Day 11 - On Reflection

Todays assigment was to photograph a reflected image. So, out came my trusty PartyLite Mirror and I whipped some decorations off the tree.

I'm really pleased with this one - might have to find some nice shiny wrapping paper for the pressies this year :)

Day 8 - Camera Artistry

Day 8 was Camera Artistry - the assignment .... to produce a Seasonal Macro Triptych - photographing one subject in three macro abstract 'sections'.

I love triptych pictures - we've all seen them for sale as canvas prints in the shops. You know, the ones with three canvases that make up the one picture.

Here's my attempt. Unfortunatley PSE is on the other computer, so they are individual photos at the moment, but I will put them together as one later and re-post them.

Day 10 - Clear Visual Definition

Caught up on another couple of assigments this morning, and managed to get todays done.

Day 8 was Clear Visual Definition which focused on ..... differential focusing. We had to produce 2 shots using single point focusing and a shallow depth of field. The first shot was focused on the background subject, and the second on the foreground subject.

I had a lot of fun playing with this one, with different subjects, but it was the Santa ones which I really liked. The lighting isn't fantastic, but at least I got the technique! I can see my Christmas photos being SOOO much more artistic this year!

Day 9 - Blinded By The Light

Christmas would not be complete without candles! And today's challenge was to photograph some .... EASY you say???? NOT!

It's really difficult to get the focusing right, and not lose the flame in the flicker. I also found the lighting levels a bit difficult to come to terms with, but I'm fairly pleased with what I've got so far. I've left everything set up so I can have another play tonight when it's dark (and Ian's retrieved the tripod from the loft lol).





I think the first one is my favourite. All PartyLite products, of course ;-)

I can't believe it ......

My Festive Self Portrait joined a shortlist of 20/74 to be voted on to win a prize! There will be three winners ... the poll closed at midday today, so I'm now waiting with bated breath to find out the results!

Day 6 - Custom and Practice

Had to skip day 5 but I'll come back to that one later :)

Day 6 was to get some practice in ready for those all important 'traditional' shots like unwrapping the pressies ...... but taking a different slant on things with composition.

James had ANOTHER day off school because the water pipes had burst, so he became my test subject ... and very well he did too.

I took lots of photos, but here are my favourite three!

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4

Due to the snow and school closures, I didn't get around to doing days 2 and 3 yet, but here is today's assignment.

We were challenged to take a festive walk and take photographs while we were out. I went into the garden to take mine, and I'm so glad I did otherwise I would have missed the gorgeous icicles outside our bathroom window!

Here are just three of the photos I took.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 1

Today we were playing with our White Balance! Now lift your mind up a few feet out of the gutter - it's a setting on the camera which changes the way the camera sees light.

It's amazing the difference the right settings make - the following pictures are the same, just with different WB settings.

In order of appearence:- Auto White Balance (AWB); Cloudy; Daylight; Daylight Colours - Florescent; Daylight White - Florescent; Flash; Shade; Tungsten; White Light - Florescent.




I've taken another set of photos with my bear sitting on the dining room table, so I can see the difference between natural lighting and tungsten lighting (I'll post those later).

12 Days of Christmas - Self Portrait

Our pre-workshop homework was to take a festive self portrait - so here's mine.

12 Days of Christmas!

Well, it's started :) Cheryl Johnson is running a 12 day workshop called The 12 Days Of Christmas ...... and I got a place!

Had a small hic-up before I even started :( Ian took my camera to work with him a couple of weeks ago ..... and forgot to bring home the download cable! So, I've got to wait until tonight before I can get any of my photos off the camera. But, it'll give me a bit longer to play around with the first topic - White Balance :) It's about time I learnt how to use my camera properly :D

Watch this space lol