welcome!

Do you have any questions about your camera or photography in general? What would you like to learn how to do?

We will meet each Friday for a quick theory lesson, group photo critique, a new weekly challenge, and discussions on our final projects. A weekly challenge will inspire you to take a photo that perhaps you wouldn’t normally take - but if you take a great photo that has nothing to do with the weekly challenge, that’s ok, too! We’d love to see it. Each week you will upload your photo(s) to our flickr group: -- I will add each of your email addresses to the group today; if you have an existing flickr account and use a different email address, let me know so I can add that one for you.

If it’s too complicated to sign up with flickr, you can email photos to me and I can upload them for you.

If you have a blog or personal website (photography or otherwise) I’d love to put a link to it on the sidebar.

Weekly Challenge, Week 1: "Eat!"

Weekly Challenge, Week 1: “Eat!” - photofriday.com has links to photos for this challenge on the lefthand side of their website for inspiration


Three mini challenges:
1. Turn off the “P” mode
- try shooting in aperture priority if you never have, and if you already use the “A” mode, challenge yourself to “M”

2. Turn off your flash!
Appreciate the look soft, natural light can give your images.

3. Take out the shake!
- Careful when you’re shooting at or less than 1/60th of a second, or have a heavy lens and it’s less than 1/160th of a second.
- I was taught to hold my breath when I take a photo; I’ve read that you should exhale and take the shot in the void between your exhale and your inhale.
- taking a photo with a point and click? Brace your elbows against your torso
- brace your elbows or one arm against a wall or object

final project ideas

I’m hoping everyone can begin to think about and work on a final project. It doesn’t necessarily have to be completed by the end of this session (ie if you choose to take a self portrait everyday for a year), but it’d be great to inspire you to get your butt in gear for the long-term ones and for anyone that can complete them I’d love for everyone to bring them to share.

Final project ideas:
3D photographs
CD jewel case calendar
coffee table book
recipe book
fashion images to submit to an online magazine like joie, or
neet
365 project - a photo every day uploaded to flickr or shown on a blog
color theme or rainbow theme for a large collage
portraits of strangers with a blurb on each
street photography
photos of collections, heirlooms
macro photography – like little train set people
wood mounted prints covered in resin, lacquer, gloss
stop and go animation (time lapse <-- in this case shot with a tilt-shift lens)
series of 5x7's for your wall
collage of framed photos
Collection of images from a diy pinhole digital camera
Collection of HDR photos
cyanotype prints

Resources

Flickr.com – store and share photos
Adorama.com – camera equipment, usually free shipping
Adoramapix.com – printing services, “coffee table books”
Lightroom beta 4 – free until march 31, 2012 organize and edit single photos or large batches
photomatix for HDR photos