Camera Fun

This week I decided to post some pictures that I took while having fun with my camera. I feel like recently I have almost gotten to obssessed with making a perfect picture and forgotten to just have fun while I'm doing so. Some of the pictures are pretty good and some aren't but all were taken while I was having fun!

For as long as I can remember my dad has loved taking self portraits of himself with us. This probably explains why I also enjoy doing it! This picture is overexposed a little but it was fun to try and take because you are always kind of guessing with self portraits (of course with digital you can just repeat until perfect) and it was Anne and I just goofing off!

This picture was taken in Yellowstone when I was just trying to get candid shots of people doing things. Of course Dave caught me and tried to turn the tables so I just took a picture of him taking a picture of me (or we could pretend he was taking it of the really cool animal that I totally missed because it was behind me;)

This was a picture taken from inside Anne's truck. I have always thought that this necklace was interesting hanging from her mirror and I really liked how the background was something pretty instead of boring road!

Ah, Yellowstone signs. This one makes me laugh even though it is supposed to be a warning that I could die if I step off the trail. I like how the kid looks mildly upset that he is being steamed to death while the mother looks slightly ill.

After several not so productive rides it was fun to spend a morning out in turnout with my horse as he ran around. I had spent a good half hour trying to get this shot and finally got myself at the correct angle and him to run in the right direction and got all of him in the picture only to look back and see that it was horribly blurry. Oh, well there's always next weekend!

This shot was fun for me to take because my horse had gotten kinda of upset with me and decided that he didn't want anything to do with me when he was turned out. After I had been out there with him for 45 minutes he decided that I wasn't going to catch him and make him work and he really wanted to know what I was doing. He kept sticking his nose right down into the camera lense so I finally took a picture from that angle and actually really like it, especially since the sun highlights he forelock just enough to show the pretty copper color of his coat!

Photographing Horses

This week I decided to look into how to take good pictures of horses. I ride and love spending time with my horses but want to get better at taking pictures of them and of my friends riding around. I found several site that had some good ideas.

The first site is all about posing your horse for the perfect head shot. I know from the many, many pictures I have tried to take that this is easier said then done. This article talked about using a lower aperture to blur the background and to use your zoom to tighten up the picture. I liked how it mentioned to make sure horse and halter/bridle are clean because it is amazing how many times I see an imaculate horse whose dirty headware make an unattractive picture.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4483449_posed-photo-horses-head.html

The next article is about getting pictures prepared in order to market your horse. The author stresses how important it is to be ready and to take multiple shots when the horse is moving. She also stresses that you should figure out where and how you want to take the pictures ahead of time. This seems like common sense since you do it for all types of other photos but I can honestly say that I usually just take my camera out and see what happens. If I take a few moments before I start to make a plan than I can get ready and focus on where I want so that I have a better chance of getting a good picture.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/22158379/Taking-Horse-Pictures

I liked the final site because of the picture examples. It shows how just a slight change in the horse or the photographer can make an ok picture really nice!
http://www.cowboyway.com/HowTo/TakeHorsePictures.htm

All of the websites stressed cleanliness of the horse and to find a background that was not distracting. Often a grassy hillside or some similiar background work the best while more cluttered backgrounds take away from your horse. The websites also talk about making sure to give yourself lots of time to take the pictures so that you don't cause tension in the horse and to enlist the help of friends to be holder or attention getters! Finally you get the best results if you know your subject. Spend a few minutes with the horse if it is new to you so that you can learn what it likes, what gets its attention and what part of its personality you really want to bring out. If you are photgraphing your own horse this is less of an issue because you presumably already have most of this information.

Filter types

After our discussion on Tuesday about many things, I was interested in learning more about neutral density filters; especially why you would use them other than to make the sky look bluer! I found this cool website that explained not only neutral density filters but polarizing and warming/cooling filters as well. I like the picture examples that show what the filter looked like, the difference between using and not using a filter and when a filter was used incorrectly.

I also learned that the main reason most landscape photographers use neutral density filters is to allow them to extend exposure time. This seemed strange to me who enjoys faster shutter speeds in order to avoid blurriness, until I realized that tripods are usually involved in these instances. This website helped reiterate the points that Dave made in class and helped show how everything: camera type, tripod use, filter use, etc. are interrelated and how you probably shouldn't just change one thing without thinking about how it changes everything else.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lens-filters.htm

Costa Rica or the difficulty or photographing in the rainforest

So the trip to Costa Rica was awesome. We got to see a lot and I learned a lot about my camera, mainly that it hates the low light that is common when there is a canopy of leaves constantly above your head. Most of the pictures were shot at ISO 200 at least and the rare moments when a creature would be in the open where there was light almost made things to easy! Here are some of my favorite animal pictures from the trip.

The Tamandua (or anteater) up in the tree. We got to watch this guy try to get at termites and do all sorts of acrobatics!

This poor Agouti really wanted to cross the river before a big crocodile started to move toward him!

I was proud of this picture of a basilisk because I had finally gotten to the point where I could take one or two pictures of a lizard and have them turn out rather than the ten or fifteen that I had been shooting.

I was proud of this Scarlet Macaw picture because I was lucky enough to have me camera already set when it took off and then I managed to catch all of it in the frame and fairly sharp!

This frog literally fell from a tree in front of us. This is the first picture I have taken at night that turned out good. I managed to get my flash setting low enough to give me enough light without overexposing the frog and the frog is pretty cute!

This is my favorite bird that we saw. It is a turquoise-browed motmot! I like this bird because they always look angry due to the way their "eyebrow" is shaped and because motmot is a fun word to say!