Photography

Spring in the woods

timstiffler — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:27:45 +0000

This morning is exceptionally warm for the time of spring that it is. The redbud trees in the woods where my house sits have just begun to bloom, and the robin that is looking for breakfast on the ground next the deck that I am on seems to be trying to tell everyone within earshot that it is indeed 65 degrees and sunny. A hoot owl just acknowledged the robin’s call. I watch with anticipation as the sun travels down the tree trucks and across the yard. My yard. The grass hasn’t been mowed yet this year – my mower is broke and in the shop. I have weird purple plants growing in the front next to the side walk that look as if they have aggressively taken over.
Then I think about photography. Life is so simple when you have a camera in your hand. Life is broken down to f stops, shutter speeds and composition. I could take a picture of my yard in this gorgeously warn sunlight and then use Photoshop to remove the weeds and bare patches. I could, but I won’t. Even though that is what I would like things to look like, it is not the reality that we live in. It is the reality that we aspire for, the reality that exists only in my mind.
Isn’t life like that? Don’t we aspire to have made accomplishments, make a difference in the world, be a good person, save lots of money, be the perfect mate, have a great job, enjoy lots of leisure time, look like a cross between Redford and Schwarzenegger, and be a great photographer? Unfortunately there is no Photoshop for life – only more life. Sometime life gets in the way, sometime life is celebrated.
Other birds have joined in with the robin. Chickadees and creepers. The beat is off a little – they sound like one of those fusion jazz groups…but they are happy – they are doing what they know how to do. What a great example for us – that we just need to do what we know how to do. Throw an empty card in the Nikon and walk through the woods – no expectations, no preconceived ideas, but just live – with our cameras as an extension of our eyes and our minds…realizing that the most minuscule objects are interesting when examined with a micro lens and the most ugly object can be made beautiful or at least interesting in the proper light and the proper angle…it is ours to wait for that light and find that angle. Both in the woods and in life.

Point and Shoot / DSLR Photoclass Outing this Saturday!!

timstiffler — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:00:29 +0000

I have waited long enough to make sure that the weather will cooperate this time….the leaves should be popping and I have heard rumors of mushrooms poking through the dirt..spring has sprung (and my grass needs mowed already). This Saturday morning at 8am SHARP!!! We will meet at the parking lot of the office of the Tri-County Game Preserve…turn east off of SR RD 13 at the base of the hill where the Doppler Radar site is . Take that road until it t’s (about a mile). Turn right and on the left side you will see the office (in about 1/2 to a mile). Bring weather appropriate clothes and your photo gear – we’ll be in the woods for a couple of hours and then go over to Maria’s in North Webster for coffee/breakfast and to upload our images to our computers (if you have a laptop bring it) we’ll spend probably another hour there before wrapping things up around 11am.

See you there!

dSLR Class Assignment for April 9th

timstiffler — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:41:45 +0000

I am so Sorry that I have waited this long to post this – BUT, here is your assignment

1. I want you pick a subject – any subject and shoot pictures of from as many different angles and with as many different lens focal lengths (wide angle, telephoto, ect.) as possible. Make sure you are metering for the subject and watching the histogram as you shoot. Expose so that the bulk of the reading on the histogram is on the right side (without it touching the far right line).

2. Choose another subject (For sure a person this time). I want you to take pictures of it with as many different light sources as possible. A few ideas:

Window light from a large window
light from a lamp
light from an overhead florescent fixture
a flash
the sun
overcast sky
candle light
the TV
Anything else you can think of

As you are shooting these images I want you to note you things:

The shadows…are they harsh or soft? Is there a very strong and distinct line between the shadow and where there is light or is that “line” very subtle and soft? How does the size of the light source affect the shadows?
Where the shadows fall on the face. Does a high light source give more pleasing light or a low one?

This picture of wind blown yellow flowers was shot

by my cousin, Andy Mills from Atlanta while

we were on a phototrip to the White Mountain

Apache reservation near White River, Az in Sept 2008

Point and Shoot Class Outing…

timstiffler — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:26:21 +0000

I had been waiting to see if anyone responded on the blog to doing the class outing last Saturday – since no one did I assumed that no one wanted to go…But now I have had a couple of you get a hold of me…the next Saturday I have free in March is the 28th…

Weather permitting, let’s meet at the office parking lot of the Tri-County Game Preserve at 8am, plan on being in the woods for a couple of hours, then we will go to Maria’s restaurant in North Webster and have some coffee and upload our pictures to our laptops and talk about what we took.

Bring your camera, your laptop and if you have a tripod bring it too

Tim

Digital Single Lens Reflex (dSLR) Class

timstiffler — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:14:47 +0000

Greetings and welcome to the www information page for the dSLR class offered at the Creative Fish Art Gallery beginning on March 19th, 2009. On this page you will most likely each week find an outline that I used for the class, some further commentary from me, assignments, pertinent web sites and quite possibly babbling on that has nothing to do with photography…all for no extra charge.

The first thing that I am going to post on here is a guide book that I made a few years back for a nature photography workshop that I lead for Goshen College at the Merry Lea Environmental Center. There are many things in it that I will refer to in our class, so right off the bat, it will be a good down load for you. Click on the following link for the most recently updated version…photography-an-outdoor-guide-0309

If you look back further in this blog you will find other downloads and web pages to go to. I posted those for the last class we did here at the Creative Fish – a photography class for folks with Point and Shoot cameras. Although we didn’t go into the depth in that class that we will int his one, all of those materials will still be beneficial to you.

Saturday, March 7th Field Trip…

timstiffler — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:50:23 +0000

I have seen two different weather forecasts that are calling for thunderstorms on Saturday morning…please email me or post me back and let me know if Saturday the 14th will work for you!!

Evaluation for the Point and Shoot Photography Class

timstiffler — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:48:28 +0000

Please respond to the following questions…

1. Do you feel you learned what you had hoped to?

2. Did you learn more or less than expected?

3. Now armed with the information from the last 4 weeks, do you feel that with some effort on your part you will be able to take better pictures than you had before?

4. List some things that you wish we would have covered

5. List some things that you wish we would not have covered

6. True or False – I would never take another class from Tim because he is a pig

Your honest answers to these questions will help me decide (1) if I will do another class for point and shoot photographers and (2) if I do, what to include in it.

Thanks so much for your help!!!

Tim

The Last P&S Class

timstiffler — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:51:41 +0000

Wow, we made it to the last class. At the bottom is the outline that includes a few www links to web sites that I quickly found the other day …I just did a Google search for “photography” .

Thursday March 5th is the make-up class, I will have nothing planned – come armed with questions over anything that we have gone over…Saturday March 7th at 9am we will meet (weather permitting) at the parking lot to the office of Tri – County Game Preserve for a few hours of tromping through the woods and then up loading and looking and talking about our pictures. If the weather is “iffy”, I will post on here what is going on.

Remember to take lots of pictures – memory is cheap.

http://www.photography.com/
http://photography.about.com/
http://www.photographytips.com/
http://www.photographysites.com/
http://www.photographymuseum.com/

Tim’s outline for P&S Class 4

The Last Assignment

timstiffler — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:32:55 +0000

Below is the last assignment for the Point and Shoot Class. Please drop it off at Steffen Realty no later than Wednesday so that I have a chance to take a look see at it and get it ready to shot the class on Thursday night.

One other thing in case I forgot to mention this at the 3rd class…I will be at the Creative Fish on Thursday March 5th as a “makeup” class for anyone who wants some extra help. 630 (pm)-8 or 830.

assignment-for-point-and-shoot-class-31

For Class Point and Shoot Class 4

timstiffler — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:30:10 +0000

The following are a couple of web addresses for places you can go to get FREE or LOW COST Software for dealing with your images…(like making them small enough to email) PLEASE NOTE…I do not endorse any of these because I have not used them. I did download a little program called Photo Resize Magic to if it worked (it did), I hve no reason to use these as I can do the same with Photoshop. There are many cool and free software titles on the www – but be careful – don’t get suckered into paying money for anything that is suppoes to be free. By the way – I found these by just doing a simple Google searc with the words “Picture, Email, Convert”

http://image-resize.qarchive.org/

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/titles/convert-pictures.htm

Also know that there are many free online sources to work with image files – www.picasa.com is just one that comes to mind.

Don’t be afraid to search on the www for what ever you might be looking for.

See ya soon!