Circles...

was the challenge this week. From what I have been able to read about circle compostition I have found that the continuous curve of the circle keeps the viewers eye in the frame. I just like the visual interest the curved lines give the photograph. Here's a few from this week...







I hope you enjoyed looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them. :)

Taking the Lead...

The challenge this week was to use leading lines. You use leading lines to draw the viewer's eye through the photograph. This is an especially powerful technique to draw the viewer's attention to one or more intended subjects or a single focal point.
I haven't really had time to go out to practice shooting this week but today we went for a walk at a greenway so a grabbed my camera hoping for some luck. I took around 300 pics, lol. Not just for leading lines...just having fun capturing memories. For most of the walk I was way behind my family because I stopped to look at anything and everything. Enough rambling, heres some of my favorites using leading lines...








Hope you enjoyed looking!

Being Framed

This week the composition challenge is frame within a frame. Framing focuses the attention on the main subject.
I wasn't able to get out and really look for framing compostition photo ops but here's what I was able to get yesterday at the park.
A couple of the sky framed with the trees...




A few creative frames.
My husband's eye framed by his glasses...


My son captured through the slats of the guard rails at the park. I like the 'v' shape framing him. Trouble written all over his face like he was caught red handed, lol. He was gathering acorns so he could start an acorn collection.


I will definitely be more mindful of framing compostition. You can be really creative with framing.

More About Triangle Composition...

I found so much info about triangle composition so I decided to learn a little about all of the different ideas I read about.
One idea is to have the 3 strong elements in the picture form a triangle. In this picture I used the moon, tree, and tree line.
Twilight...


I also read about another compostion technique using the golden triangle. To use the golden triangle as a compositional guide, you imagine lines going through the frame so that they form triangles with the same angles in them (different sizes, but always the same shape). Looking something like this...

The area just inside the point of the smallest triangle is called a cradle. This is often seen as a good place in the frame to position the elements of your photo.
In this picture the sun shining through is in the cradle spot.


These pictures are just for fun...
Gotta love self timers!
I saw something similar to this online and thought this was a fun family pose. Right then, I grabbed my camera and tripod, and told everyone to hurry outside. This is a completely impromptu photo shoot so please ignore my children. No one wanted to take pictures. Natalee used her hair to cover her face. Preteen girls are SO much fun!


I totally hate how I look in this one but I just LOVE how sweet Jordan looks hanging onto Daddy's leg. She wandered over from Gavin to Daddy while we waited for the timer.


These are a few edited pictures of me...




Thanks for looking.

Panning

I've been reading and learning about shutter speed. The shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter is open. Fast shutter speed will stop the movement, slow shutter speed will allow blur. Blurring isn't always a bad thing. When using motion blur a picture can have a sense of movement. Which is where panning comes in. I learned at Digital Photography School.com that the basic idea behind panning as a technique is that you pan your camera along in time with the moving subject and end up getting a relatively sharp subject but a blurred background. This gives the shot a feeling of movement and speed.
With photo editing programs you can add motion blur and get the panning effect but I wanted to accomplish this technique without editing help. After 2 days of shooting (hundreds of shots) I got a few good ones. Since I live out in the middle of nowhere I didn't have passing traffic to practice on and my kids were not willing to run back and forth infront of me, so I went with falling leaves as my subject. My goal was to capture the feeling of the leaf falling. I didn't want the leaf frozen in mid-air but to have motion blur behind the leaf, yet keeping the leaf in focus. The first day I had the shutter speed too slow and got so much blur behind the leaf that the background blurred into one color. It looked like I took a picture of a leaf infront of a green background...not what I was going for. Today I changed the shutter speed to be a little faster. After many more shots I captured this:

I'm having fun learning and practicing this technique. I look forward to playing with slow shutter speed at night. Be warned, when learning this technique it can be frustrating because it is very difficult to keep the main subject in focus. Just have fun and experiment. Also, remember slow shutter speed the next time you are taking shots of fireworks. You can get some really cool shots! Use a tripod though or you will get unwanted blur.
Tomorrow (or the next day) I'll be posting more about triangle compostition so check back soon.