Project 365: Feb 11, 2008

Today, I developed my first roll of film in the darkroom. This is a shot of all of my chemistry, ready to go into the developing tank. Jessica was my mixing partner, and we were totally rock stars - first ones mixed and ready at 68 degrees. It was a bit of a challenge, as the subzero temps outside resulted in a shortage of warm water on campus. The water in the darkroom was coming out of the faucets at 42 degrees, so our instructor had to get a bucket of hot water from the cafeteria so that we could mix the hot with cold to get our chemistry to 68 degrees. I explained how to get 68 degree water from 42 degree water and 108 degree water. (With a 66 degree difference between the two, just about equal parts of each would get us in the ballpark of 68 degrees). With that, we were good to go.

Two of my shooting buddies from the summer class are also in this class - Gloria and Rhonda. Good times! I snapped a few pics of us on my Blackberry to commemorate our first day in the darkroom.

Wednesday, we'll learn how to make a proof sheet.

I need a NaNoWriMo for photography

There are NaNoWriMo posts all over the blogosphere as the shoestring writers of the world work on their novels. (It's National Novel Writing Month). I need a NaNoWriMo for photography. I need some sort of challenge - a deadline. A goal.

I registered for the Intro to B/W Photography class at the college I teach at. (We can take courses for free, and I've decided to try and complete the photography certificate). It starts in January. I'm also taking meteorology. I'd like to do some weather photography. I suppose I'll have homework and deadlines soon enough! It's a film photography class with a darkroom component. I'm looking forward to really absorbing the truths of exposure.

I think I'm getting a digiscope and the SLR camera adapter for Christmas, which will give me new ways to get out and take pictures of birds. I hear that some owls hang out around here through the winter. I've never seen an owl in the wild, so that's one of my winter photography goals (to get a photo of an owl). I can't wait for the spring migration to see what kinds of birds I find!

Winter weather really zaps my motivation to get outside and shoot. :-/

In-camera color settings

As I've been so interested in color management lately...

I was digging through my camera's menu this morning, checking to see how many shots I could shoot in RAW+Jpeg (not enough with a 2 gig memory card - gotta get me a 4 gig!), I saw that I was taking my photos in sRGB color mode.

A video I watched last night mentioned that sRGB is generally much too small of a color space for photographic work, and that Adobe 1998 is preferred. I've got Photoshop working in Adobe 1998, so I changed my camera to 1998. We'll see how today's shots came out.

In my photography class today, we shot around downtown Homewood, IL. I felt like a 5 year old, as I was drawn fairly exclusively to trains and fire trucks. :)

Trip to Lake Katherine

I went to Lake Katherine in Palos Heights, IL yesterday for the first field shooting part of my photography class. It's a beautiful place. I'd like to get back there shortly when more leaves are changing color - maybe try a panoramic shot with Photoshop CS3's photo stitching abilities.

I got to experiment with shooting in shutter priority mode. I didn't have a tripod with me, but I did find an angle I could shoot a waterfall at that had a fence post that I could rest my camera on. There is definitely a difference in the silkiness of water movement, even between 1/4 second shutter speed and 1/25. (Not that I didn't believe all the photography books I've been reading - but it's a whole nother thing to see its effects with your own eyes). So I enjoyed toying around with that. I was looking for good animal shots and landscapes.

My "prized" animal shots are of an encounter I had with a squirrel. None are absolutely perfect, but they each gave me some things to think about next time I'm out shooting. I got one shot where the squirrel is trying to camouflage himself along the tree - but I got the tree in focus instead of the squirrel's eye. I knew it at the time but didn't want to move to change to manual focus point mode or manual focus, because I'm not quite familiar enough with that mode to change it without pulling the camera down from my eye - and I didn't want to miss the shot, so I took what I could.

I took about 250 shots and out of those, I've marked 34 "picks" from which I will try and choose my portfolio shots for class. I suppose how many I choose will depend how many picks I get out of next week's "urban" shoot. We need to choose 9 prints at 4x6 and one at 8x10 to turn in as our portfolio.

Here are the picks (click the picture below to view them on flickr):

Photography Class

I started my photography class today. It's a 4-week class called "Film/Digital Camera Skills." I'm excited that we'll get to take some field trips to do some shooting, but am a little disappointed that the content of the class is being delivered from a point-n-shoot/auto-mode perspective. I was hoping to get some practice with manual mode and exposure compensation and stuff like that.

Still, I'll get 8 hours worth of shooting time in the field, split between a nature preserve and an "urban" shoot (which is really set in the downtown portion of a suburban town).

I think the most valuable part of this class, to me, will be in having that dedicated time with my camera, and in reviewing the shots that I take and critiquing my work. I hope to pick up some inspiration, tips, and ideas along the way. It's a *very* beginner-level class, though, which is a bit disappointing.

For example, the instructor mentioned reciprocity, and then explained that it's a complex subject that is far beyond the scope of this class.

Sigh.

We've been told to shoot in the picture modes of our camera - portrait mode, landscape mode, sports mode, etc, and to shoot at ISO400.

Always the rebel... I'm going to shoot in Av, Tv, or manual modes, because that's what I need practice with, and I'm going to shoot at ISO100 unless circumstances dictate otherwise. We'll be shooting in bright daylight (9a-1p), so... rebel rebel!

At the end of the class, we are to turn in 10 prints: nine 4x6 prints and one 8x10 print as our "portfolio."

Most of the students in the class have point-n-shoot cameras. I saw 2 other people with Digital Rebels like mine. It looks like it'll be a very basic class, but I'm glad to at least get that 8 hours of field time to force me to get out and take pictures.

Our instructor is a Canon guy, so at least that bodes well for me if I have any specific questions about my camera!