly.  I pushed it up pretty high to compensate for the brightness of midday.

Go out and try it for yourself!

Oh yeah- and if you live in Alabama, you might want to watch out for me on the roads...

Hee hee,
Snap

Guess What

Guess who's birthday it is today?

Yeah, mine.

Just thought I would share some pictures of little me in honor of this day.

Look at that crazy hair.

Hee hee :)

Tomorrow I will try to post some of my pictures from the celebrations and such!  You know, confetti, sprinkles, the works.

Sincerely,
Sweet 16 Snap

Something New

So, the other day, I decided to go off on a whim and actually take pictures of something other than flowers!

This is a big step for me.

I set up an area where my dogs could come and lay down, and I could somewhat inconspicuously take some pictures of them.  I basically draped a blanket over an ottoman and had some of it laying on the ground so they would have somewhere to lay.  But, it was a lot harder than I expected.

This is Brody.  He was a stray that slept a night on our front porch, was picked up by Animal Control the next day, and officially adopted by the Williams family a week later.  He is deathly afraid of thunderstorms and any other assorted loud noises, such as planes flying overhead.  At times, he can be quite a pain, but he is so sweet.  Brody is the King of Funny Faces, and has a very hard time keeping still.  

This is great one of him. :)

Now this is Maggie.  She's the old girl.  There was no way she was going to move from her chair, so I just took shots of her sitting in her favorite chair.

At this point, she was ready to be done. 

ISO 800

ISO 100

This is something I want to bring attention to.  I have been trying to get used to adjusting my shots and tweaking things like aperture and ISO to get the result that I want.  So, with this picture, which was shot with the dogs facing our front door, which lets in a lot of light, I wanted Maggie's face to be illuminated, but not to the extent that it was in the first picture.  I ended up turning down the ISO quite a bit, which gave me the effect that I wanted.

Isn't it nice, being able to get what you want?

So long,

Snap 

Strollin' Down Memory Lane

This is totally out of character for me.  Please don't expect me to post twice a day.

Please.

I just wanted to get the ball rolling and stroll down memory lane- my photographic memory lane, anyways.

This one was taken very early on, when I just started realizing that I enjoyed photography.

Just a pretty picture of The Mackinac Bridge.  It wasn't Shuttershock quality, but who cares?  The blues are just plain striking.

This is what always happens to me, especially since most of my subjects are flowers, or things in nature.  All the petals are perfect...except one.  But, isn't it gorgeous?

Now, this is when things started to change for me.  I was just messing around one day and decided to throw these marbles on our hardwood floor and take a picture of them.  How the picture turned out still amazes me.  I tried again and again to recreate it, but it just wasn't going to happen.  I entered this one in the Youth Art Competition at the Georgia National Fair and actually snagged a first place ribbon!



Ahhhhh. Memories.

I'm tired.

Goodnight,

Snap

My Exceedingly Long and Impressive Resume

Hi! My name is Abigayle, but you can call me Miss Snapshot.  This name was given to me after many long years of hard work and learning in the field of photography.  I am basically an expert on the subject.

(snort. giggle. giggle.)

...................

That was funny, wasn't it? 

Ok, I am certainly not a professional.  I just learned what aperture meant about 3 days ago.  Sad, right?

I have played around with my Canon Powershot A950 point-and-shoot before, but it was not until quite recently that I have become very interested in growing my photography skills.  After surfing Pinterest for what seemed like days, I broke out my Dad's tripod and walked out into the rain.  Much to my dismay, my pictures looked nothing like those I had seen on the blogs of seasoned professionals.  Ugh.  But, I have not given up.  Four AA batteries and a few days later, I decided to create a blog to help myself grow in the art and keep track of my progress.  My goal is to post the pictures that I am proud of (and not so proud of) so that I can look back and see how I have grown as a photographer.  

I just can't wait to get started. 

Later,

Snap