Photography HW: 11/04

Our homework this week was to pose people!

Pose #1: Group

General guidelines: make sure the pose reflects the person; think TRIANGLES. This is more of a right triangle but it works!

Pose #2: Guys

General guidelines: no girly poses!

Pose #3: Girls

General guidelines: pose in an s-shape

10/28 Photography HW

Well, I figured I'd go ahead and post my photography homework for 2 weeks from now, so I don't forget..

We learned about selective coloring. Which I happen to hate with a burning passion... ;P So doing this homework was a killer, because even though I love coloring in the black and white photo, the photo screams at me to either choose b&w or color. NOT A COMBINATION OF THE TWO. -_-

Anyway, here's the selective color version of the photo.

And now the version that I love so much better!!!

10/07 Photography HW

1. Take a photo using lens distortion.


Well, I had a couple good ideas for this, and I couldn't decide which ones to pick... so I finally narrowed it down to two. :)

(not thrilled with how this one turned out since his foot isn't perfectly in focus but thats okay.)

2. Do a self-critique on one of your photos.

We were supposed to list some positive things, then some negative things, then some more positive things.
Instead of choosing one of my not-so-great pictures (which there are way too many of) that I easily see a billion things wrong with, and making it easy, I decided to find the best portrait I've taken in my opinion, and critique it. Because I just love making things hard.. :P

Positive
Good composition (it follows the rule of thirds).
There are catchlights in BOTH of her eyes.

Negative
I "cut off" her hands at the wrists (which is a no-no).
You can only see the thumb of one hand, which looks somewhat awkward.
Her face is a little over exposed and the left side of her face is a little underexposed (on my computer with its current brightness settings, that is). Its not too bad though.
The back eye is more in focus than the front eye (the opposite is supposed to be true). [In my defense, I just learned about this recently, after I took the picture. AND I was just learning how to use back-button focus when I took this pic, so I was more concerned about preventing her feet being in focus instead of her face, than which eye was in focus.]

Positive
Its pretty sharp.
Its "bright and colorful", which is how I love my photos to be ;).
There are mini "leading lines" on the brick and the door that lead your eyes to her face.

09/30 Photography HW

01. Take an image using good natural lighting.

02. Take an image in full sun.

09/23 Photography HW

Yeah, I know I'm lazy. I post once a week, and only for my photography homework... sorry :) at least I'm posting though!


1. Take an image that shows the flash fall off – indoors will work.

I actually already had a picture of this! :) I took this on a photo scavenger hunt. I'm not sure whether I was supposed to show a picture ruined by flash falloff, or just flash falloff... but oh well.

2.  Take an image that uses bounced flash.


This was my setup... (I put the piano under the desk so the flash could easily reflect off the top of the desk.)

With normal, unbounced flash.

Bounced flash! These are TOTALLY unedited pics, so you can see the white balance difference, because the desk is a reddish brown, so when the flash reflected off the underside of the desk, it turned the pic more red.

Edited, just for fun....

3. Take an image using fill flash technique.   Think in front of a window or with the sky.  You must have someone/something in the foreground that needs lighting as well as keeping the background somewhat correct exposure.

Yeah... I'm kind of ashamed to say I didn't go out and take a picture for this one. I found an old one. A very old one. 

James, don't kill me. I'm sorry. haha.

It works... sorta....... its just not what I envisioned :P I'll take one this week when I decide to be smart and not put off my photography homework till now. haha.

09/16 Photography Homework

This week's homework was to take a photo we hadn't edited, and edit it in a way I've never edited a picture before. I tried out a couple different sharpening features this week... I read an article about Smart Sharpening, but I couldn't find it on Photoshop Elements, so I tried:

1. Unsharp mask (Enhance --> Unsharp mask) 

2. High pass sharpening (creating a duplicate layer, making it a soft or hard light layer, and running a high pass filter on it). 

As it turns out, I liked the unsharp mask (75/2/3) on this photo. I pulled these values from the portrait row on this site http://www.photographyjam.com/blog/40/unsharp-mask-suggested-starting-values. Normally, I HATE sharpening, because it just adds more noise to the photo, but I figured I'd try it out anyways :)

Original RAW Image

Basic edits in Adobe Camera RAW

After sharpening, Fresh Color & Edge Burn actions by Pioneer Woman (opacities changed a TON), and Perfect Portrait action by CoffeeShop. Also, I did some extra sharpening on her eyes.

After Pioneer Woman's Soft & Faded action - final image!

09/09 Photography HW

#1. Take a landscape photo using the rule of thirds with 2 elements in it at 2 different focal points.

Okay... my new title is "Worst Landscape Photographer Ever". I pulled an old photo for this, because I spent an HOUR wasting time and gas trying to find a good landscape picture, and found nothing. Well, I took 4-5 awesome shots in my head, but there was nowhere to safely or even semi-legally park to take them with my camera... -_-

Auburn's campus. It sort of follows the rule of thirds....

sort of.....ish... maybe.... -_- or not. Its also not straight, but SHH. I wanted my points to be Samford Hall (that gorgeous red building with the clock tower in the background) and whatever hall that is on the bottom right point. But I tried cropping it different ways, and it just didn't work out.

Also, in the above vintage-y edit, I lost a lot (okay, all) of the cloud details... which made me sad. Not sure how to fix that though.

#2. Take a photo making use of depth of field to pinpoint where you want your focus point to be, and make sure the focus point is following the rule of thirds.


I like this one... :) Can anyone say "really wide open aperture" and "awesome macro extension tubes"?

and it follows the rule of thirds beautifully! :)

#3. Take a photo employing unusual angles and a situation where the rule of thirds would not be helpful.


Okay... so I couldn't pick just one. I took the same picture in two different ways... and I couldn't decide which one to use. So here's both. :)

I unintentionally followed the rule of thirds with the picture below... my calculus book falls on one of the points, I believe. Oh well. :P