2010-06-01 Tuesday - Clayworks - that building

What a difference a setting on your camera makes...

I have taken so many pictures of this building over the years that I've lost count.  On Tuesday I thought I would capture the sunset and had the camera on the 'Auto' setting.  After getting that shot I decided to try using the manual shutter speed settings to see what I could do.  It was set to 1/60th of a second and completely changed the tone of the picture.  Suddenly my building had been translocated to hell, or at least Mordor.  What a difference a setting makes, eh?

Regular lighting.

Hellish lighting.

.

More moon shots

The moon was out while I was cooking on the grill tonight (yes, it was ~80 degrees here today. Sorry, folks in colder climes.) and I couldn't resist trying out a few shots. I couldn't capture the great colors and luminosity of the moon, but I got some decent shots. You can see the whole series here.

1/800 second shutter speed
109mm equivalent

1/100 second shutter speed
109mm equivalent

More camera fun

While letting the dog out I noticed the moon through the trees again so I ran to get my camera.

I set up my tabletop tripod on the deck railing and had some fun.

Moon at 2 seconds.

1 second.

15 seconds.

That old moon gets around at 2 seconds.

When I came back in, Binkley wouldn't leave me alone so I snapped some shots of him. I couldn't decide which of these I liked better, so I posted both of them.

I laughed.

Look at those old man whiskers
and Binkley has some too.

Playing with light

Since the holidays were officially over on Monday (twelve days of Christmas and all), I wanted to get a shot of the lights we put up this year. I try to do something different every couple of years and this year was white lights. It was bright but understated and this didn't seem the year to put up an party of multicolored lights.

I took the tripod and turned the camera on manual exposure to see what I could do.

This is a 1 second exposure.

Same picture with a10 second exposure.

This is a 2 second exposure
(from much closer). I like the
"flares" from the light bulbs.

I looked up through the trees to see the moon behind thin layer of clouds and thought, "That could be a nice shot..."

4 seconds.

15 seconds.
(The longest exposure setting.)

About that time a car went by and I thought about stretching the lights from the cars. (I love doing that.)

The street at 2.5 seconds.

A ghost car at 2.5 seconds.

A ghost van at 2.5 seconds.
I really like the way the top tail light
puts a perspective on the image and
gives it even more motion
than the single level lights.

You can have a lot of fun with a point-and-shoot camera if you go "off road" and turn off the automatic settings. Don't be afraid to take a lot of bad pictures to get one good one. (I know where the delete button is in my sleep.)

Nuclear explosion in downtown Charlotte

There were some low clouds on Saturday morning when I got to the studio so I got some shots before heading inside. I couldn't help having a bit of fun with the pictures in Picasa from Google.

First I took the picture (Stage I), tinted the picture green (Stage II), then I set a focal B&W point and added film grain (Stage III).

Stage III

Stage II

Stage I

Another view.

Another fired pot and a photography rant

Here is another piece from the last firing of the previous class session. It's an orangestone pot 2 1/2 inches high by 4 1/4 inches wide, glazed with spotted shino and decorated with some glazes that I neglected to record, fired to cone 10. It's got a nice, wide rim and feels good in my hands.

While trying to capture an image of it I found some interesting ways to do it.

First, the inside.

Here's what I used.
I put a piece of Meredith's old artwork
face down on my keyboard,
turned on the macro button,
moved back, and zoomed in to the pot.

I tried the same thing for the outside, but it was blurry.
(and a bit crooked!)

I returned the zoom to "normal", moved the camera closer
and now the flash was too much at that distance.

Finally, I placed my finger over about half
of the flash to cut down the blast.
Much better, but since I'm not zoomed in,
the limitations of my improvised backdrop are obvious.

I read a lot of clay blogs and I feel bad for people who make beautiful pieces and post blurry photos of them. It can definitely be a challenge, especially with a little point-and-shoot camera like I use, but if you keep trying you can usually find a way to make it work. I continually re-take shots using different combinations of options until I get what I want. I think we all need a class in digital photography just to make "everyday" pictures of our pots.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled rant.