Now that I’m more comfortable with my Canon, I’m moving beyond staged food shots and trying to be more spontaneous.

When weeding the front walk, I came across this tenacious portulaca. I didn’t have the heart to pull it. So I went inside, grabbed my camera and bellyflopped on the bricks. I didn’t brush away the dirt and twigs since I didn’t want the shot to look too tidy. I can’t decide if this makes it look natural or if the dry grass is too distracting.

Not sure what the neighbours thought, but everyone who saw this little flower clawing its way to sunlight was rather taken. You’d expect this from a thistle or a dandelion, but a succulent annual? Kind of gives one hope.

A gift from a neighbour

I’m finally figuring out how to use my new Canon SLR.

I used the tripod this time. Although I set up the shot, these are my hands. Without a remote, I had to have Andrew press the button. It took a few attempts, but we finally got “the money shot”.

I found this a challenge since my lens wouldn’t allow me to get close enough to my subjects. So I ended up cropping to get the required results.

Guess who didn’t use her tripod? Okay. Next time. Promise.

Anyway, here are some “abstract” shots.

Black-eyed Susan just opening

Daisy centre

Black Raspberry or Creepy Alien

Daisies and campanulas

I like the contrast of the bright orange centres and the purple campanulas in the background. Might be better without the daisies in the background on the left, but I wanted to capture the garden as it was.

Lesson 1 starts tomorrow. Let’s hope the rain holds off.

Lavender blowing in the wind

After almost a year away, I’m returning to this photo project. I have a new-to-me Canon Rebel XTi SLR camera and can’t wait to learn to use it to its fullest.

I plan to return to the Morgue file photo lessons on the weekends and post a photo a day during the week.

Feel free to drop by and comment. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. I can’t improve without it.

Happy snapping.

Charmian

Since I didn’t think Lesson 4 applied to my digital camera, I spent my photography time buying the tripod. Although the first two assignments required film, upon reading my camera’s instruction manual, I realized the third assignment on white balance did apply. Return pat on the back for that oversight.

However, I’m realizing more and more the limitations of my Cybershot. It’s a great vacation camera, but isn’t doing what I want. It’s also putting a thin red streak down one side of photos. So…

I’ve decided to buy an SLR, and have officially put the project on hold until it arrives. This might require a bit of backtracking (remember those #$%^&* depth of field exercises?) but at least I’ll have a fighting chance.

In the meantime, I feel I’ve brought you here on false pretenses. So, I’m going to upload some of my pre-lesson photos. Feel free to comment, but you’re under no obligation.

Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you when I’ve got my SLR in hand and figured out.

The lesson: In Lesson 3, we looked at the different effects you can achieve with different lenses — from fish eye to wide angle. We also looked at how aperture can affect the depth of field, either blurring the background or foreground for effect. Coston also stressed the importance of a tripod. (Note to self: get a bloody tripod and stop balance the camera on books or stacked coasters.)

The assignment: There were two assignments this week. The first was to take a photo using the widest possible and longest possible lenses. The composition was supposed to be interesting. The second assignment was to take a photos where your subject was in focus and the background was blurred, and a second were everything was in focus.

My results: They stank. My camera is sooooo autmatic I can’t force it to make “mistakes”. I fiddled with the zoom but couldn’t get the distance required to show off the 15X zoom. So I dug into my archives and came out with a practice shot from May when I was in Nova Scotia.

The first three shots are zoom practice.

The rest of the shots are me trying to get shallow and deep focus. You aren’t seeing things. I used a carved wooden puffin and a ceramic sheep (same one from the abstract shot on Lesson 1). I figured they wouldn’t move and would provide different textures. Is it just me or are the results somewhat creepy?

The closer together the two figures were, the less obvious the blur was. The further away, the more obvious the blur. Regardless of their proximity, I found the lighting changed even though I didn’t move the camera. Very frustrating. And as I said before, kinda creepy…

This is another practice session. I was playing with composition and light more than aperture and shutter speed. For some reason, the portrait-style shots show up as landscape. I can’t rotate them. Anyone know the fix?

I don’t expect you to comment on all 18 shots, but if something jumps out at you (good or bad) I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Just click on the thumbnail to see a larger version.

Why the switch? The previous URL was too close to my website’s URL and I didn’t want to confuse editors.

Thanks for understanding.

I promise not to do this kind of thing again.

Jill SoO gave me stellar feedback, which forced me to look at my camera’s features more closely. How do I blur the background? What could I have done to eliminate that shadow? While my Sony Cybershot DCS-H9 is not an SLR, it has all sorts of settings I’ve been too confused to use. Jill’s comments tied in beautifully with this week’s lesson.

Thanks, Jill, wherever and whoever you are.

The lesson: This week, in Lesson 2, we looked at aperture, shutter speed and how the two features work together to create a variety of effects.

The assignment: There were three assignments this week. The first two were tasks to see how adjusting aperture and shutter speed affects the photo. These shots were instructional, not artistic. The third assignment was to play with the shutter speed and create an interesting effect.

My results: I really struggled with the super-fast shots. My camera has a delay between the time I push the button and the time it takes the shot. This made it almost impossible to capture a drop of milk (500 shots and I’m still trying to get a perfect “crown”), a spinning coin (gave up) or playful cat (unremarkable at best). I also couldn’t focus well if I used the zoom feature, so I couldn’t get in close for dripping milk or splashing water shots without getting my lense wet.

Also, my flash created shadows at the bottom of the picture. I’ve had to crop most of these photos severely. I started out copying Coston shamelessly, and in doing so learned I really need to buy a tripod.

Without further ado, here are some shots I took. Click on the thumbnail to read a description of the shot and how it was taken.