Goin' Shooting - photos that is!

“ Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph." – Matt Hardy

My first tries at quality photos. I love the different shirts in and the symmetry of
them all under umbrellas and broken only by the
lone rock.

While everybody and their dog seems to own the latest fit-in-your-pocket camera or more recently the pin-hole camera that comes standard with a smart phone, these novice photographers lack the finesse from what makes a real photograph. They know it too. We all recognize an amazing shot from the typical Facebook gallery one. But what adds to an amazing photograph. This was my curiosity when I met up with Kacee to learn from an expert how to use a quality camera and the tricks of contemporary photographers.

Different angle of the curbside and gutter. I liked
the slight curve as well.

The first thing to know about photography is that it is like many art forms: while there are general practices and guidelines, it's still very much playful and experimental. Voice comes out in photography because of the design in setting the picture. Take Kacee, for example. She likes lines and symmetry as well as unique angles and a taste for things we would usually overlook.

Playing with focus and symmetry here at the JFSB Courtyard. Notice
the leading line that places your eyes down the photo.

There are a few fundamentals to creating that perfect montage to be learned from good photography. Three factors that affect the photo are the shutter speed, the aperture and the focus. Shutter speed controls the amount of light in the picture. A quick shutter takes in less light so you need to adjust this based on the luminescence of the subject. Aperture affects the amount of focus to your photo. Focus allows for some parts of your shot to be crisp while blending other pieces into the background. This was my favorite part because it let me control what was most important in the photo.

As I took some test shots in the JFSB Courtyard I had plenty of opportunity to practice what I had learned. Leading lines are visible in some of my shots, which is a term describing how lines in a photograph tend to "lead" the eye towards the end. Funny enough was how hard it was for me to get off the road and right up close to some of the things I wanted to shoot. It felt like I took over a hundred photos just looking for the one that captured what I wanted out of the scene. Boy was it great when you got one! I enjoyed it so much that after calling it a night I found myself looking at different angles and seeing the depth in the shrubbery just walking down stream path south of campus.

The rocks straight edge takes you right to the
top of the building. Looking back I would have
added more sky and color up top.

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." Henri Cartier-Bresson. Looking at the world through the eye of the lens has me excited to get the "Thirty-point buck" of photos now and I can only get better, right?