Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Otter? Mink? Who cares its awesome!

So last week Mary and I went to Riverfront park to get some pictures for class. As we were walking down a path to try and find somewhere good for running, we saw the adorable little otter/mink type creature just chilling on the ice with his fish. Of course, all thoughts of taking picture of someone running went out the door and we quickly grabbed our cameras and tried to get decent photographic evidence. I am particularly pleased with the picture of him eating his fish! I'm also pleased to say that since I had no real idea about how to control exposure at the time these photos were taken, the snow mode on my camera does a pretty nice job of not making everything look icky!


Of course, no trip would be complete without a little bit of fun. I found this nifty fallen tree and took a picture of Mary mediating under it!
Finally snow mode seemed to be particularly helpful in taking some landscape photos. I like both photosphotos for different reasons. The one that is just of snow and ice shows how fragile and strong ice can be. Since the one layer is nearly melted but the other layers are almost strong enough to still support a person. Mix that with the water and it gives me a feeling of hope that the fridgid winter will not forever reign! I'm not sure why I like the one with the dead tree in it, but when I was standing there staring at the scene I just thought, "this is interesting".
The most important thing I learned from this photoshoot was to always keep my eyes open and my camera near by. We went to Riverfront with the sole purpose of getting pictures of each other running and wound up seeing some pretty cool examples of why we brave the outdoors to see the beauty that are Montana winters.

Exposure

Exposure is the amount of light that passes through the lens and onto the CCD sensor. It is affected by aperture, shutter speed, Film/ISO speed, focal length of the lens and metering or how your camera measures light. Aperture and shutter speed are the two main ways that exposure is controlled. Aperture tells your camera how much light to let in and shutter speed tells your camera how long the lens should be open. The higher the aperture setting the more light that is let in and the slower the shutter speed the more light that is let in. By selecting certain modes for your camera, it can help you predict the amount of exposure needed for a particular shot. Camera's can also pick up on certain colors, such as white, which help it decide how much exposure is needed.

On my Canon PowerShot SX100, I have various modes to choose from which allows my camera to be helpful in many different ways. I can select aperture priorty or shutter speed priorty which which allow me to manually control each of this settings. There is also a manual mode which allows me to control both the aperture and shutter speed at the same time. If I feel lazy I can always choose one of the preset modes and hope that it decides to give me the correct exposure!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Trail Running


After class on Thursday, Mary and I decided to head down to Riverfront park to take pictures. This was mainly due to the weather report which said heavy snow and thus bad running conditions.





I have never taken pictures of anyone running before and found the experience to be a little challenging. You had to think about what you were going to do and when you were going to take the picture ahead of time so that your subject didn't end up half-way out of the frame.



Finally, it was fun to play with different angles. A few times, like in the first picture, my angle occurred by accident. I stepped back a little too far and then said, "Wow, what a neat perspective."








Camera settings were also important. I played with a bunch of mine and finally settled on the kids and pets setting. This setting seemed to be able to capture Mary running without being extremely picky about how still my hands were. I'm sure that there is probably a better setting for this type of photographry but for now I will stick with this setting and see what happens!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Boring Car Ride?

So it was our first long weekend of the semester, granted the semester did only start last week but we were ready to get away! Mary invited me to Yellowstone so she could play with her new skis and I could play with snowshoes. The trip was awesome, like I knew it would be, but the car ride to Yellowstone was definitely a little boring.



"AH HA!" I thought as I pulled out my camera, "Let's see what I can do with this."


It was actually pretty fun trying to take pictures from the car. It makes you start to look at things differently. The picture of Mary in the rearview mirror actually turned out better than I thought. It was also fun "hiding" in the backseat and observing what my companions were doing, like when Rob was trying to take a picture of the scenery.


Of course the drive was beautiful so I had to take a few pictures of the mountains. This one in particular seems to exemplify Montana winters, snow up high and dirt down low!







Of course the best moment was when we entered the park. I never knew that an icy SPOT could be 3 miles long!


After taking a few minutes to get ready, we spent a very enjoyable four hours playing in the snow and found some lovely scenes.
So next time you're bored in the car, and you're not driving, pull out your camera and see what you can come up with!


Monday, January 18, 2010

Property Release Form

For good and valuable consideration herein acknowledged as recieved, and by signing this release I hereby give Hilary Charlotte Alweis (hereby referred to as the photographer) and all of her legal representitives, my permission to license the images/video of my property hereby listed as
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________ and to use the images/video in any media and for any purpose. This may include, but is not limited to, advertising, promotion, marketing and commerical uses. I agree that I have consented to the use of these images/videos any way that the photographer sees fit, including being combined with other images/video and/or text and graphics and/or cropped, altered or modified.
I agree that I have no rights to the images/videos and that all rights belong to the photographer and her legal representitives. I acknowledge that I have no further right to additional consideration and that I will make no further claim to the images/video for any reason. I acknowledge that this release is binding upon my heirs and legal representitives. I agree that this release is irrevocable, worldwide and perpetual and will be governed by the laws of the United States of America at the time of signing.
I represent and warrant that I am at least 18 years of age and have the full legal capacity to execute this release.

Property Information
Name of Representitive (print) ___________________________________
Name of Property (print) _______________________________________
Address of Representitive ______________________________________
_________________________________________________________
City___________________ State/Province ________________________
Country ________________ Zip/Postal Code_______________________
Phone____________________________________________________
E-mail________________________________ Date of birth ___________
Address of Property (if different then above) _________________________
________________________________________________________
City __________________ State/Province ________________________
Country ________________ Zip/Postal Code ______________________
Signature of Representitive ______________________________________
Date ____________________

This release form was modeled after a release form from istockphoto found at http://www.istockphoto.com/docs/modelrelease.pdf.

Model Relase Form

For good and valuable consideration herein acknowledged as recieved, and by signing this release I hereby give Hilary Charlotte Alweis (hereby referred to as the photographer) and all of her legal representitives, my permission to license the images/video and to use the images/video in any media and for any purpose. This may include, but is not limited to, advertising, promotion, marketing and commerical uses. I agree that I have consented to the use of these images/videos any way that the photographer sees fit, including being combined with other images/video and/or text and graphics and/or cropped, altered or modified. I acknowledge and agree that I have consented to the publication of my ethnicities for descriptive purposes.
I agree that I have no rights to the images/videos and that all rights belong to the photographer and her legal representitives. I acknowledge that I have no further right to additional consideration and that I will make no further claim to the images/video for any reason. I acknowledge that this release is binding upon my heirs and legal representitives. I agree that this release is irrevocable, worldwide and perpetual and will be governed by the laws of the United States of America at the time of signing.
I represent and warrant that I am at least 18 years of age and have the full legal capacity to execute this release.

Model Information
Name (print) ___________________________________
Address _______________________________________
_____________________________________________
City___________________ State/Province ____________
Country ________________ Zip/Postal Code____________
Phone_________________________________________
E-mail_________________________________________
Date of Birth ____________________________________
Signature ______________________________________
Date __________________________

This release form was modeled after a relase form from istockphoto found at http://www.istockphoto.com/docs/modelrelease.pdf.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Daniel H. Bailey Photography

Daniel H. Bailey is a photographer from Alaska who specializes in taking pictures of outdoor activities. His job has led him to the Himalayas, northern India, Mexico, North Africa and many places throughout Alaska and the rest of the United States. Dan is an avid adventurer who takes part in all of the activities that he photographs!

Dan has many big name companies as clients, such as Patagonia, Nikon and The North Face. His photographs have been featured in many advertisements and magazines as his online portfolio shows. Not only his photographs have made it into print, Dan himself has had two articles written about him for Outdoor Photographer Magazine and Ft.Collins Coloradoan.

It appears that Dan is a very active person who has found a way to make a living and do all of the extreme activities that he enjoys. Although if the articles are anything to go by, making a living was not always easy and he spent many years barely scraping by. Perseverance saw him through, however, and now he is able to do what he loves and not starve! More information about Dan can be found by accessing the link below.

http://www.danbaileyphoto.com/

Model Release Forms

Model Release Forms, as article 1 below states, are important if you want to make money off of the pictures you take. These releases range from the simple "I give you permission" statements, an example shown in article 1, to a more complex form that expressly states how the pictures can be used and defines the various terms such as the example from article 2.

As article 1 from the New York Institute of Photography states, a simple release form is better then no release form. The simple release does show that you got some form of permission from the model and can be enough protection for most people. However, the more precise you can be in your wording the better protected you are should a disagreement occur.

The tricky part with release forms is when they need to be used. If you want to be safe then you should always get a release form signed when you take a picture of someone and possibly when you take a picture of their property and pets. However, unless you are planning on selling the pictures commercially, you probably don't need to worry about getting a release form signed.

(1) http://www.nyip.com/ezine/techtips/model-release.html

(2) http://www.istockphoto.com/docs/modelrelease.pdf
Good morning starshine, the Earth says hello!