Mirror Mirror on the.... Tree Stump? - Self Portrait

F-Stop: f/5.5

Shutter Speed: 1/60

ISO: 200

This photo I set up out in the woods behind my house. I positioned a group of circle mirrors on paper, taped them to cardboard square, and set them up on a tree stump in the woods. I focus in on my face in the mirror with a low depth of field, thus the stump is blurry. The mirrors did create an interesting factor of depth because I am in focus and so is the background with the canoe, because we were at relatively the same distance.

This shot was comprised of four separate photos. I posed looking at myself, or where I would edit myself in later on, so it creates and infinite circle of of movement in the picture. I got the help of my brother to pull the trigger after I had focus the camera and made sure the settings were right. I had about 30-60 shots of me in each of the 4 corners at the end of all my shooting so I was able to choose between which faces I liked the most.

I ran into a few problems when editing my face into each section of the mirror. Because of the wind outside, the mirror moved slightly between the four shots, so it was not a simple editing in of my face. I had to closely follow the side of my face on each picture because the background had changed enough that I could just use a giant circle to bring back a particular circular mirror.

Mason - Portrait of a Loved One

F-Stop: f/4.8

Shutter Speed: 1/320

ISO: 800

I took these portrait shots of my brother on the swing set. We hadn't gone over the dramatic lighting yet, so my ideas for portrait shots revolved around creative settings as opposed to creative lighting. There is still interesting shadows created but the effect is subtle because we were outside in even lighting. I focused my camera to where he would be when he swung infront of me.

I used a pretty face shutter speed so I could freeze my brother on the swing. I also used a very wide aperture so I could focus simply on my brother and nothing else. Both of the photos I took included a lot more in the picture but I cropped them both so I had a nice border along the static swing and tree. His body was cut off on the left side in both photos, because I wouldn't have intentionally cropped him in half. I know it goes against the general rule of not cropping off legs but I think given the action of being on a swing and how he is titled in turns out fine.

Glowing Sticks and Glowing People - Light Trails Night Photography

(For all above)

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 10

ISO: 400

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 10

ISO: 800

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 15

ISO: 400

I accomplished these shots with the use of flashlights, glowsticks, and phone lights. I pre-focused in on the middle of the kitchen and then turned off all the lights. Keeping a dark environment allowed only the lights I was using to be picked up by the camera. Using different combinations of glowsticks tied together on strings, we swung them around in circles/ side to side or wound them up and dropped them. I played around a little with the ISO because some lights were brighter than others, but I kept a wide aperture of 3.5 and only changed my shutter speed if I needed more time for the motion of the lights. I overlaid two of of my photos to show my brother holding a rainbow in a vortex of purple and orange.

Another technique I used was reflecting a flash light off of my phone screen onto my friends Quinn's face. This additional light allowed his face to be seen in extra detail but did not make screw up the rest of the photo.

Twinkle Twinkle... - Star Trails Night Photography

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 30.0

ISO: 1600

The above photos are a single frame and the finished product of my star trail shoot. To begin I set my camera up on a tripod and looked into the sky with a f-stop of 3.5, a shutter speed of 5 seconds, and a very high ISO. This allowed me to take test shots to get my focus perfect. After I had taken around 10 photos, slowly dialing in the focus, I started working on bringing the ISO down and and increasing the shutter speed while retaining an even exposure. Eventually I got an even exposure with a 30 second shutter speed at a 1600 ISO. I wanted to bring down the ISO as much as possible, so I could have the least amount of grain, but I still needed a relatively short shutter speed. If my shutter speed was longer than a minute the star would have moved a little bit by the time the picture had ended.

I set up my intervalometer to take a picture ever 30 seconds for half an hour. Theoretically I should have gotten 60 photos, but the camera had to process each photo after it took it. Thus I actually took 31 photos, because the processing time was roughly 30 seconds as well.

I then used Photoshop to layer all of the photos together and apply a blending mode of lighten to all but the bottom one. This allowed the star light of each photo to show through, which created the trails because the starts had moved a decent amount for the half an hour my camera was taking pictures.

Ghosts - Blog 12

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 20.0

ISO: 200

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 30.0

ISO: 400

I took these photos using the light painting technique. Using a long aperture and a dim cellphone light we timed our actions so certain versions of ourselves were more solid than others. I broke my actions into 8, 6, and 4 seconds, to equal 20, and Quinn broke his actions into 12, 10, and 8 seconds to equal the 30 seconds. This made a ghosting effect where some bodies were more transparent than others. This was my friends idea and he said he had tried photos like this in a class he had taken at his school.

Dip - Blog 11

F-Stop: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 1/100

ISO: 800

This was a leftover action shot that I had from my shoot with my brother. I liked this photo because the fast shutter speed allowed me to capture the depression in the trampoline created by my brother back dropping onto it. It is slightly blurry and out of focus so I didn't include it as part of my project but I liked it enough that I wanted to upload it still. If I had pre focused on my brother laying down in that spot on the trampoline, I could have had a much more in focus shot. Also I would have liked it more if I could have seen my brothers facial expression as he was dropping, because that would have added an extra element to the photo.

Splash Splash Splash - Multiple Flash Shot

F-Stop: f/16.0

Shutter Speed: 10.0

ISO: 1600

These multiple flash photos were done in the style of Harold "Doc" Edgerton. Using a 10 second long shutter speed, I was able to drop the ball on the far left and flash to take a picture, then pick it up again and repeat the same process for the middle and far right of the tank. This allows me to freeze the action of the splash of three separate droppings of the ball, all in one picture. I had around 20 shots using this technique and I chose my three favorites. I tried to capture, sequentially, the ball entering the water. Thus there is a clearly shown progression of the splash. The only edits I applied were to crop out the light visible on the right side and to reduce some super bright areas caused by the light. These simple edits allowed the splashes to be seen much more clearly.