The End of WSP

Winter Study ends tomorrow. That's too bad. I like Winter Study. It seems like it flew by, too. I didn't even get to read very much. That's really the saddest thing.

Megan voted for the Andy on the left. Yay, Megan! I will now proceed to print the one on the left out in 6x9. That's right, Megan has just that much power and influence. I printed a different one out in 3.5x5, but the next one will be 6x9.

We had a very interesting long-term project, which was to photograph one thing in different light. I chose part of the view out my window, specifically Mount Greylock, because I figured that would ensure that I would be able to take pictures in many different lights. I ended up with 32 pictures, and about 10 different kinds of light (since I often took several at a time). Here are some examples.



Same view, very different pictures.

I've learned a lot of things about taking pictures over the past few weeks. If I took the care to read the camera manual carefully, I would have learned many of them without having to take a class, but alas, I didn't read the manual, so it was good I took the class. Most of the image size stuff we learned I already knew from being the xc photo person and just generally taking and editing lots of photos in my life, but it's always good to have a review. Now I know what "resample bicubic" means.

Here are some things I didn't know:

1. You can change the shutter speed and aperture (opening size) on a digital camera. Also, there are modes called shutter priority and aperture priority that work really well.

2. There is this thing called ISO that determines the sensitivity of the camera. On film this is apparently called "speed" (i.e., 800 speed film) although I'm not sure why. It makes a huge difference in the way the picture turns out.

3. You can change the intensity of the flash. Like if it's making everyone's faces shiny, you can turn it down. A picture taken with the flash turned down actually looks fine, unlike pictures taken with regular flash, which look awful.

4. A camera in auto mode figures out its settings based on the assumption that the average tone in the picture that you're taking is "medium." Amazingly enough, the average tone in most pictures actually is medium.

Well, I guess that's enough of the enlightenment for now.

Except wait, one more thing. There are some good photography websites out there that actually teach a lot about pictures. Here are some links. Check them out.

Luminous Landscape (especially the tutorials)
Radiant Vista (especially the daily critique)
Explorers of Light (pretty awesome photographs)