My First Digital Photography Class

This week, I started my new adventure.  I finally took that large step, a leap of faith if you will.  I've been wanting to follow my heart and passion for the art of photography.  My goal is to take four classes and be able to finish in a year.  Right now, I'm taking Introduction to Digital Photography.  Next Trimester is Advanced Photography.  Spring offers the Adobe Photoshop Elements classes, which is where the creativity comes into play.  I think I'm going to love my instructor, I guess I had better because we will be seeing each other for a whole year.  After class, Ms. Theresa and I got to talking about shadowing and lighting.  She feels just from talking to me about my issues that a lot of my problems are going to be with lighting.  This is something that can easily be fixed.  I have to find out where I am and what my goals need to be by the end of these 6 weeks.

This week, we skimmed over the history of photography.  Ms. Theresa told us that the first hour will be the lecture time and the second hour will be critique session.  During our critique session, we all broke up into small groups and looked over the photographs that our instructor passed out.  She gave us 6 photographs and we had one person to write down words that describe "what we feel" about each one. Then, we had to describe why we felt that way.  Is it because of the lighting, shutter speed or both that moved me?  Our instructor would not bat an eye pointing you out and asking you "what moved you?" in a picture.  She wants us to look deep and hard at the creativity, which does include the lighting and shutter speed.

Today, when I took a few pictures I wanted to focus on the lighting issue.  How lighting can affect the emotion of a photograph.  I took pictures of the same building at the same time of day, but at different angles in order to see the various lighting can affect the picture.  Very interesting, how the angle of the sun can make a subject different.  All the photos were taken in the early morning light (8AM).


Above left: direct sunlight at the backside of the church; right: front of the church with the sun shining from the right side, causing a silhouette.  I actually appreciate the right photograph more than the left because it focuses on the crosses, which is exactly what I wanted to show.  I also love the puffy clouds in the background.  It's a sense of God's glorious peace within.  The left reflects the golden crosses, but your eyes also wander over the entire building and not just the crosses.

I would like to achieve an evening sunset silhouette.


Above left: is the right side of the church, in direct sunlight; right: is the left side of the church, with the sun shining from the right.  I actually appreciate the right photograph better because it gives emotion.  A sense of tranquility and warmth, where the left picture doesn't give that emotion.  I think it is because of the lighting, which includes a little casting of shadows.


Above left: beautiful red knock-out roses in direct morning sunlight; right: my action shutter speed of a water fountain at a local park.  I love this picture because of the movement.  The emotion I feel is refreshing, delicate and tranquil on a hot summer day.

Next week, we will go over shutter speed, aperture and F-spot.  I've been using my camera manually for over two years, so I've had a chance to play with all the shutter speeds.  I have a Nikon, which is very different from Canon.  A lot of the settings are automatic like the F-spots.  Today, I went over using the modes (P, S, A, and M).  I never use these shutter speeds because it's not what I'm looking for in a photograph. I also messed a little with ISO settings, which controls the shutter speed.  It just takes a lot of patience and  practice, practice, practice.

Hopefully with time, I will achieve these goals.  Thank you for reading and viewing my photos.  More to come at another time.