Accidental Pictures

I was going through my online photo albums and found a lot of "accidental pictures". We've all done it. We have our cell phones or real cameras in hand to take a picture and then something happens and without knowing it we've snapped an unintended picture. I found them to be really interesting, especially as a grouping, and thought I'd share them. This might even become a regular series ...because we know its bound to happen again.

I love it when the camera somehow bends the light like in the photo above.

Thanks for visiting. 

Urbanna, Virginia

As promised yesterday, here are my photos from the World Wide Photowalk on October 13th in beautiful Urbanna, Virginia. As I did last year (which I just realized I never blogged about! So, it seems I was even less with it last year than I was this year!), I again used the incredibly fun lens, Muse by Lensbaby, which I spoke about here. It bends the light in so many delicious ways. 

This was the most gorgeous day, and I had so much fun just wandering around the town with my best friend. aww. sap. ;) 

 No,  he's not forgetting something. Jason made his own pinhole lens out of a camera body cap.

I had no idea I would love the below picture so much until I started processing it. The focus on the textures of the greens and blues and yellows on the bottom of the boat, and those bright yellow jacks (or whatever they are called) holding up the boat, just make me smile. The blur all around the edges with that blue shadow on the bottom left. I just love this photo, which is why I chose it for my entry in the contest.

Alas, I did not have the winning picture for my city.  Oh well. I guess it's not about the contest, really, is it? You can click here to see all the submissions from our walk as well as the winning photo. 

5th Annual World Wide Photowalk

This year it seemed it was all around more of a low-key event, from the Scott Kelby World Wide Photowalk website, down to our walk leader, and even with me. I usually post about it long before the day of the walk, but it seemed that there was less communication from the official walk site this year, so I even forgot to sign up for it until the week before the event. 

As you might know from the previous 4 years, the World Wide Photowalk is an annual event that takes place in cities around the world one day of the year. This year it was Saturday, October 13th. Folks signed up to join a photowalk group in a city of their chosing.  On the walk day, the groups met at a time designated by their walk leaders, and for two hours we walked around and took pictures of our cities. Afterward, the groups usually gather together to sit around and talk photography and look at everyone's shots from the day. You don't have to meet up afterward, and personally, I never stick around for the social event, as I'm not that social. ;)  We then have a week to process and edit our pictures, and chose our favorite shot of the day to enter into the photowalk contest.  Our walk leaders then pick a winning picture from our cities, which goes on to be judged by Scott Kelby himself for the grand prize winning photo of the day, from the over 1300 photowalks around the world. 

Below is the grand prize photograph chosen by Scott Kelby. Tell me what you think.

2012 Grand Prize Winner

Photo By Lars Anshelm

Lund, Skåne län Sverige

"This is my all-around favorite, and Grand Prize winner, because I simply fell in love with it. I could point to how the texture, color, lighting and composition are just absolutely spot on, but what I love is that I want to know more about this image." 

-Scott Kelby

Stay tuned and I will post my pictures from our walk in the lovely little river town of Urbanna, Virginia. 

In the meantime, you can see the honorable mentions chosen by Scott Kelby, here, and click the image below to visit the official site and see all the winning city photos from around the world. 

That's my favorite part of the walk, seeing the world in one day. 

Muse by Lensbaby

Here is a picture* from back in April right before I was heading to History of Photography class to give a presentation and demonstration of the Muse by Lensbaby, a very fun lens that my bf bought...which I originally thought was a waste of money.....until he let me use it.....Then, I was hooked. 

It does all sorts of weird, funky, cool things to bend the light.

*EDIT FOR CLARITY: that is, a picture from a real digital camera, not my cell phone.

Blur, Freeze, Pan, Experiment

Our second portfolio in digital photography class consisted of:

MOTION BLUR:

Motion blur is pretty self-explanatory. The main subject should show motion blur and the background should be in focus. Don't get blur confused with something just being out of focus. Blur is achieved with a slow shutter speed. The umbrella was shot at 0.025 sec (1/40) shutter speed. The flag was shot at 0.4 seconds.

FREEZE:

Freeze is stopping motion. Freezing the main subject while it's in motion. I must say, I'm pretty happy with that flying doll. Throwing her in the air with my left hand while snapping the picture with the other. That took a few tries. To freeze something in motion you need a faster shutter speed. The scarf was shot at 0.005 sec (1/200) and the doll was shot at 0.006 sec (1/160).

EXPERIMENTAL:

This was my favorite. Experimental is doing all kinds of funky stuff with the lens. The tree was done while turning the lens zoom in one direction and the camera body in the opposite direction while snapping the picture. All three actions in one swift movement. The night shot was just zooming the lens out while snapping the picture. I love the colors in that one.

and PANNING:

And finally there is panning. We only had to turn in one of these. I guess because it's the hardest one to accomplish. Panning is just that. Snapping a moving target while panning your body and the camera along with it in one smooth motion so the background blurs and the moving target is in focus. And I'd also consider my doll picture to be a pan, but in a downward vertical direction, since she is caught in focus and the background shows motion blur, and not just soft focus. Harder to do than panning horizontally.

We had to turn in a contact sheet with 225 photos with equal amounts of all techniques and only had to fully edit 7 photos to be critiqued.

Our next portfolio project is all about depth of field.   We'll be shooting 250 total photos for this assignment. This should be fun.