Slow Shutter Speed

    I feel these two images I took really goes with the spooky halloween season. To achieve this eerie look I used a slower shutter speed. Once I pressed the shutter release button I made exaggerated movements so that I wasn't supper blurry and so that you could see what was going for instead of just the whole image being ghostly.
    For the first image I set my camera on a tripod and put the shutter for a few seconds. Once I pressed the shutter release button I stayed facing front for a fraction of a second then I turned my head to the left for a fraction of a second then finally I turned my had right for a fraction of a second. I made sure to stay in those positions for a little so that the sensor could capture that I stopped moving. If I continuously moved my head without stoping for a movement, my head/ face would have been completely blurry.
    For the second image I still had my camera on a tripod and the shutter set for a few seconds. I pressed the shutter release button and stop still looking at the car for a fraction of a second. Then I quickly brought my hands to cover my face for last possible fraction of a second. Since I moved my hands last second they appear ghostly. This allowed for my eyes, nose, and mouth to be seen through my hands.
     I really enjoyed experimenting with long shutter speeds with movement. It created images that made people who aren't so familiar with the camera ask how I achieved these images. I'm definitely going to create more photographs using a slower shutter speed.
 

Reaction Paper #1

   When we went to the library to check out a photography book, I picked out Land, Sky, and All That Is Within; Visionary Photographers In The Southwest by James L. Enyeart. This book caught my eye because it shows pictures of and talks about nature landscaped. I enjoy landscape photographs so I immediately became intrigued by this book. In the book it shows photographs from photographers in the southwest such as Ansel Adams, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Edward Curtis to name a few.
   The book has different sections that shows the photographers photographs and then talks about the motivation and artistic value of the photographs. There's a section of the book that is titled Fragment of Reality which touches on Edward Curtis's photographs documenting the North American tribes and how he staged the photographs so that it was the desired effect. He would dress the Native Americans in costumes and romanticized the landscapes. I felt this was interesting in that even nature, which is relatively known as being the truth, could still be manipulated in photographs to convey a message and give off an emotion.
    This book orders the images not by the photographer but by the location that the photographs were taken. I like that a it;s put together in that way because some photographers have taken images at the same location and seeing them side by side lets you see the different perspectives. It also allows you to see how certain southwestern state looked with all the different photographers work being put together. It makes me feel that I've been to that stat
e and saw the magnificent landscapes.

White Balance

    For an assignment I had to go out and take pictures in different lighting situations using different white balances. This was to see how different white balances effect to the color of an image in certain lighting.
    These two photographs of the deer I shot this during an overcast sky using the daylight and auto white balance settings. The first image I used the daylight setting which in this situation made the image warmer. The auto setting made the image cooler in color. For the overcast sky I noticed that the daylight white balance gave                                       the image a better color then the auto.

    These two photographs of the yellow flowers I took at dusk using the daylight and auto white balance settings again. In this situation the daylight and auto setting came out very similar. Though it is noticeable that the auto white balance image (which is the second image of the two flowers) has a slightly warmer tone. In this situation the auto setting was the better choice for white balance.

Butterfly

   I was out taking photographs for an assignment about the placing of subjects in the composition. At first i was focusing on the white flowers until a butterfly landed.
   I'm so thrilled with how the photographs are composed. In the first image I have a few of the white and yellow flowers in the upper corner of the image and then the  orange butterfly in the lower corner. I feel this makes your interest go to the corner where the most color is and then spend to the rest of the image where the white and yellow flowers are.





   In the second image I had the butterfly directly in the center. I wanted the main focus to be on the beautiful orange butterfly. I made sure the butterfly was in sharp focus and I used a shallow depth of field so that the background would be blurred.