Posts: katkase | Ugly Hedgehog

SOLICITING YOUR INPUT... WHICH ONE FOR CALENDAR ENTRY

I liked the Wild Western Sky.

Aug 11, 2013 23:02:01 #

Dapper snapper snapped

I like the monochrome photo the best.

Jul 13, 2013 03:30:47 #

I'll show you mine...if you'll show me yours!

pixbyjnjphotos wrote:

Your pictures are gorgeous. Here is one of mine that I put on a different background.

That was a good idea, it came out gorgeous.

Jul 13, 2013 03:29:03 #

I'll show you mine...if you'll show me yours!

Here are two more.

Rhodies

Daisy

Jul 13, 2013 03:26:07 #

I'll show you mine...if you'll show me yours!

Here are my sets

Dew on Yellow Rose

Dew on Red Rose

Dew on Sedum

Jul 10, 2013 17:03:30 #

MID-WEEK CHALLENGE: 7/10/13 - 7/12/13 - "Food Photography"

I wanted to make a paper mache bowl and the inside of the bowl I wanted to look like an orange half. So this was my inspiration. I rather like this photo. the second one, I used a pillow case for the inside of my paper mache bowl as an experiment.

half cut orange

Whole oranges in a bowl

Jul 10, 2013 16:55:28 #

Shaggy Dog

The choice of monochrome does work very well. Handsome dog.

Jul 10, 2013 16:50:58 #

A few shots today, no birds but lots of wings

What a great series, just to show that the smallest of creatures are just as beautiful.

Jul 9, 2013 14:41:00 #

'The digital camera has destroyed the craft of photography'?

Dlevon wrote:

Then he's a lousy photographer! Spectacular is in the minds eye! One guy's spectacular is another guys mud. If I had to take six hundred rolls of film to get three shots that I thought were perfect, in my minds eye, then there's something wrong.

Have you tried to take photos of the great outdoors? One does not have the luxury of really composing that one shot if you are shooting wildlife. You are stuck with "what is". You are at a vantage point and your quarry will move in directions that may not be conducive for that perfect shot. It will take many shots to get that one. A landscape is another ball of wax altogether and you can take your time in the composition. No one can really judge why a photographer does what they do. If it brings the results that they need, then we who are not in their shoes need to keep our mouths shut.

Jul 8, 2013 14:33:04 #

'The digital camera has destroyed the craft of photography'?

I have been taking photos since 1978 and had 3 SLR bodies. Even when film had to be processed and time to wait for the results, there were great photographers, good photographers, mediocre photographers and bad photographers. Digital cameras have just made photography cheaper. I am sure many improved their styles and photography with instant playback, and I am sure many got better enjoyment of the medium. If you saw the news of the Asiana plane crash in San Francisco, the news used the footage of a smart phone user. Without that, the crash would not have been recorded. Many local news casts have used footage from video phones. The great photographer will always be great because he/she will use the same care that they did pre-digital. I have seen an explosion of good photographers out there and I think it has just changed the way we see things a lot faster. But changing the culture, that is open to debate.

Adobe's Cloud subscription grows faster than expected

Jun 26, 2013 17:02:11 #

(Links and Resources)

russelray wrote:

All of life is about priorities. I don't smoke, drink coffee, or go to Starbucks. I do have a beer a day, and I go out to eat twice a week. I do not have a smartypants phone. Thus I have a lot of money to spend on things in my life that I want that others might not. The best digital photo editing software is one of those things (although I also have Lightroom 4, PaintShop Pro X6, and Photo-Paint X6).

That may be true, but 1t $50.00 a month just for one software, how about the rest, are we in a position for many to pay for software that in the future might cost us more than $200.00 to use? If you consider all the companies out there who will want their fair share of the pot that will be a lot of $50.00's they will ask us ordinary mortals to pay. The prices will have to come down or at least make it easier for us to afford the future.

Adobe's Cloud subscription grows faster than expected

Jun 26, 2013 16:40:14 #

(Links and Resources)

I can see where software is going and if we have to pay for every software every month, we would be looking at very expensive bills and we would have to really choose what we need and not want. It will not be sustainable for many people. For the ordinary user, the computer will be to expensive to use. I would be going to the library a whole lot more. they may have a lot of users now, but how long will this be sustainable? Only time will tell.

Jun 11, 2013 18:51:41 #

Beginner...staying encouraged :(

FredB wrote:

Slow down. Don't try to be perfect. Learn the 'mechanics' first - the relationship between lens aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity. Take a lens and set it at one particular focal length, if a zoom somewhere in the middle of the range, 35mm to 50mm to maybe 85mm. Now, practice at that length, just taking pictures of stuff - your back yard, a street, a couple of people walking around, whatever. Don't worry about composition or whether or not other people will like the picture. Take the same shot at f/4, f/8, f/11 and f/16 or varieties like that (in your camera'S aperture priority mode). Let the camera set the ISO and shutter. What you are trying to do here is see what the different aperture settings do to your shot - how they change the focus area, the depth of field, etc. It's important to take the same scene over again - and it will help if it's a scene with some depth. Don't use a brick wall four feet in front of you, in other words.

At this point, don't worry about taking a 'good shot' - worry about understanding how aperture settings affect a scene, why f/2.8 is good for portraits but lousy for landscapes, why f/22 makes those nice little points of light at night, why those birthday cake candles look so much nicer at ISO 800 than ISO 100.

Take your time. Everything will still be there tomorrow.

Once you have a basic understanding of how shutter speed and aperture and ISO all work together (it won't take long), then you can take a scene and look at it and think what settings would best represent that particular scene at that particular time.

Take your time. Everything will still be there tomorrow.

Once you see how 1/200th of a second at f/4 is different from 1/200th at f/16, you'll begin to grasp the mechanics of the thing.

Once you see how ISO 100 is different from ISO 1200, you'll see how the ISO, or sensitivity, plays into the picture.

Take your time. Everything will still be there tomorrow.
(starting to get the idea here?...lol)

When you look at pictures you like, try to grasp what the shooter did to take that shot - did s/he use a wide open aperture or a closed down one? Was it a quick shutter or a slow one? Was it a bright daylight shot probably at ISO 100, or an evening shot at ISO 4000?

Don't get discouraged. Yet. Now, do all that, and come back to us in a year. If you're still shooting crap, take up another hobby.. :) (just kidding there, you should never take internet advice.)

Slow down. Don't try to be perfect. Learn the 'mec... (show quote)

This advice is spot on and if you take it, you will find yourself really enjoying photography. When I got my first SLR in 1978, I read the manual and one of the things to do it said, was to preview at the scene. It showed a post coming out of the girl's head. a few weeks later, my mother, brother and I were walking up the foothills of Tucson, AZ. My brother was sitting on a high rock and I took his photo. Can you guess what I did not do? Exactly, I did not preview the scene and there was this huge cactus coming out of his head. I just read that not to long ago. It h as not stopped me and I have had a few posts along the way that would have been nice if they were not coming out of my subject's head. But I learned and occasionally I still make that same mistake.

May 29, 2013 13:01:59 #

Colour or B&W really cant decide

To tell you the truth, neither can I. They are both wonderfully done and each of the photos have their merits. The color photo show the richness of the colors and lighting, but the black and white show the dramatic part of the pose and break it down to a more basic form. they are both dramatic, and they both show the model to her best. So, I like them both.

May 26, 2013 15:46:52 #

How did you learn

TrikeGuy wrote:

Hi everyone. I'm new to photography. I'm trying to find out how you people learned the art of photography. I have seen ads for various schools and books but have decided to try to get some feedback from people who have been doing this for a while before I spend the dollars for these items.

Thanks, TrikeGuy

Hi TrikeGuy, I got my first SLR when I was living in Tucson, AZ in 1979. When I got that camera in the mail, I was so excited that I was going to take the photographic world by storm. I went out and took some photos of my mother under the acacia tree, drawing with the shadows of the tree all over my mother and her drawing pad. I took one photo of a rose growing in the yard. I eagerly took that roll of film to be developed, and realized in looking at the photos, I had to wait to take the world by storm. The only usable photo of the entire roll was that rose photo. That was many years and rolls ago. I have had my fair share of turkeys and fair share of gold. And in the process edited out tons of photos to the trash. It becomes fun as your mistakes are the point of where you want to change and what your style is. It only comes with experience and doing. This process does not happen overnight. One example I can give is this: I decided I was going to photograph the bees in my yard and have done so for a few years and I might say have done very well. Let me tell you the ratio of my photos. For every 100 bee photos, I took, 80 were ok, bad and not up to expectations and deleted. the next 20 were better but only 10 of those 20 were really usable and two or three were great. Of the thousands of bee photos I took, I deleted almost 80% of them. I had to learn how to get the bees in peak motion and that took a long time. I liked what I was doing and it was fun for me.

Bee on Lavender Flower