Day 96 – By the light of a lamp

I snapped these this morning before work.  They are illuminated by a table lamp on the end table next to the sofa in our family room (with a little bit of ambient light in the background coming from the dining area).

Nina

Jezebel

Day 94 – 50mm

I got a  50mm  lens!  Unlike my zoom lenses which will only allow me to go to  f/3.5 at 18mm, this lens allows me to take my f/stop all the way to 1.8.  I took it for a test drive today. Here are just a few of the photos I shot.

Day 81 – Smiling Dog

A little evening play time made for a happy, happy dog.

I’ll be on a plane all day tomorrow, heading for Washington, D.C. I’ll have lots of opportunities for photos, but if you don’t hear from me regularly, it’s the trip that’s keeping me away.

Day 79 – Stop-Motion Dogs

The other half of my lighting class assignment: photograph a moving subject  without blur.

We tried shooting in the house. No go. So after work tonight we gave it another go in the yard.  I don’t know if I will use either of these for my class, but I wanted to share my learning curve with you.  I’d like to try shooting this in better sunlight, but I likely won’t get the chance as I’m off to Washington D.C. on Thursday and won’t be back until Tuesday (therefore no daytime dog photography before the project is due in class). I may have opportunities in D.C. to try to shoot other photos though.

The first photo below is a “without blur” version of Nina racing around with her toy (see Day 77).  It’s quite interesting how different this one looks. While she was moving just as fast, look how still she looks. The only visual cues to her motion are her flapping ears, her feet off the ground, and her flying dog tag.

Here is Buddy leaping to catch his “Toy.”  And by his “Toy” I mean that it is his only toy. It’s not for lack of trying to introduce other toys to him. He loves this toy and only this toy. It is several years old now and it’s been through the washer a number of times. The squeaker has long since died, but Buddy has never chewed a hole in it.  It stays in the house and every time Buddy comes in he has to find it and loll it about in his mouth. If he can’t he gets really, really nervous and runs around until he does find it.  Anyway, he’s gotten quite good at catching it in mid-air.  Like Nina, he is frozen in time, but his off-the-ground feet and his upside-down dog tag indicate his leap.

Day 61 – Cooperative Kitteh

Busy day!  No chance to shoot anything worthy of posting here. Luckily I have critters!

We had a guest speaker tonight in our lighting class. He gave a rapid fire presentation on Speedlite flash photography and my brain is reeling. It will take me some time to absorb what he told us, but I did latch on to a couple of concepts and had to try to apply them when I got home.

I learned the difference between TTL mode and manual mode and how to lessen the intensity of the flash so I experimented with stopping down the flash so that it wasn’t as intense.

This is Maya.  She was resting on the back of the sofa about an arm’s length from me. Shot at 100 ISO, f 9.0, 1/160s. Manual flash at 1/4 which I learned tonight (a) how to do and (b) is not one-fourth of intensity but rather 2 stops down.   Thank goodness she puts up with me!

© Carissa Snedeker

 

 

Day 36 – Living room light

I worked at getting comfortable with my new light meter today in the funky light of our living room.  It is a south-facing room with a large picture window and storm door, so at this time of year the room is well-lit, but poses challenges for correct exposure.

This is the ancient German-made radio my husband inherited from his grandfather.  Yes, it still works, though we never actually turn it on any more.  I love the lines, texture, and craftsmanship.

© Carissa Snedeker

A couple of the critters lit by the sunlight through the wooden blinds.

Jezebel © Carissa Snedeker

Nina © Carissa Snedeker