A year with my Camera - free photo course for beginners #AYearWithMyCamera

15 Extreme edit

I don't know what I did.  I pressed buttons until things changed.

12 Plain background

Number 7. Reflection
I even managed to get a 19. Wildlife in the corner of one picture.

8. Lit by a window and 23. Self portrait
It was quick, spontaneous and you get what you get...
😃

30 Texture

some sort of seaweed I can't remember the name of.  

Today is the last day to sign up for the class starting this month.  But if you miss it, that's okay too.  They have a class starting just about every month.

Feel free to join in this thread no matter where you are in the class - or even if you didn't sign up and you want to talk about the photographs.  

24. Movement
I've taken tens of thousands of photos with a little Fuji 330A camera, most taken while hauling dirt in Arizona. I decided to give it another go on the Interstate 69 here in Indiana.

13. Balance
Well I guess we all interpret things in different ways. I noticed this tower and wondered if I could catch it with a bit of a backhand shot. I figured I had missed it.
Anyway on balance I thought the lightness of the outside, the scene shown and the darkness of the edges of my semi window as the picture frame.

Week one has revolutionised my understanding of how my camera works!  

The lesson starts with a bang and a great explanation on how the camera knows what it's looking at (spoiler - it doesn't) and how it chooses what setting to use when taking a picture on auto mode.  Then we follow up by taking two photos.  If you get the book, the pages you need to take the phots are in the back of the book, but you can just as easily find what you need around the house.

The following are my exercises: two photos, taken of two completely different (almost opposite) objects in auto mode.  This has shaken my beliefe in artificial intelligence.  

I cheated a little and used a white sheet for one photo and a black hat on a black sheet for the second.

I can't figure out if the one of the white sheet really is lighter or if it's my brain just trying to compensate because it knows it's white.  But the black hat photo certainly looks grey.





I did finally dig out my DSLR to do this exercise, as I've been cheating up to now and using my phone camera, or old photos.  But the whole idea is to be able to use a DSLR.  In my youth I'd use a 'proper', pre-digital SLR so a lot of the concepts are likely to be the same.  What I learned as 'mid grey' is now '18% grey', but it's the same thing I'm sure.  It remains to be seen how I get on with the controls of this new-fangled digital thing compared to my old Zenit E.  

Trying to get my 30 photos finished:

17 Behind the scenes

Burra Maluca wrote:I cheated a little and used a white sheet for one photo and a black hat on a black sheet for the second.

I can't figure out if the one of the white sheet really is lighter or if it's my brain just trying to compensate because it knows it's white.  But the black hat photo certainly looks grey.
 

I think it's the shadows in the lace adding to the grey-ness

I'm going to try to finish off the make-30-photos thing...

20 Break the rule of 1/3s

19 Wildlife

30 Texture

28 Depth

Hi guys and ladies,
That was interesting, and thank you for posting here, the email reminded me today was the start.
I tried the black and white project, and on mixed results, reread the email. I discovered I was supposed to use a non reflective white and black item.
That grayscale event and percentage sure comes into play.

Any guess which color is above, or below?

I also was messing around with number 28. Depth and it turned into a 30. Texture as well.

One of the communities recommended in the A Year With My Camera workbook is Blipfoto where we can only post one photo a day (with the free account).  It's quite a challenge to choose just one photo that represents the entire day.  I'm going to give it a try.  

The catch is you have to post the photo the day you took it.  I don't know how they tell, but a pretty neat idea!

And because it's easier to do something with friends, Henny Penny is going to help me: my blipfoto account

I'm looking forward to seeing how the photos get better as the year goes on.

10. Food
It ain't pretty, but we have probably consumed plenty of processed/packaged food.

25. Stripes
I may have took too much liberty in this stripe photo.
Darn google autocorrect doesn't think I can spell, or talk.

The second photo was the first candidate for stripes.

Number 18. Pattern
I wish it had been sunny, this is such a great blue metal roof. I think A-FRAME is a pattern unto itself. I like the idea of them, but the second floor gets a bit cramped.

Number 9. Older than me
I went with my aunt Shirley 50 years ago to an old cemetery in Pennsylvania, we did chalk outlines of the script on some very old headstones. Only in second grade at the time, I didn't realize the grandness of the process.

Number 11. Shadows
This is pretty simple, I feel like I should have spent some time on it

A few more from the archives, in an attempt to get that list of 30 photos done...

13 Balance




16 Eyecatching




18 Pattern




25 Stripes




26 Weather

29 Vintage



This is all stuff I've rescued from the new place we're buying.  What I love about it is that it's almost certainly the original iron that was used to put the finishing touches to all the linens.  I can't bring myself to clean the cobwebs and dust off the iron, or the old coals from inside.  

21 Just two colours

15 Extreme edit

27 Silhouette