I had several "a-ha" moments last night. The first one, related to aperture and all that fine photography geek-talk, is that shooting portraits is better done with a 70-300mm lens. I've had one of those for almost a year now and I rarely use it. I use it for nature photography and when I want to shoot at a far distance. I never thought about it giving better depth of field for portrait photography; it gives a clear and sharp rendering of your subject, renders less distortion of features with more compression, and the background fades away in softness. I've been using my 17-70mm thinking that closer/sharper on the whole is better.
My other "a-ha" moments were light related. I first realized that natural light was better not too long ago. I'd been inside with my camera for so long that I accepted flash photography as a necessity. When I saw Krista's (http://smartmom.typepad.com/sm/) black and white photos, I too asked "how'd you do that?" She kindly explained her use of natural light and the little light bulb went off in my head--pun intended. Since then, I have had great fun trying to catch some natural light during peak hours.
I'm looking forward to learning more about light temperatures and how that influences color. We went over that a bit last night and I found it fascinating. Next week the prof will bring in some studio lights and we are going to try some different shoots. 
Most of the people in the class already run their own business even if on a small scale. They are braver than I am--many admitted that they know nothing of the details of photography but just wing it. I have this need to feel "official" so I admitted that I would decide on a business after I have completed the certficate program.
So, I have several goals on the horizon: a pregnancy, photography, and teaching theology. That should keep me out of trouble for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment