Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Independence Day Sunset

Worcester may not have been graced with fireworks on the 4th of July, but it was graced with an amazing sunset. I hadn't planned to go and take sunset shots, but when I saw the bright pink blaze through the windows, I grabbed Jay and we raced to a park down the street. (An aside here, I have a borderline mental obsession with getting the best sunset shots possible. I'll visit the windows multiple times to see if it's worth driving to chase a potential good one. It's probably OCD-type behavior--my husband thinks I'm acting like a druggie--but I can't help it.)

Below are some of the photos I took...I think I shot about 50 total, narrowed those down, and then further narrowed them to a little more than what you see here. Some are similar, because I was playing with the f-number and aperture. You can find even more of the 4th's sunset photos here

None of these have been altered....yet.


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Welcome to the new blog - let me start off with photos!

As you may already know, I've decided to revamp this blog a bit and move it from reading, writing, and photography to just photography. This way I can really get into the photos instead of just posting them without explanation.

To give credit where credit is due, my friend Joe's photo blog inspired me to make this change.

I'll leave the other two pages as they are and just begin the new format from here on out.

I'll start with some photos I took while in Rockport, MA last week. Though I was forced to take most of the photos smack dab in the middle of the day (which is not the time for ideal depth and visual interest), I did my best by playing around with aperture (what you will see as the f-number) and shutter speed.


This was taken at 1:51 p.m. with a focal length of 30mm, f/4.5, and exposure time of 1/3,200 second. I liked how the wood created an "A" shape that framed some of the small boats in the background.









These buoys were just hanging around one of the storefronts downtown. I took the photo at 2:35 pm with a focal length of 50mm (I used my prime lens for this one), f/1.8 and exposure time of 1/2,000 of a second. I needed to use this really fast shutter speed to make up for the low f-number (f/1.8) so not as much light could get into the lens. If I'd kept a slower shutter speed, the photo probably would have been overexposed.

This I just thought was cool. Who doesn't like pirate flags?! Again, I used the 50mm prime lens for this shot, and it's a little bright for my liking. Maybe if I feel up to it, I'll play around with the exposure in Aperture and let you know how it goes. Though I only have a few more days until my free trial expires.


As we were walking down the main street, these stairs caught my eye. I like how they are framed by the gap between the two buildings. Again, I used the 50mm prime lens for this one with an f/3.5 and very fast shutter speed of 1/4,000 of a second.

This is my favorite of the bunch - not because I'm such a great photographer, but because you can't go wrong with this scenery! It's quintessential New England! For this one, I again used the 50mm prime lens, so I could get the f/2.8, which I couldn't get with my zoom lens.


Just a side note - the smaller the f-number, the larger the aperture (the more light comes into the camera), and the smaller the depth of focus. This is great if you want to focus in on one thing but have everything else quickly become less focused. I used that technique for the photo of the buoys as well.

My next post will likely be all about sunsets, since I'm obsessed with taking sunset photos. I have about twenty still on my camera and hundreds on my hard drive. Some I've already posted on the Canon Rebel tab of this blog.