nature composition

http://photo.net/learn/nature/ghopkins/comp1/index

This article is about composition with nature photography. It talks about how the best way to improve composition skills is by learning how to see composition. Look for compositional elements in any photo. Ask yourself how they work together.  Has these "composition maps" that were created for visual teaching aids.

Action/Adventure

These are the photos I took for the action/adventure shoot. For the most part all the settings I changed were about the same for the photos. There were more but to many to choose from!

Composing with color

      In the first article its basically an introduction to color and the basic elements. For instance it talks about the three variables of color which are hue, saturation and lightness. From playing with my own photos i've seen what these are but it was kind of nice to have them defined. It also talked about how the attitude of a photographer working with color contrasts greatly with the attitude of one working with black and white. I thought it was interesting to read how a photographer who likes to photograph in black and white goes about looking for shots. They make a significant effort to see the black and white tones in what their looking at to see like what shade of gray is this color going to be? or  is this going to be black, is this going to be white? They have to try to search for those where as someone composing with color, though we do see in color there's a difference between what we see and what the camera sees, so they as well have to look at the scene and the elements that are in it.
      In part 2 of composing with color it goes over controlling color in photoshop, color balance, and color palette. In photoshop your able to play with the three variables of color individually.  In color balance you have to balance out the overall color. The goal of balancing is to get a neutral color truly neutral without a colorcast. The color palette is about selecting a range of colors that are going to be used in the photograph.
      Part three is about working with saturation. It talks about how saturation is important but at the sane time its over used. Over using any of the 3 variables is not really good for your photograph either. Mentions that saturation is more of a problem with raw files, because their naturally desaturated, so we tend  to oversaturate to get the color back in there. It explains global saturation Vs. local saturation. Global is saturation throughout the whole photo and local is saturation in a certain area of the photo.
      In part 4 it starts out with talking about memorizing colors in the field. Basically in this part it goes over the other parts again but with photographs showing you the different ways saturation works and global vs. local saturation.  A lot of repeat information.

Lightroom

I'm new to Adobe lightroom 3 and am still learning how to use a lot of the features. But now that i've been learning how to use it and learning more about photography i've been eager to take photos and play with them. Below are two copies of a picture I took out at the equestrian facility. A before and after photo. I'm pretty sure that when I took the picture I had the camera in the wrong settings, but I was getting into my car and saw the birds lined up in front of me, and the sun was nearly perfect, I just had to take some shots. But that's the great thing about lightroom 3! There are so many ways to change a photo. I think it's really cool to look at the original copy of your photo and then the final product, and just see the potential you found in that photo and brought the beauty out.

BEFORE:

This is how the photo looked before I did anything to it.

AFTER:

This is after I played with the saturation of the colors, the vibrancy, temperature, and a graduated filter on part of it. What I love most about this picture is the way the sun highlights the feathers on the bird, and the his head turned to the side so you get the full silhouette of the bird.

Composing with light

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1209/ab1209-1.html

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0110/ab0110-1.html

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0310/ab0310-1.html

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0410/ab0410-1.html

Reading these articles were interesting and very helpful. It helped me think of all the different elements of light and to think about with your pictures and what light to look for. In part 3 I really liked reading about the natural reflected light. To me those create the most stunning pictures. And the way natural light comes into your pictures changes all the time. Part 1 was also a really good one for information. It basically talked about how to find the best light for your photos, and knowing where the sun is in different times of the year. Reading that was interesting because i've never really given much thought to that. I liked the silhouettes in part 4 as well. In the right situation you can get some pretty neat shots. Of the photo examples he showed I liked the ones with the snow in them. I just really like winter photos. Overall, all the articles were interesting and helped me some way.