Mundane Monday October 12, 2009

Been busy over the weekend pulling the last of the vegetables from the garden. We picked about 1 1/2 dozen pumpkins and squash. This was a bumper crop and if we had growing weather for a few more weeks, we might almost double the crop! Snipped off the dahlia blossom too, and that's where we find ourselves with a camera.

The first shot is P mode, no flash, nice diffused light from behind. It's a little dark, but not bad. I popped the flash, full power but I underexposed the shot -.7 stops. It's washed out, just too bright for a great composition.

 

There's also annoying reflection from the flash off the window on the right. Flash diffusion may help us out. Since I was using the pop-up flash, and I couldn't find any old film cans, I resorted to a translucent caontainer lid. I think it worked great.

A soup container lid from the Chinese restaurant saved the dahlia photo from ruin. 

Mundane Monday October 5, 2009

Almost missed, it's been a busy day. But it is important to stop and smell the flowers along the way. This shot is okay. The flowers got lost in the middle, so how about another take.

Here, I've framed the flowers with the hose and zoomed in to really show the detail in the flowers. Don't forget the rule: Get close and then get even closer.

Mundane Monday Sept 28, 2009

What could be more cliche than an apple on a cutting board? A picture of a camera perhaps. Overall not an exciting photo. I thought I would take a strobist approach to reshoot the apple.

Looks better. It has a little more pizzazz with the black background and the top light. You could do this with a flashlight and a point and shoot if you got a little creative.

By the way the girls enjoyed the apple.

Mundane Monday Sept 21, 2009

Next to our door is a great big 6 ft tall clump of Canadian Goldenrod. It's beautiful. It's maligned. It does grow with ragweed which is allergenic in most people, but goldenrod is often identified as the ragweed itself. Two separate plants here, folks.
What's our typical first picture of a flower? Something like this?

Doesn't do a lot for me, the poor goldenrod has been beat down by the rain. It's real smart looking at full height. The rule of thumb is always move in. Let's try getting closer.

Better, but there's that blue wheel from something in the yard. That's gotta go. There is also a web in the flower. Is anybody home? I think we need to dive in a little deeper and try for one more shot.

Here we go, popped a flash, slightly underexposed (-0.3) and zoomed in. I let the camera do the heavy lifting in PROGRAM mode and then I make minor adjustments in aperature for depth of field, exposure to bring out the details and in this case, popped the contrast in post production.
I'm kind of liking the mundane Canadian Goldenrod on the day before the Autumn Equinox. The leaves will be changing soon so charge up the camera batteries and be ready.