Shooting Tight

This past weekend my fiance and a friend of ours and my sister all went shooting; I took my old Winchester Lever Action 30-30 to shoot and of course needed to clean it once we were finished.  This gave me inspiration to take a few tight shots during the process.  I think that the beauty of shooting tight showcases the little details that a larger, more general approach might overlook.  I love seeing the detail and narrowing the focus to something very specific in the shot, taking away a lot of the surrounding setting in order to direct attention to certain aspects of the overall story.  I was really excited to focus on the details since I'm very proud of this rifle and love showing it off (my Dad did all of the woodwork on the stock).  The lighting was from the porch light which is why there is more of an amber glow but honestly I think it works with the images and gives it an antiquated look that goes along well with the subject of the shots.

Kachina Doll

f/3.5  1/20  ISO6400

Saguaro and Mountains

f/3.5  1/20  ISO6400

Outers Cleaning Supplies

f/4  1/30  ISO6400

Solvents and Such

f/3.4  1/60  ISO6400

Flannel and Gun Oil

f/3.5  1/20  ISO6400

Almost Finished

f/3.4  1/20  ISO6400

An American Classic

f/3.5  1/15  ISO6400

Shooting Wide

For this assignment I wanted to try to capture the magic and art of coffee making that occurs in my house on a regular basis.  We take our coffee very seriously (we have an entire room dedicated to it), and its just a cool process; it was a little difficult to manage lighting in the room because of the huge windows that let in so much natural light so it took a while to get the pictures the way I wanted them.  Shooting wide I believe draws the eye to the main focal point that the photographer wants people to notice, whether it be little details within the picture or the overall general structure of the shot.  Hopefully I have somewhat of the right idea.  So here is the journey from deciding to make a cup of coffee to the divine finished product.

The Coffee Room

f/3.4  1/500  ISO5000

Choosing a Bean

f/3.4  1/320  ISO4000

Snipers Hide Blonde Roast

f/3.4  1/250  ISO4000

The Machine

f/3.4  1/400  ISO6400

Grinding Away

f/3.4  1/100  ISO6400

Ready for Brewing

f/3.4  1/160  ISO6400

Liquid Gold

f/3.4  1/200  ISO6400

Almost There

f/3.4  1/80  ISO4000

Elixir of Life

f/3.4  1/50  ISO4000

Bracketing

So I discovered upon exploring my camera settings that my f-stop only goes up to f/8 so that is the reason why my f-stop numbers are different.  I still tried to maintain the same idea with the 5 different settings, there's just not as much contrast as there would be if the f-stops on my camera went higher than f/8.

f/3.4  1/250  ISO200

f/4  1/250  ISO200

f/5.6  1/250  ISO200

f6.3  1/250  ISO200

f/8  1/250  ISO200

Adjusted Shutter Speeds

f/3.4  1/250  ISO200

f/4.0  1/320  ISO200

f/5.6  1/125  ISO200

f/6.3  1/100  ISO200

f/8  1/50  ISO200

Axioms

My model is satisfied with payment in puppy treats, but she did great.  I really like the way the last two especially turned out.  Also it was a cloudy day so the lighting was quite nice.

Blurred Action: F6.3 1/30 ISO: 1200

She was definitely running fast, I missed her a few times and had to redo the photo just to get her in the frame but I really like the ghostly blurred effect that the slower shutter speed offers.

Frozen Action: F6.3 1/1000  ISO: 600

 This was really cool, I lowered the aperture so it was a little darker but with the faster shutter speed I got some cool detail with the motion, like her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she runs like a fiend down the hill.

Deep Depth of Field: F6.3 1/200  ISO: 1600

I really like this one a lot, the detail in the bush in the foreground is sharp and focused; Moki was actually quite a ways back behind the bush, so the depth of field is nicely showcased here I think.  I also got her to look in my direction at the right time so the blurry silhouette is pretty cute.  But that's just me.

Shallow Depth of Field: F6.3 1/250  ISO: 1000

This one is my favorite.  The shallow depth of field brings the focus to the things up close, in this instance her cute furry face.  Isn't it a cute face??  She and I both had so much fun experimenting with different shutter speeds and apertures in this little mini adventure/homework, I'm still learning but I'm already excited with the things that I am discovering as I begin to experiment with manual settings.

Just Gettin Started

In starting to play with the manual settings on the camera that I have, I'm already finding that more aspects of the details make sense to me.  This gives me hope that I'll be able to grasp some of these complicated numbers and settings with practice in time.  For these first two pictures my test subject is my Australian Shepherd puppy, Moki.  She is pretty photogenic and she's adorable so there will probably be several images of her popping up throughout the semester.

With the first image, I changed the AV settings several times and eventually decided on F5.6 because it provided better color in the image given the indoor lighting I was working with; I also experimented with proximity and how close I should be to her.

With the second image, I changed to the Manual setting in order to select shutter speed as well as Aperture; after several attempts, I stayed with F5.6 and brought the shutter speed down to 1/30, which since I had put her to sleep by then while taking pictures, the shutter speed didn't need to be any faster than that in order to capture good detail and light and it gave the image a warmer and softer feel in it's color saturation.

Yannis Behrakis

The photography of Yannis Behrakis captures a broad range of emotions of people in a variety of settings.  Hats off to him, I don't think that I could bear to document some of the tragic and horrific events and instances that he is able to accurately portray from behind his camera lens.  He tells the stories of individuals, sometimes they are heartbreaking stories, and sometimes they are stories of triumph.  In looking through some of his photographs I noticed that he utilizes the surroundings in a very artistic way that does not detract from what he wants us to focus on, but rather enhances the central focus of the image.  

 
http://www.corbisimages.com/Search#pg=yannis+behrakis

I chose this image of his because of the composition; raindrops running down the window of a bus where a young Syrian refugee sits in Lesbos.  She is protected from the elements inside of the bus, looking out at what we don't know but with a half-smile on her face, and we come to the conclusion that she is, at least for that moment, relaxed, warm and at peace.

About Me

My name is Hannah Folks, I'm from St. George, Utah and I love spending time with my family and friends. My fiance and I love to cook and be outdoors hiking, shooting, camping and sharing our love of nature with others. Cooking and baking are also my favorite interests, along with reading. I'm majoring in Human Communications with a minor in History. 

 I have one camera that is a Canon PowerShot SX50 HS with no additional lenses, fairly basic, as well as a tripod and an iPhone 6. I love taking pictures and documenting where I've been which is part of why I'm taking this class; also to broaden my knowledge in this area since I have not studied photojournalism up to this point.  Also, I absolutely love black and white photography.  Just have to include that.  Anyway, I'm really excited to learn a lot this semester!