Our Fourth Photography Lesson was on 26 June 2013. It was raining outside and I thought while we are working with Depth of field we might as well be creative.
I went through my props and try to get all the objects that one can use while photographing a wedding. Sometimes one have to make do with very little. The whole idea was to let Lizette be creative and I wanted to see what layouts she would come up with. I gave her some ideas and then she had to do her own layout.
A while back my husband told about this girl/lady who really want’s to be a photographer and if I would be willing to help her make her dream come true. At first I thought how can I teach her anything then I remembered how difficult it was in the beginning. My friend gave me a quick crash course in Aperture and ISO and the rest I had to learn and master by myself. I do not have a degree in photography, but the knowledge and skills I do have and acquired over the past 4 years I am willing to share with her. Photography is my passion and for a long time a dream that I never thought would even come true. Now I am living my dream and enjoying every second of it.
The first day that met Lizette was in early May I explained to her that you do not become a photographer over night. It is hard work and in the beginning the exercises seems silly and don’t really make sense but later when you are doing your first birthday party or even a wedding you will remember these silly shoots. I told her that there are different types of photography and it takes time to master the different techniques. We had our first official lesson on 29 May 2013 since then we have a lesson every Wednesday scheduled from 9:00 till 12:30.
In our first two lessons I’ve covered the basics with her like ISO, Aperture, Depth of field, Shutter speed and exposure. What is very important to me and my goal is to help her to get to know her camera and to master ISO and Aperture combinations. For now we will only focus on AV mode. I don’t believe in just sitting and reading the information I believe in practice and practice so after we worked through the paperwork we went outside to practice…
Last week we went on a field trip and we focused on landscape photo’s and I wanted to see if she would be creative. I will post Lesson 3 in separate post. I took allot of photo’s and will post it then.
Today’s lesson was all about editing… She took photo’s of her niece her little boy over the weekend and I showed her how to do the basic editing of these photo’s. When she told me about the shoot over the weekend I gave her some guidelines and told her to use a tripod. When I worked through the first lot of photo’s I must say I was a bit disappointed she did not apply what she learned in the first two lessons. If she had remembered to increase her ISO she would have gotten some stunning photo’s. I hope she learned from her mistake. Something that really took me by surprise was when she said all the photo’s blur when she uses a tripod.
The next few weeks we will be focusing on portrait photography, composition and how to use a tripod.
Here is two collages of photo’s I took with our first two lessons. Love this getting back to basics. I can’t believe all the stuff I had forgotten good to refresh my brain again.
Lesson 1: Depth of field. Playing around with Aperture settingsLesson 2: Depth of field. Experimenting with Aperture and ISO settings. Also some creativity.
A few weeks back I started playing with Depth of Field in my home studio. I had no problem with this outdoors, but in the studio I struggled to get the desired effect. So one evening I decided I’ll go practice a bit on my always willing prop Lenie and my frogs that never made it to their destination in my garden but rather stayed in my bathroom and studio as props. I moved her around on the studio floor further and further from the background till I ran out of laminated flooring. Ooops that’s going to be a bit of a problem. I am not a great fan of editing to much and to clone floor the whole time will not do it for me… I moved the floor towards me to see what the effect will be in the background.
I then asked my eldest if he would mind being my live subject so that I can practice some more. I told him to move forward and backwards to the side and so on. My first photo of Armand came out all wrong. Armand was all out of focus and the background was in focus. Not what I had in mind. I practiced some more and after moving around allot I got it right. Armand in focus and background was out of focus….
Oeps wrong way around….That’s better…
Then my husband came to the studio and decided that he had to change the setting a bit. My frogs got moved next to Armand. I took some photo’s and then I told him what I am trying to achieve…. Oooooh okay was his reply and he moved the frogs back to their original positions. I still had the problem of the gap at the back. You can see the tiles and this I wanted to prevent. When I am the same level as the subject it’s fine, but as soon as I sit up then I see the tiles. Luckily I still had 2 extra pieces of laminated flooring so I put that in at the back in the mean while.
Armand just being silly….Ogies, Armand’s cat joined the shoot, and so did frog1
I made little crosses on the flooring so that I can show my clients were to stand so that I can get desired effect I want. I just love experimenting but my boys on the other hand are not so keen on mommy using them as her subjects. So for the next experiment Lenie and the frogs will have to do…
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