Photography Final

• Find a picture of a painting – has to have a person in it
• Get it approved by the prof (I forgot that, but thankfully he approved it since I had already taken the photos)
• Duplicate the painting in photos, paying special attention to the lighting (most important piece.)

I had a fun thought to use my brother and one of the gals with American Gothic, but the lighting looked like it needed to be a morning light and timing just wasn’t working out for that.  Check out my friend, Rachel’s, version of this painting!

So…many thoughts later I suddenly had an epiphany of doing the Madonna and Child.  After much online searching, I fell in love with Kissing the Face of God – by Morgan Weistling

With the wonderful help of my sister-in-law, Theresa, and my brand new niece, Abigail, we produced the following for my photography final:

Tools: Canon Rebel T1i EOS 500D, single light source on tripod, camera on tripod
Location: Inner hallway with no outside light source
Manual setting: ISO 200 / F 5.0 / Speed 1.6 / FL 41.0 / manual white balance
Photo manipulation: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Peer feedback was all really positive, with some comments that the position was not exact (that has to do with not wanting to wake the baby and moving fast! So I knew that one would be a hit I would have to take.)  Many of them stressed that they really liked the painting choice, which was fun to hear.

I think my greatest challenges centered around my inexperience with using a model (but Theresa was a sweetie!), wanting to move quickly, and then photoshop is NOT a pleasure to work with (for me) just yet.  However, I really enjoyed setting up the photo shoot!

Tool Used:  Canon Rebel T1i EOS 500D / settings used: program, auto, manual (sunsets, dolphins), and for the bird dives- sports setting

I took my new camera on vacation with me and it became an extension of my life.  I had so much fun practicing for the perfect shot.  Out of thousands of photos, below are a few of my favs, some of which I turned in for extra credit in my photography class.

This extra credit put me up to 100 percent before my final, so I ended up with an A in this class.

PS – I am making a note about the bird diving into the water and the grouping of birds.  After much research, I do believe those are Royal Terns.  They were fascinating to watch and I have some wonderful sequences of them diving into the water and re-emerging.

Photography homework:

Tool: Rebel T1i EOS 500D
Setting: Manual – metered for the rich sky coloration

We were to take a panorama and then either put it together in Photoshop or physically print up to 7 pictures and paste them to a backing.

I chose Mom’s farm (my childhood stomping grounds). After several tries with lighting (all photos were suspposed to have the same exposure which was hard because of the trees), I obtained an exposure that really showed the clouds off and still kept a rich color going on.

The professor said it had nice coloring with a faded, old world look to it.  Hmmm…Mom just painted her fence.  I am not sure she will be thrilled about that faded comment.  I think he meant how the lighting caused the whole picture to appear.  [Note: we were to turn it in with the edges showing so I am leaving it like that here. There is one missing on the right side, but it won’t all fit here.]

I had fun with this and it gives me good feelings.

Update: Grade is 100% and the teacher said he showed it around!  Funny how something I think is just ok will actually impress the teacher.  Other times, I think something is cool and I miss the boat.  As my teachers often say… “It is all subjective.”

Photography class – use 2 photos to communicate a mood.  

So how do these photos make you feel?

[This is looking out our front door during one of the more ferocious storms of the summer.  Straight line winds knocked over a lot of trees and tree limbs in Noblesville and caused havoc around the state.]

Assignment:  Turn in 5 of your favorite shots/angles from this week and defend why they are what you say they are.

These are my favorites this particular week. (Note: If you hover over the thumbnail, it will give you my title info.)

My expensive Canon G6 that has given me so many wonderful photos for the past 5 years did not pass with the instructor, so Lainey took me over to Roberts and we got a whole new setup.  I had always said if I learned how to used digital, I was going to buy a Rebel.  I am now the thrilled owner of a Canon Rebel T1i.  It was scary at first, but in no time it was feeling like my old Canon film SLR that was like an extension of my arm for so many years.

1st Assignment – 10 specific shots and angles – it was such fun!  Here are a few examples… (and the flower is an extreme closeup of the flower with an ant inside it, if you look close.  I had to keep squeezing the stem of the flower to get the ant to come out as it kept disappearing deep inside.)