A study in red

So this week we had to choose a color and then go around and "fill the frame" with that color. Here are a few of my shots:

Playing with light...

Our assignment this week was to get some shots using the different directions of light. So I borrowed my dad's tripod and got to work. Here are a few of the results...

1. Side lighting. The lighting isn't directly from the side as it is coming from the top slightly, but it was more dramatic than my straight side-light picture. My patient husband got to hold a flashlight for this one:

Top lighting (again with my husband as flashlight-holder extraordinaire):

Back lighting. I used a lamp for this one. Also, autofocus wouldn't work, so I used manual focus:

Front lighting. I couldn't figure out how to get light directly from the front with the flashlight or lamp, so I used the on-camera flash. It was a 6 second shutter speed! As I sat in the dark waiting for the click of the shutter, I wondered how it would turn out. Not too bad, as it turns out:

Shutter speed

Our third assignment for the week was to play with shutter speed so that we can see how the camera can stop motion like this (1/500 sec.):

Show motion like this (1/125 sec.):

Or like this (1/100 sec.):

Or—my personal favorite—slow the shutter speed until the picture makes you feel like you've eaten something hallucinogenic (0.5 sec):

Depth of field

Assignment #2 is to experiment with depth of field, which is something I love (or should I say...I've discovered that I love taking photos with a shallow depth of field). Here's the first photo with an aperture of F/5.7:

And an aperture of F/16:

I couldn't quite get both figures fully in focus...the picture seemed to go a little soft. I don't know if that's the lens or me (probably me). The next assignment is shutter speed!

The many moods of a sunflower

Our first assignment for our class is to see how exposure affects the mood of a photo. First, we have to take a correctly exposed photo. This is mine:

Then we needed to take that same photo, but underexposed one stop:

And then we had to take a third version of that photo, overexposed by one stop:

Homework!

It's been an incredibly rainy weekend, but my husband and I jumped on a break in the rain to go to a local park so I could take pictures for my photography class. We came across a very friendly and curious squirrel:

I made my husband pose for a few shots:

We found a few interesting-looking puffballs:

And, the grand finale...a race car derby!

Photography class!

I am so excited! I am finally taking a photography class after two failed attempts (both classes were canceled due to lack of enrollment). Look for new—and hopefully better—pictures soon! :)