Who Let the Dogs Out?

This week's post is going to be about..... ANIMALS. As I blatantly gave away in last week's entry.... And I am apologizing now, but some of these pictures are going to be of my adorable doggie Riley. She's the black lab border collie who has a derp face in almost all her pictures.... BUT SHE IS JUST SO WONDERFUL AND YOU CAN'T HAVE HER BECAUSE SHE'S MINE. Now that that's established, time to talk photo.

So, you're out and about, you have your camera with you. You see an energetic, fast-moving dog and want to snap a few pics of it. Are you going to set a low slow shutter speed?

NO.

Great, now you know to use a fast shutter speed if it's a fast-paced animal. But you're asking yourself, "They won't stop moving! How will I ever get a good shot?"

STAY. You sit and wait.

Until you have the perfect shot. These pictures below probably each took at least 15 snaps before I got one I liked.

But Merideth, what if they're not moving? AWESOME. Less work for you. You can move around, find good angles, and snap away. The animals are sleeping, you say? EVEN BETTER. Everyone loves sleeping animals, so snap away. JUST DON'T WAKE THEM UP. A shutter can be noisy, so keep that in mind before you get too close.

This week was kind of a short, but hopefully informative post. I will recap for you

Animal Photography

• Use a fast shutter speed when trying to capture a fast-moving animal, not unless you want a motion blur
• Don't be afraid to wait awhile or to snap a lot of pictures. It's better to overshoot, then delete the bad images later.
• Even if an animal is sleeping, it's still interesting. So hit the shutter!
• If you're trying to take a picture of an animal through a cage, say at a zoo, it's going to be almost impossible to not have the fencing show up in the image. I try to have the animal's eyes not in a line of the fence, so that the eyes aren't crossed out by a black line (If confused, look at the mountain lion and lion pictures above).
• MAKE SURE WHATEVER ANIMAL YOU ARE PHOTOGRAPHING DOES NOT LICK YOUR LENS. It sucks. It happens, but try to prevent it if you can. Why am I mentioning this? Because my dumb dog did this.

Yes, this adorable doggie licked my lens. SO DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU.

Also, call me shameless, but please share this blog with your friends, family, and anyone you know interested in photography.

Thanks guys!

Au Naturale

This week's post will focus on nature photography. These pictures will not include animals, which will be next week's post topic (Spoiler Alert).

As shown above, landscape pictures do not need to be taken in a landscape orientation. You can have a picture going vertical (portrait style) as well. It all depends on what you want your frame to be. The time of day you take a landscape picture is crucial. If you go out to shoot at noon, all of you pictures will look flat, not dynamic. Good times to take nature pictures would be right around when the sun comes up or right around when the sun goes down. Sunsets and sun rises are really easy and really fun to take pictures of. As you can see from above, I love taking them. But just be careful, there is a limited amount of time when taking pictures of sunsets or sun rises, like 20 minutes max. You can notice differences within one minute of each other. So wait for the right moment.

 





Close ups are also a neat way to capture nature's beauty. Blurring out backgrounds by lowering your f-stop really adds emphasis to your subject. In this case, it is with flowers, an excellent subject for beginning photographers to shoot. They stay put, always look pretty, and will look good from a variety of angles. It gives you time to adjust your exposure settings and find different angles.

Here are the key takeaways:

• Don't be afraid to turn your camera sideways to get a portrait orientation as opposed to a landscape
• Really think about the time of day you go out to shoot
• Flat lighting looks boring
• Try for sunsets and sunrises!
• Don't be afraid to get up close!
• Blurry backgrounds can really emphasize a subject, such as with flowers

Look forward to next's week post on photographing animals!

And if you ever have recommendations for topics, please let me know. Just a busy college student who is quickly running out of ideas...

Portrait Photography

This week's post will be about portraiture. Candid, posed, whatever you decide. A portrait does not simply need to be a person's face, awkwardly smiling into the camera. Make it whatever you want; change it up. Here's a link to some basics of a portrait shoot.

A portrait should say something about the subject. Time for a little quiz! (Stop your groaning, I can hear you.) Look at the three above images. Can you guess a characteristic about each of these girls? I'll help you out. Image one: Asian American, likes to read, and really enjoys art, especially things pertaining to her culture, as displayed in the pictures in the background. Image two: this girl plays hockey, is a good student. and is one of my good friends. ISN'T SHE PRETTY? Third image: she is from Canada, loves her friends and family, as shown in the pictures on the wall.

Play with lighting! It can honestly make or break an image. If it works right, it will look LEGEN-wait for it-DARY (You better get this reference, if not, we can't be friends anymore). Shadows at night are a ton of fun. Also, it can still be considered a portrait, even if you can't see the face (Example - top left picture). 

Candids are a fun way to surprise your friends and then they thank you later because the picture came out really good and they end up using your picture as a new profile picture. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back for it. Anyways.... just keep snapping that shutter, one of 'em is bound to be good, right? Here are some of my winners:

 And now for the scariest of all portraits: THE SELF-PORTRAIT. And no, I'm not talking about selfies in the mirror or using Snapchat on your smart phone. I am talking about thinking about an image, and all the components of it, and then hitting the shutter. 

Below will be my self-portraits. Please do not be heartless. I get scared enough putting up my regular images on the web, and now here I am, showing you how I perceive myself. Remember, portraits tell you something about a person. I'm letting you into my life, take me as I am. 

Look at the emotion, the eyes, the smile. Do you feel something when you look at these images? I hope so. Black and white to intense colors. Happy to sad, action to still. Taking pictures of yourself makes you vulnerable to other people's opinions? What do you think?

Recap for today!

Tips for portrait photography:

• Capture some sort of emotion, even if you can't see the face in the frame.
• Try to make it your goal to understand a little bit about the person from the image. What did you learn about the person?
• Remember that the face doesn't even need to be seen. Sometimes, it works to your advantage and adds a bit of mystery to the image.
• Don't be afraid to mess around with lighting. I think I say this all the time, but it's so true. Try to shoot outside as much as possible; the lighting is so much better and you get to use a lower ISO. If you read last week's post, you'll remember that the lower the ISO, the less grainy your picture will look.
• Candids aren't planned; they just happen. And I think that's the best part about them. People look surprisingly pretty when they aren't aware there's a camera focused on them. There's no fake smile, no pretend poses; it's just natural.
• For self-portraits, don't be afraid to really show emotion. I'm crying in one of them for goodness sake! 
• Admit it, no one can take a good picture every time they are photographed, except for him...
• So just take a ton of pictures without looking at any of them in between shots, and then cross your fingers and hope that one of them is good! Don't be afraid of looking ugly. Express yourself. Show a part of your life through the image.
• And like I say every week: HAVE FUN! Seriously, do it. Otherwise, what's the point?

SPORTZ

Greetings fellow readers!

As request from a good friend of mine, and in light of the Superbowl, this blog post will be dedicated to sports photography. Star players include my little sister, my best friend, my wonderful rugby team teammates, and random people that I have no idea who they are and if I was ever to publish my pictures, would be in deep trouble because I don't have their names for publishing rights. 

ISO 3200; f4.8; 1/125 second

So this picture is nice, right? That's it, though. It's nice. Not awful, but not front page material. Why?? There's no movement; no sense of action. It's static. That's the trick with sports photography. You want to freeze the moment, or show motion through blurs. 

ISO 3200; f5; 1/100 second

Look! Motion! More interesting right? Slower shutter speed, for a little more blur, makes all the difference. Just make sure everything's not blurry, because then it's not a picture, it's crap. Just kidding, but still, focus is important.

ISO 1600; f5.6; 1/800 second

I am now going to contradict myself by saying you don't always need blur. Sometimes "freezing" the moment is what you need to make the perfect image. Here, water droplets are flying in the air, and you're just waiting for this swimmer to do as Dory does, and "just keep swimming." 

ISO 1600; f4.8; 1/800second

 Another cool example of freezing the moment (and a shameless plug for you to look at more of my photography). This image would've been better if I blurred the background by changing my f-stop, but I wasn't thinking clearly because there were just so many scantily-clad, buff men strutting about.

So if you've been actually reading the exposure settings under each picture, you'll notice that the ISO has been fairly high. Why, do you ask? Well I will tell you, because I want to try and educate you on the wonderful world of photography. (If you understand ISO, you can stop reading now) ISO is the camera sensor's sensitivity to light. The higher the number, the more sensitive it is. So, if it's bright out, you use a low ISO, and if it's at night or inside, use a high ISO, hence the large numbers in the above pictures. The next set of pictures are outside, so I used a low ISO.

ISO 400; f8; 1/2000 second

Faces can make or break a shot. It's up to you if it works in this shot. HINT, I'M TALKING ABOUT THE GIRL ON THE RIGHT. I KNOW IT'S MEAN BUT SHE JUST LOOKS SO FUNNY.

ISO 400; f11; 1/2000 second

Yah, I don't know what to say about this one, other than that it is bad ass. Wahoo! Go George Washington Women's Rugby!

ISO 800; f8; 1/2000 second

ISO 800; f8; 1/2000 second

 

ISO 800; f8; 1/2000 second

 Key things to remember for sports photography:

• To get more movement and more blur, use a slower shutter speed
• To freeze a moment in time, such as water splashing, use a faster shutter speed
• If you're shooting a game outside, use a lower ISO if it's sunny
• If you're shooting inside, use a higher ISO; Indoor lighting is the worst
• Try to get a variety of shots with different angles
• If the sport uses a ball, make sure the ball is in the frame
• If the sport you're shooting is not a common sport, say rugby, make sure the picture makes sense without someone knowing the game. For example, ascrum isn't too exciting to photograph and a common viewer won't understand what's going on

Hope this has been informative. Please comment with future blog ideas!