Photography Class

"Each time you take a picture you are defining reality in your particular individual way"

David Brooks

 

"The decision-making processes we make when taking a photograph starts first with being able to see possibilities." 

R. Bearden

Picture I took for my class
The assignment was light and shadow

I am taking a photography class.  The class teaches composition in photography.  I love to take pictures wherever I go, and I think I have taken a lot of really good photos over the years, but I know I also take some not so good ones.  I can use improvement.  And this class teaches me to think about how I am looking at a scene when I take the picture.  I'm learning to look around more before taking the shot, to make sure there are no signs or traffic cones, electrical lines, or garbage cans, that are going to show up in the shot.  Those things can spoil the shot.  Also, I'm thinking more about where my subject is positioned in the shot.  There is the 1/3 rule, which means that the horizon of the picture should not be in the middle of the picture, it should be either in the top 1/3 or the bottom 1/3, and your subject should be to the side of the picture, also not in the middle.  There are of course exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking that makes a more interesting picture.

The teacher has also talked about deciding on choice of format, either horizontal or vertical.  Horizontal pictures are more relaxing.  The vertical pictures are more dynamic and show action.  She also wants us to be aware of something in the picture that would draw our eye away from our main subject.  Sometimes that is just something off to the side which attracts your attention.  It can be something simple like a row of flowers, a stream or a tree trunk.

A picture I took in Africa
My teacher said it was a good example of the 1/3 rule
because the main subject was in the bottom third
and I kept the horizon straight

Also important is keeping your horizon straight.  Otherwise you feel you are sliding out of the shot.  I have a problem with that sometimes, but I have discovered I can fix that by editing the pictures in a program I have, which allows you to push a button and straighten it.  Even when it just straightens it a little it makes such a difference.  But for the class she does not want us to do any editing of the picture, she wants us to get it right to begin with.

And she wants us to think about where we are when we take a picture.  You can change the whole perspective of a shot by changing where you are in relation to the subject.  You can get down low and look upward toward your shot, or sometimes it is better to climb up higher to get the shot looking down.  She says we should always be aware that we are making a choice by our position and the position of the camera.  She wants us to look at shadows and reflections and make choices about those when taking the shot.  It is a lot to think about, but I am finding that it works.

I took this class in the spring, just before going on our trip to Africa, but I was only able to take half the class because of the trip.  So I signed up again and started the class over.  The good thing is that we have a different teacher this time.  She is much better and there is a lot more discussion.  So I already feel I have learned more from her.  I think it will help me take better photos when we take our next trip.

para-glider

Each week she assigns us a subject, and we are suppose to take pictures of that and bring in 3 pictures. She shows the pictures on a large screen in class and critiques them.  In fact the whole class can critique the pictures, we learn from doing that.  And we discuss the rules and how they apply to that photo.  It can be enlightening.  This next week our assignment was transportation.  Any kind.  I decided I didn't want pictures of just cars, trains or airplanes, but unusual forms of transportation.  So we went looking.  Our first stop was the glider-port in La Jolla, which is about an hour north of us.  They do glider planes and para-gliding from there.  There were no gliders up that day, but I was able to get a picture of a para-glider.  

I had to have 3 samples of transportation, so I was also able to find horses with riders at the beach, and a really different type of bicycle, where he was not pedaling, but walking his feet on a special type of pedal to make the bike move.  So I think I found some interesting transportation, and was able to get good composition shots as well, which is the main goal. 

I'm enjoying the class and I think it will help me in the future.  Photography is kind of a hobby with me, I love taking pictures.  If you also enjoy taking pictures, there are many classes available.  I am taking this one through an adult education program provided by the city, and it is very inexpensive.  And of course now with digital, there is no cost for film, and you can take lots of pictures until you get just the right one.

Travel Photos and What To Do With Them

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed."

-Ansel Adams

My African Book on my Coffee Table
I have a display of some African Souvenirs in the table

We recently took a trip to Africa.  While there I was talking to a fellow traveler about the photos that we were taking.  She told me that when she got home that she would go online and have her favorite photos from the trip put into a book, which when printed, would look like a coffee table photo book.  I thought that sounded like an excellent idea.

For the past few years I have just stored my pictures on my computer.  I always made a backup DVD of the pictures to have just in case, but I don't print them up and put them into scrapbooks like I used to do when I used actual film.  Remember those days, when you had maybe 6 rolls of film with you, so you only took pictures of really important things, and you only took one picture of it, because film and developing was expensive?  And then when you got home and spent a fortune developing your pictures you would always be disappointed because some of the shots just weren't any good.  We are really spoiled today with digital cameras.  Not only can we see immediately how they are going to turn out, we can take a dozen shots of one subject, just to make sure we get it from the best angle.

My African Picture Book

I do tend to overdo it sometimes.  On the African trip I shot over 2000 pictures.  Mostly of the animals when we were on safari.  So when I came home and went through all the pictures, it took me awhile to sort out and pick my favorites.  But I did manage to narrow it down to a few hundred pictures.  I decided to take the suggestion of putting them in a book.  I went online to the company she had recommend - My Publisher.  I found that it was really easy to navigate their website and set up the book.  I took the pictures that I had selected and pulled them into the program, and from there I went page to page, decided how many pictures I wanted on each page and pulling them in.  Once I had all the pictures in, I went back and wrote some narratives to go with the pictures.  It was really quite easy, and fun to do.  At the end you simply purchase the book and pay for it with your credit card.  Less than 10 days later I had my book.  And I love it.

So now that I had completed one book, I decided to go back and do some past trips.  I took a trip to China in 2010, and decided that those pictures should also go into a book.  That book also turned out great, and I am now thinking about doing a couple more. 

My China Book

The books are not cheap, but actually they are probably less expensive than the film we used to always develop at the end of our trips, and these are already put into a book and published, so I do feel it was a good deal.  And now I realize that they also have sales, if you watch for them, where you can get the books for less, if you wait until the sale is in progress.  My China book actually cost quite a bit less than the African book, because I saw a sale that had 60% off the price of the book.

I am also intrigued with the idea of putting together a calendar with my pictures on it.  The same company prints calendars.  It might be fun next year to be looking at my own travel pictures each month on my own calendar.  Or maybe a calendar of my dog pictures?

There are many companies besides My Publisher who do the same type of books and calendars.  I have not tried any of the other companies, but did a search online and came up with quite a few.  They seem to all be similar, and I'm sure they would all be quite good.  So If you are thinking about putting your photos into a book, but don't want to actually do a scrapbook, then consider doing it online.  You will have a professional looking finished project that you can enjoy for years, and display on your coffee table.

Here are the companies I found when researching this, including the company I used:   http://www.mypublisher.com  
http://www.shutterfly.com        http://www.cvsphoto.com
http://www.mixbook.com          http://www1.snapfish.com
http://picaboo.com                     http://www.blurb.com  


The nice thing about putting together the book is that you can choose your theme - I chose travel as my theme and all the pages had a travel look to them.  Some pages had stamps that looked like passport stamps, some had a background of a map, and some had the backs of postcards where you could write about what was on the page.  You could choose to have lots of pictures on one page or do two or three pictures to the page, or just do a full page picture.  You chose the format for each page as you go.  Here are a few pictures of the inside of my book:

Pictures are Memories of your Travels

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” Pat Conroy

Banff National Park, Canada

Doorway, Durnstein, Germany

I admit that I am one of those travelers that takes lots of pictures.  I have a camera on a strap around my neck, and I snap away.  Thank goodness for digital.  I remember when I used to be careful how many pictures I was taking, because I didn't want to run out of film, and besides, it cost so much to print all those photos when you got home.  And with film, you didn't know if you actually got the shot until you got home and saw the print, and when it didn't turn out, you couldn't just go back and take the picture again.  Now I don't even make photo albums anymore, I just store all my photos on discs.  After all, albums take up so much space and who is ever going to want those when I'm gone.  With discs I can pull them out and watch them whenever I want, and they take up very little space.

Doorway in Hvar, Croatia

Child at the zoo in
Chongquing, China

I will say though, that when traveling, I make a point of taking some pictures, then putting the camera aside and really enjoying the place without the camera.  You don't want to see a place only through the lens of the camera.  And I like to take pictures of odd things.  While in Croatia last year, I became fascinated with taking pictures of doorways.  And in China, it was children, which my friends and family found amusing, as I have never been a "kid person".  But I thought the children in China were so cute and well-behaved.  I kept snapping their pictures.  I've always loved the water, so quite often I take pictures of harbors or the sea.  And I love animals so tend to snap them whenever I see them.

Sequoia

I sometimes like to try to be artistic, and shoot through openings, like arches or doorways, so that the  scenery is framed.  While in Sequoia National Park last year we walked through a tree that was laying on the ground and was hollow.  Halfway through there was a large opening and I got a really neat shot of the trees through the opening.  But most the time I am just documenting the trip and what we see, and trying to get the best shot I can.  I will never be a professional, but I enjoy taking pictures, and I also enjoying going back and looking at them years later, and remembering the fun we had on the trip.

Plitvice Lakes NP, Croatia

Last year we took a trip to Croatia.  There was a young woman in our group who was traveling on her own.  She was a camera fanatic.  She must have taken several thousand pictures in the 3 weeks we were on this trip.  She wanted pictures of herself with the background, so she was forever holding the camera at arms length pointed at her face and whatever was in the background.  She also would ask anyone in the group to take her picture whenever possible, which was fine, but she didn't want just one picture, she'd then get you to take 7 or 8, which was sometimes a little annoying.  We particularly noticed it when we were in Plitvice Lakes National Park.  The scenery there was spectacular, and we were all in awe of it.  But Marivic spent the entire time standing with her back to the scenery pointing her camera at it and herself.  I doubt if she really saw much of the park.  So the one thing I will say to everyone, take some pictures, they are nice to have later, but make sure you also see the area you are going to, first hand - and not only through the lens of the camera.

Budapest

Hvar Harbor

 "Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don’t have film."

Unknown

"When setting out on a photographic holiday, always provide yourself with two cameras, one to leave in the train going and the other to leave in the cab coming back."  W.C.Sellar & R.J.Yeatman.