Family Photography

At the beginning of the project I was going to do something called Marco photography. But after doing my research, I realized that Marco photography is the same thing as close up photography except it uses a more expensive lens that is made specifically for Marco photography. Since I’ve already done close up photography and don’t want to buy a new lens I decided to scratch that idea. But after looking at different types of photography I realized that there wasn’t that much I could do without having to invest in a knew lens. So I decided to do something simple. I decided to just try out family portraits.

Family portraits are a very common type of photography and are very popular. It’s a lot like regular portraits, except there are more people to consider while taking the picture, which is a little bit harder.  I just decided to do a ‘sibling portraits’ type thing instead of taking pictures of my whole family so it could go a lot quicker. I wanted to take the pictures outside because the scenery would be a lot nicer outside then it would be in my house. Unfortunately I live in the city, so my scenery isn’t the nicest… but I think that its still looks nicer then it would be  in my basement!

I used both my younger sisters as my subjects. Now Winnipeg winters are very cold so if you want to go outside for a long period of time you usually want to bundle up really good. But since I was taking family portraits I wanted my subjects to look good! So bundling up wasn’t something my sisters could do. They both wore black winter jackets, boots, and gloves. That was the only winter gear they were aloud to wear. So to make then pictures go really quick we decided on the poses that they would be doing inside and what order we would be taking them in. Then we all ran outside and I took the photos really fast! Both of my sisters are at the age where they can smile on a command so this was not a problem. If I had done this with younger kids it would have not worked out because it would have probably taken a whole bunch of times to get them smiling and by that time they would be freezing.

My sisters and I googled winter poses and decided on ones that we thought were nice, and would be quick to take. I wouldn’t have been able to get this type of photography done without my sisters, so a big thanks to them! :)

Things I learned about Family Photography:

- Use a tripod.

- You should use manual focus or lock the focus.

- Get people to move around for poses, don’t have them always standing up straight.

- Have fun with it!

- Have good lighting. Don’t want to wash out people’s faces or have shadows on some of them.

Websites I used:
http://digital-photography-school.com/10-tips-for-creating-great-family-portraits

High Speed Photography

For high speed photography, I took 4 out of 5 of pictures outside. The day I went outside to take pictures was very cold. It had a high of -27 C and had an extreme wind chill of -48 C! I’ve never taken pictures outside when it was that cold before! The weather conditions affected my pictures. The reason I took the pictures outside, was because I was experimenting with a lot of water while taking the pictures, which made a big mess so my mom preferred that I took them outside. 

 

I did 5 different high speed photography photos. My sisters, Danielle and Serena Algera helped me with them. The first photo I took was of an orange dropping into a cup of water. What we did to take this picture was Danielle held up a black blanket as a backdrop and I filled a cup with water and placed it on the backdrop. Serena held the orange above the glass and when I told her to drop it I started taking pictures. It took us a few tries because Serena kept missing the glass with the orange. But when we got it, it turned out pretty nice.

  For the second photo, I took a tennis ball and a glass of water. We took this photo using the same procedure we did in the first one, except for this photo I took it at a higher angle. This one wasn’t as nice because we used the same blanket as the one that used for the orange picture so there was water spilled all over it. I knew this would happen but what I didn’t think of was that the water was going to instantly freeze on the blanket because it was so cold out! So in the pictures you can see frozen ice chunks, which takes away from the picture. This picture would have probably worked out if I would have had a warmer day to take it on or if I would have just taken it inside. 

For the third photo, I took an empty glass and a pitcher of water. Danielle held up the black blanket as a backdrop, and Serena started pouring water into the cup while I took pictures. This one turned out pretty good. I had the same problem with this picture as I did with the second one. You can see all the ice stuck to the blanket, but for this one I think people would actually think it’s the water that has splashed out of the cup. So I’m not really concerned about how this one looks compared to my 2nd photo.

For the fourth photo I filled three balloons with water. I got Danielle to hold a balloon and hold a pin. As she would pop the balloon I would take pictures. This one was a lot of fun. We popped all 3 balloons and compared the photos in the end to see which one turned out best. I thought this one was pretty cool. 

For the fifth photo we were way to cold to do our original plan, so we went inside to take the last one. We decided that we would drop food coloring into a glass of water and take pictures of the food coloring expanding. Danielle held the food coloring above the glass and started pouring it in while I took pictures. The problem was that our food coloring was really old! So it was kind of all clumped together so it didn’t look as cool as we had wanted it too. I still used it though because we did not want to go outside to take anymore pictures! 

Things I learned about high speed photography:

- There are 2 different methods to high speed photography. The shutter speed method, and the flash method. (I used the shutter speed method)

- With the shutter method you can use outdoors.

- With the flash method you use it in the dark.

- Shutter speed should be set to a high level

- Make sure you’re subject is in focus before taking pictures.

Websites I used:

http://webneel.com/high-speed-photography-inspiration-tips

http://www.fotoflock.com/learn-photography/how-to/7241-a-beginners-guide-to-high-speed-photography

http://www.pascalbovet.com/2010/08/highspeed-photography-101-introduction/

DIY Christmas Lights

 DIY Christmas light was a photography idea I found on Pinterst. There were a few tutorials so I checked them out thinking that they would be fairly easy. Boy was I wrong…  What you’re supposed to be able to do is get Christmas lights to be blurred in the background of the picture while you focus on something else. The picture of the snowman was the closest I got to this, but isn’t at all what I wanted it to look like.

 I was unable to get any photos, to look the way that I had wanted it too! I was very disappointed. What I ended up doing was playing with my aperture and some Christmas lights. I started getting this blurred effect that I thought was kind of interesting. All I did was put my aperture to a higher level took pictures of the Christmas lights and the lights ended up doing his wavy like affect. It was actually kind of fun taking them and playing around with my cameras aperture.

 So far I haven’t had a photography project that I haven’t been able to do… but it looks like I met my match! I’m not sure if my final product has a specific name given to it. I have seen some photos that are kind of like these. I think it would actually be kind of cool to try to take pictures like these at a dance or something. You could try to get the people dancing in focus, and then have all the lights look kind of interesting around them.

The Pinterst website that I used is the following:
http://missenchanted.com/bokeh-photography-tutorial/
If anyone figures out how to work it, please let me know!