From my get pushed partner this week: pick a mundane object in your house ... find some random light (a desk lamp, sun coming in the window, flashlight, candlelight)... and set up a shot paying attention to how you are using the light and what the shadows are doing... practice making the most of available light...
SO! Take 1 on this challenge. Walking thru the living room yesterday afternoon, I noticed the sunlight streaming in from the front windows and lighting up the radiator and everthing on it. By the time I grabbed my camera and my card and cleared the radiator of everything but this candle, most of the sunlight was gone, but I did get this one decent shot here. The sunlight is reflecting off the candle itself, and you can see what is left of its shadow on the wall behind it. Found it to be a good exercise in looking beyond the candle and into the light and shadow - something I wouldn't necessarily have noticed before northy extended this challenge.
Please forgive my absence these past couple weeks. I've been beyond blessed to have been able to spend 11 days with the new babies! Obviously, they consumed my every waking moment and many of my sleeping moments. I took a zillion pictures and will fill in the missing days with those pics as soon as I get caught up with all the work I've missed at the office and with personal clients. Please check backwards in my Jan calendar and see the babies once I get them up! And I WILL be looking at everything I've missed from all of you in the coming days as well!
nice use of the light and shadow... and that is a lovely subject... you get such pretty tones in the light there... out of curiosity, are you shooing in aperture mode or manual mode? for these sorts of shots i will often use a tripod, or more likely set my camera on a table, or a pile of books... use the live view screen, and then play with the settings in manual... i would try a few different shutter speeds and apertures and then see which i like best once they are on the computer :)
@northy Thank you for your response! I was in shutter mode. Seems to be what I normally shoot in. (In the 2 classes I've taken, the instructor was a shutter mode guy, said he never saw the point in shooting anything else, so that's pretty much what I learned.) So, had I been in aperture or manual mode, what would I have been looking for to improve this shot?
interesting! i use shutter priority only in rare circumstances - when no other mode gets me what i need... although the first camera setting challenge we did was using shutter priority and there was some discussion of when and where one would use it...
for this kind of shot i would probably have used manual and either used a tripod, or, more likely, had the camera sitting on a table or a pile of books... and mostly i would have experimented with different shutter speeds to see what they did... so, for example, could you get enough light to show off a bit more detail in the holder without losing the shadow on the wall? and what shutter speed would maximize the drama of the shadow? not saying any of these attempts would result in a better picture, just things i would play around with :)
January 30th, 2015
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for this kind of shot i would probably have used manual and either used a tripod, or, more likely, had the camera sitting on a table or a pile of books... and mostly i would have experimented with different shutter speeds to see what they did... so, for example, could you get enough light to show off a bit more detail in the holder without losing the shadow on the wall? and what shutter speed would maximize the drama of the shadow? not saying any of these attempts would result in a better picture, just things i would play around with :)