someone's looking out for me

ok, third and final post for today. don't say i don't make up for things more than i have to. there's a story to this photo. i drove to an overpass to take some photos of some farm land. i don't have them posted here since they weren't as interesting as i thought they would be. on my way there, i passed by some train tracks that ran under the overpass. i ignored it thinking it would be too boring.

after taking a set of photos of the farm, i began to walk back and again passed the tracks. i decided, again, not to take photos of them, but then stopped and turned around. i thought i might as well take the photos since you never know how good they will turn out.

as i removed my lens cap, i heard the sound of a train coming around the corner. i couldn't help but laugh, thinking that i could have missed this moment had i kept walking. needless to say, i was in the right place at the right time. that, and someone upstairs wanted to see me smile.
as always, click on the photo to see a larger version. enjoy!

all in the details

ok, since many of you have been deprived, i'm writing another one today. i'll start off with a detail shot from a vehicle as per our assignment.

in this photo, we were to take a picture of a detail of a vehicle and omit the rest of the vehicle and any other distracting details. i naturally used my 50mm lens for this shot. i should note that the water droplets were staged. originally, it was raining out but i didn't like how the droplets formed on the car. i wiped it dry and used a spray bottle to "replace" the droplets.
this photo was to demonstrate how to adjust the exposure for a scene that was lighter than average. normally a shot like this will be darker as the camera will try to average out the scene to 18% grey. since both the subject and the background are white, the camera would use a faster exposure to "darken" the scene. by manually adjusting the exposure (and using a grey card) i got the proper exposure.
and this photo is a dark on light photo. the key here is to make sure the background doesn't overpower the dark subject and vice versa. by using the same exposure as above, i was able to get a shot of the wine bottle along with the details.
ok, that's it - i'm hoping that a 24mm lens will be in my future as the 50 mil is a bit too long for close range shooting.

studio strobes

sorry for the long period of silence. without going into too much detail, let's get on with the photos, shall we?

a couple weeks ago we had a chance to use the strobe lights in the studio. again, we hired some models and practiced taking photos. this model looked very out of place but the soft rembrandt lighting made for good shots.
this was probably the more fun shot we did. or at least i had a lot of fun with it. the flash is directly behind her head, giving her hair that glow. in front of her were 2 white panels which reflected the light back onto her face. i had her put on sunglasses to see what it looked like. some people said it was too much, but i thought it gave depth to the lenses.

ok, that's all for this post. hrm, just noticed the shirt on the second model has a lot of folds along the side. gotta keep my eye out for those small details.

model shoot

so here are the photos of the model we hired for class. her name is courtney - my sister says she looks like kirsten dunst. anyway, out of the 140 photos i took of her, these made the top of the list.

this is my favourite shot (click to see the larger version)
i was very impressed with this photo after cropping away the concrete frame which she was standing in. the black background is actually a dark stairwell.
all of these photos were taken with my 50mm lens. it really showed its strength while doing these portrait shots. a reflector was also used to boost the lighting conditions and reduce shadows.

night photos

so part of my course assigment includes some photos taken at night (or in low light situations) i took this photo of the club house in a nearby park.
and these are the "streaking lights" photos that i'm supposed to take. this was the idea i had in my head when we were given the assignment
as you can see, they're not super-exciting, but i took these photos maybe a hundred metres down the street. the "s" curve of the road made for more interesting pictures.
i couldn't decide between the above photo and the one below. i'm hoping anyone looking at my photos can give me their vote before i have to hand it in.
that's it for now, i have some photos from a model shoot i did last week. i have 140 photos to sort through, but i'll pick the best ones and put them up soon.