mountains and more.

My family went down to Whitefish, Montana this Christmas Break, so I was able to take some pictures of the beautiful mountains and scenery. The view was just fantastic, however I do wish that I could have taken my camera up to the summit, as the view from up there was even more stunning. Alas, I did not trust my first-time-skiing abilities enough to bring my camera with me! So here are a few of my favourites...

 

As you can probably see in many of my pictures, I absolutely love capturing clouds in my landscapes. In my opinion, the entirely different texture adds to the pictures, more often than not.  I am also a big fan of the swirly grey background that clouds create.

I do love how the white snow is in such a contrast with the trees as well, giving it an (almost) black and white feel.

 

 

I also, as always, try to keep the rule of thirds going. This however, is more apparent in some pictures than in others.

 

 

 



 This last one would probably be my favourite if not for one thing: Those darn wires in the bottom left corner. I probably could do something about them if I was good at editing, but seeing as I cannot, there they shall stay. Ah well, if you squint you can't really see them, right? :p But the blues of the mountains mixing with the grey sky, and framed by the harsher black (or dark green) and white of the trees and snow? Beautiful.

Frosty pics

Yesterday the frost was just beautiful, so I decided to try out my new macro lens attachment again. I was very pleased with the results so here they are! I tried to keep the rule of thirds going, and I love how the sharpness of the subject has such a contrast with the blurred background.

 

 



Choosing

Well as far as buying a lens goes, I'm a bit behind schedule. However I have narrowed it down (finally!) to 3 main ones.

1.  AF-S DX Nikkor 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 ED VR                                                           
    $649.95

 

 

 

This is the lens that I am leaning most towards. I am a bit hesitant because it is the most expensive out of the 3, but after doing a lot of research and reading hundreds of reviews this seems like it is pretty much exactly what I am looking for.

- The Focal length range is 18-140mm, which is nice and versatile. I was originally looking for a higher maximum focal length of around 200mm, but most of those lenses have a minimum focal range of around 55m which can sometimes be difficult when working indoors. Having such a high minimum also lessens certain photography opportunities such as some landscapes, etc. Since I want a lens that I can use for many things without having to switch lenses often, I really like the 18-140mm range.

-It has a metal mount, as apposed to a plastic mount. This simply makes it stronger, and able to resist small bumps, and also gives it more strength to hold different lens ends that I have. Reading reviews there are dozens of stories about plastic mounts simply breaking off of the camera, and as I plan to this lens for travelling, I figured the stronger the better! Better to pay a bit more now than pay even more later to get it fixed.

-Has vibration reduction. Most do, but I consider it very important! Especially because I am not going to always use a tripod.

-It is fantastic for everyday shooting, and good for wide-range photographic opportunities. Very versatile. Which is perfect for me, as I don't really stick to just one type of photography.

 

-Reviews are the best out of all the other lenses I looked in to. Obviously this is not what I base my research off of, but it is nice to know that others were pleased with it!

2. AF-S DX Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6 G IF-ED

$329.95

 

 -The price is a bit less scary for this one, which is nice.

 

-This lens has a focal length range of 55-200mm. I really like the maximum of 200mm. However the fact that the minimum is 55mm is a bit of a turn off for me, seeing as this would make indoor shooting, or other kinds of photography, difficult in some cases.

 

-Has built in vibration reduction.

 

-Has a plastic mount.

 

-It is a great lens, with a great price, and the reviews are not bad.

 

 

3. AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED VR

$379.95



 

 

-I am liking the price for this one as well.

 

-The minimum focal length is 18mm, which is extremely nice, and the maximum range is 105mm, which is good. Not as high as I had hoped for, so this one is probably my last choice out of the 3.

 

-Has built in vibration reduction.

 

-Plastic mount. Which I could totally be happy with, however as you know I would much prefer a metal mount.

 

-Reviews are okay, however there are many that say the plastic mount caused it to break off of their camera very easily.

 

 

 

So its pretty obvious which lens I like the most (lens #1). It is a fair bit more expensive than the other 2, but I will be using it very often and (hopefully) will not regret buying it. However as it is not set in stone that I am actually going to choose that one, I figured I would post all 3 just to keep my options open. So hopefully I will pick one by the end of this week! If you have any thoughts or advice for me, feel free to comment, I would love all the advice I can get!

Portraits...

Hundreds of photographs have been piling up on my memory card for quite some time now, so I figured it was time to post a few more. As you can see, these pictures have been taken before the snow decided to arrive, but better to post them late than never!

These portraits, like most of the ones I take, are of my sisters (they are easily bribed, and are usually around during a moment of photography inspiration :) ) For this first one, I really loved the sun spots and streaks, and for the most part the entire picture. However I am not a fan of the rather distracting background.

 

Looking back I wish that I had just altered my angle a touch, to avoid the busyness of it all, as it is rather distracting and takes attention away from Nicole. The various fence lines and angles don't help the picture very much either.

 

For this next picture I tried to learn from my mistakes, and tried to allow the background to complement the subject (Kyra, this time) rather than take away from her.

 



 

The clouds in the background are interesting enough to add to the picture, but not too busy to take away from the portrait aspect of it. Leading to an altogether more professional looking photograph.

 

 

And as for this next one, its one of my favourites, so I thought I'd share it!

 



More low lighting

Seeing as I had a lot of fun with using low lighting last time, I decided to experiment with it a bit further, this time using a macro lens attachment that my Grandpa gave to me. This allowed me to focus on things that were very close to the end of my lens. I'd say it turned out pretty well, and I loved experimenting with the ISO to get the perfect amount of light in the picture.

 

For this picture, I had the ISO set to 3200, with a shutter speed of 1/15 of a second.

 

A lot of photographers that I have read articles on, or know personally have very different thoughts on having light spots, or "sun spots" in their photography. As it is hard or impossible to control (at least at my level) I understand how some think they are a nuisance. Personally, however, I can't get enough of sun spots. I love how they add to a picture and give it a more artistic feel, as well as giving the viewer more to look at. The spots in this picture is one of the reasons I like it so much, it turned a plain boring old picture into something beautiful.

Working with low lighting

The past couple weeks I have been fiddling around with low lighting photography. I have always loved the look of it, but have never managed to take one that I was really happy with. So after doing a bit of research I decided to seriously give it a try, and am extremely happy with the results! A special thanks to my sister who was my guinea pig for this rather time consuming experiment,  and had to sit extremely still as I spent forever with changing my camera settings.

These first two here are my favourite. I had the shutter speed set to 1/4 of a second, and an ISO of 400, which worked out really well! Since the shutter speed was longer than normal and I do not have a tripod, it was a bit tricky to keep the pictures from becoming blurry, but it all worked out in the end.The light that you see is coming from a small window in our basement, and I especially love the way that the light caught perfectly in the details of her scarf.

 

And for this one I decided to try some black and white...

 



We also had some fun trying crazy things with the different settings. She turned her head once, not knowing I was taking a picture and it turned out pretty neat, in my opinion. I had my shutter speed set at 3 seconds at that time, with an ISO of 1600, and although its blurry and really doesn't follow any of the photography "rules" I just love the different feel that it has! Almost ethereal, with the way that you can see two faces...

 



So that's about all I have so far with this type of photography! An article that I found helpful can be found at http://www.discoverdigitalphotography.com/2014/low-key-photography-tips/ so check it out! And as always, feel free to post comments and suggestions, I would love to hear from you and get some advice!

What I am looking for.

So what I am looking for is pretty much a lens that is a bit of a step up from the kit lens that I currently have (which is an AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR) So here are a few things that I am hoping to find in a potential new one!

Focal Length Range
One of the main things that I am looking for is one with a bit of a better focal length range (or "zoom") because as the 18-55mm is great for lots of everyday things, there are many times where a bit more zoom would be extremely helpful. Whether its for photographing nature or people, or anything really, it's always nice not to be so tied down with not being able to get as close as you like without physically getting closer to the subject. On the Nikon website I found an article that used a brilliant visual representation of different focal lengths.

http://en.nikon.ca/Learn-And-Explore/Article/g3cu6o2o/understanding-focal-length.html

So as you can see, my 18-55mm lens has some zoom, but I am hoping to upgrade to one that has a maximum zoom of around 135mm to 200mm. Once you start getting to the higher focal lengths you need to start using a tripod in order to avoid shaky or blurry pictures, and since I am looking for a "walk- around" lens I am not going worry about spending extra for a maximum focal length that I will rarely use, seeing as I am not going to carry a tripod around with me.

VR Image Stabilizer

A must for any lens that I am thinking about buying, is that it has to have VR (Vibration Reduction) Image stabilizer. Almost all lenses do, but it is definitely a great thing to have when you are not using a tripod (which is pretty much all the time in my case!)

 I also need an AF-S lens, because my camera does not have a built in focus motor.

 

Metal mount vs Plastic

Another (minor) thing that I am looking for in a lens is a metal mount, rather than a plastic mount. What that means is that the part of the lens that attaches to the camera will be metal, and thus a good deal stronger and able to withstand small bumps and such. While researching through some lens reviews I came across literally dozens of stories about the horrors of plastic mounts, and how, in some cases, the smallest bump will make the lens literally break off of the camera. (Yikes!) So considering I would like to keep this lens for a while and hope to use it for travelling and such, it would probably be worth the price increase to get a metal mount rather than risk paying more money later to fix a plastic one.

 

And as for the price range... Well I'm not quite sure yet. I don't really want to set one until I have an absolute idea of what I am going for!

 

So obviously this post did not include all  of the important aspects to a lens, but its a start! I have currently reduced the amount of lenses that I may be interested in to 5, and I will definitely be looking into much closer detail in order to pick the one that's right for me!

Landscapes! and avoiding dull ones....

So today I am going to talk about landscape. The idea of doing landscape photography was never my favourite, because sometimes it seems like the picture just doesn't compare to the real thing. Plus all too often the image turns out looking flat and two dimensional.  But I decided to work on it first, mostly because of the beautiful fall colours that leave all too soon. So I did some research, and read some great articles that helped me to learn new tricks and techniques, which (I hope) worked! So here are the two techniques that I used the most in exploring landscapes:


1. Having a Focal Point
One thing that I overlooked all too often with landscape photography, is that you still need a main "subject" or focal point. This adds more depth to the picture, avoiding the flat, two dimensional look. So here are a few of my recent pics, my favourites are from a beautiful cloudy day last week. Focal point included! And, of course, the rule of thirds as well... although sometimes you just need to break that rule.

 

 

 

 

 

 Decided to have some fun with this next one and adjust the colour a bit:

 

 

 

2. Using Lines

Another technique is to use leading lines to guide the viewers through the picture, giving their eyes something to follow. In these pictures I used lines on roads. They are not my favourite photographs, but they do the trick!



 

 

 

And one of my favourite things about techniques, is that sometimes you can just break those rules and have fun with it!

 

 

So that concludes my exploration of landscape techniques, although I am certain I will use them again throughout this passion project. These pictures were actually a lot of fun to take, and I hope you enjoyed them as well. Till next time!

 

 

And check out these sweet articles that helped me out so much: http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/08/29/dull-landscapes-simple-in-camera-tricks-to-add-depth-to-your-photos/

 

http://digital-photography-school.com/5-tips-for-shooting-landscapes-with-greater-impact/





 

Getting Started

Well I have lots of pictures piling up on my camera, so I guess nows the time to officially start!

One thing that I find extremely different about this passion project compared to the art blog I had last year, is that with photography its a lot more difficult to stick with a specific technique or idea at one time. One day I went out thinking that I was going to work on landscape, and I ended up doing portraits and sunsets as well, with all sorts of lighting stuff mixed in! It is definitely not a bad thing, I just need to maybe tweak my ways of thinking about my goals a bit... And its also a big part of photography I suppose, because if your inspired then your inspired, and you see different opportunities all over the place! Besides, I find the best pictures are always the "spur of the moment" ones anyways.
So I will hopefully get around to posting some pictures over the next few days (finally!)... So stay tuned! :)

This year's passion project...

Me again! So now I am in Grade 12 (woohoo!), and passion projects have started up once more. This year I have decided to something a bit different... photography! I still love doing art stuff, but I figured it would be nice to try to focus a bit more on yet another of my interests, just to mix things up a bit.

So, about Photography...
I started getting into taking pictures when I was probably around 11ish, and bought a Nikon d3100 at the age of 13 (which was one of the best purchases I have ever made). So I have been into photography for a while, and I have been hired twice in the past year and a bit, although I mainly just do it for fun. But seeing as my obsession with it goes in spurts, sadly, I haven't learned or done as much as I would like... then I figured: what better way to improve and learn that using it as my grade 12 passion project? So here I am, writing my first post of the school year and hoping that this will be as great of an opportunity as I think it will be.

My goals for this semester will not only be to improve significantly with my photography, techniques, and improve my pictures, but also to get a whole lot more experience. Another goal that I hope to accomplish is to research and buy myself a better lens for my DSLR, as the one I currently have only has a 18-55mm zoom, which isn't as much as I would like.

So hopefully all I will accomplish all of my goals, and deepen my love for photography even more while doing so!

My last post

So this brings about the end of my passion project blog. This semester is coming to a close, and although I have not been able to do all of the different art topics that I had planned to, I was able to do a fair bit. The list of things to do in this project that I had in my head was probably not very realistic, but I think that I got a good amount done in the duration of this project!
 Looking back I realize that I was more or less succesful in reaching my goal, which was simply to explore and improve overall in art.

Though I still have a long way to go to get to the point that I would like to be at, I think that I have gotten more confident in art, and I have learned some very valuable things about many different types of art. I chose to do this project on art because I enjoy it a lot, and I really wanted to improve. I would see amazing sketches or other pieces, and I would think "wow, I really wish I could do that!". I already knew the basics, and I was able to do art to an extent, but I wanted to get better and be able to do more. And I think that I did. I have learned alot of valuable things like different techniques, and I have become alot more comfortable with different types of art. Especially in sketching portraits. I also was able to explore in different things that I was not at all used to, like felting.

This project was more or less a success because it made me force myself to take time to do art. I often get a bit lazy ( I am a very skilled procrastinator, which is definitely not good!) and I don't find the time to do stuff like this. This passion project made me find the time to practise and try new things, and now I am deffinetly a lot more confident in doing artsy stuff! :)

So thanks to everyone who read this blog, I hope you enjoyed doing so.

Connecting Christianity to art...

In Bible class throughout the duration of our passion projects, we were asked to think about how what we are doing can connect to our Christian faith. I discovered that there are many things that can connect this project and art to living our lives as Christians. First of all, we can enjoy God's beauty, order, and creation through doing artwork ( especially if the art we are doing is inspired by or is a picture of nature.) by doing this we can see and recognise the beauty of creation and the fantastic order that God has created everything in. We can see more of God when we enjoy what He has made, and we can learn to see the beauty in everyday things.
Secondly, when we create we are reflecting the image of God, who is the ultimate creator. We are made in His image, so we are reflecting this when we create things ourselves, being inspired by and in awe of Him and his creation. It can even be a form of worship, in a way.
Those are just a few ways how we can connect Christianity to art. We can apply our Christian faith in all aspects of our lives, and we should, whether its our hobbies, careers, or lifestyle. That is definitely a big part of being a Christian.

Watercolour

This my first art piece for the painting unit of this passion project. I used watercolour for the painting of the white leopard, and I am pretty happy with the way that it turned out. Like I said in my last post, I am not as comfortable with watercolour paint as I am with many other types of art, but I think I did an alright job regardless.

I have had a bit of experience with watercolour in the past, and I do like several things about it. First of all, I really like that you can create a lot of different shades from a single paint colour, just by adding water. In other types of paint, you would have to add a lot of white or black paint in order to change the darkness or lightness of a colour, which takes much more time and much more paint. Watercolour is a lot simpler and more enjoyable ( at least I found that it was) because you can simply use water instead. The more water is added to the paint on the pallet, the lighter the paint colour will be, and vise versa. For example, in my painting I only used one type of paint (black) for the whole thing, except for the eyes.
Another thing that I like about watercolour is that you barely need to use any paint at all. Because you mix it with water, all you need is a tiny dot of the colour you want. This is also nice because if you mix too much of a colour ( which is what usually happens to me) you don't really waste any paint.

One thing that I don't like to much about watercolour is the fact that the paint tends to run sometime. Since it is mostly water, it is a lot thinner than other paints, I had to be careful because the paint would sometimes drip. Also, at times I moved the paint brush too quickly, and as a reward I got a spray of little paint speckles all over the page. Luckily I managed to save the painting when this happened by quickly dabbing the spots up with paper towel before the watercolour happened to sink into the paper too much.
Also, you need to be careful with how many layers of paint or water you put onto the paper. If the paper gets too wet too many times, then it starts to "disintegrate" and the paper turns from nice and smooth to slightly rough and pulpy very quickly. I used artist paper that said would work well with all types of art, including watercolour, but I wonder if actual watercolour paper would be better.

This things can, however, be easily avoided if you are more careful and comfortable with watercolour paints.

The original painting of the leopard that I looked off I got from Pinterest. The artists name isn't given, but the painting is originally from silverridgestudio on a webpage called Etsy.