These photos are for Photography: The Art of Composition Flickr group. These are for Exercise 1 from Chapter 4, Rocks.
Yes. Rocks.
I’m not happy with these because I was in a big hurry and neglected to set the ISO down to 400. These were shot at ISO 800, so the shutter speed was crazy high to compensate. Still, they don’t suck. From the book:
This exercise involves searching for rocks and photographing their relationships with other visual elements.
So, I cheated on the first one. This is just a shot of a rock, but by God it had too much character to pass up. The rest all fall within the exercise’s parameters.
I modified the exposure and blacks in Lightroom. I may have modified another parameter or two on a couple, but mainly stuck with exposure and black.
1/3200, f2.8, ISO 800, 50 mm
1/3200, f2.8, ISO 800, 50 mm
1/1000, f4.0, ISO 800, 50 mm
1/2000, f4.0, ISO 800, 50 mm
These photos are for a group I’m participating in on Flickr. It’s dedicated to The Art of Composition by Bert Krages. These photos are for Exercise 4 from Chapter 4, which deal with photographs of snooker or pool. From the book:
The object of the exercise is to find arrangements among the balls during the course of a game. Do not ask the players to pause while you are doing the exercise, since an important aspect of the exercise is to develop quickness in assessing compositions in somewhat dynamic settings.
I’m not thrilled with the photos but I’m happy enough with them. Krages recommends an aperature of f2.8, but I opened up to 1.4f because I think it provided a more dramatic background.
50mm, 1/200 sec, f1.4, ISO 400
50mm, 1/200 sec, f1.4, ISO 400
50mm, 1/125 sec, f1.4, ISO 800
50mm, 1/160 sec, f1.4, ISO 800
February 14th,2010
Photography | tags:
photo,
pool,
taoc |
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I’m sitting on a bench in an empty room playing my guitar, when a silver-haired lady walks in and begins speaking to me.
EH: Hey, I recognize that song.
Me: Holy shit, are you Emmylou Harris?
EH: Yep. Scoot over and let me sit down. Keep playing. I like that song.
Me: I’m not really playing the song, just warming up.
EH: Play it.
I clumsily start to play.
EH: You’re not very good, are you? I don’t mean that to be insulting.
Me: I don’t see how that could not be insulting, but yeah, I suck.
EH: You should practice more.
Me: That’s what I was doing when you showed up.
EH: You said you were warming up.
Me: It’s all the same to me.
EH: That explains a lot.
Me: By the time I’m warmed up, I’m out of time to keep practicing.
EH: Life is full of opportunities. You can either take the time or make an excuse.
Me: Who said that?
EH: I did, just now.
Awkward silence followed by even more awkward guitar playing.
Me: Why do you play such big guitars? Those things are fucking huge.
EH: Hookers and blow, cowboy. Hookers and blow.
Me: Huh?
EH: Man, you really need to practice more. Give me that thing.
I hand her my guitar and Emmylou starts playing some amazing music.
Me: I’m not really a performer. I just write songs.
EH: Your limited skills must really hamper your ability to express yourself.
Me: Tell me about it. It’s like writing stories in an unknown language.
EH: Music is the universal language, pal.
Me: I must be from another galaxy.
EH: Either overcome weakness or turn them to your advantage.
Me: What, are you like some walking book of wisdom? Where do you come up with this shit?
She starts singing Return of the Grievous Angel.
EH: Sing harmony with me.
Me: I told you, I’m not a performer.
EH: Harmony is easy. Anyone can do it.
Me: That’s not true.
EH: No. It’s not.
She continues singing, harmonizing with herself, while playing the most amazing acoustic version of Grievous Angel I’ve ever heard.
Me: That’s incredible. Where’d you learn to do that?
EH: Eating chicken pot pies, drinking moonshine whiskey and breathing the cool mountain air.
Me: Somehow I doubt your sincerity.
EH: We’re all related spiritually, so what I know, at some level, you know as well. You just have to train your physical body to respond to spiritual promptings. It’s simple to understand and difficult to accomplish.
Me: And you learned that from eating chicken pot pie –
EH: Drinking moonshine whiskey and breathing the cool mountain air.
Me: Willie Nelson is a big believer in taking deep breaths.
EH: Who?
She begins playing Buck Owens’ Loves Gonna Live Here. The acoustic guitar has been replaced with a ‘52 Telecaster, and she’s wailing on the leads.
EH: I wrote this song in 1975.
Me: Buck Owens released that song in 1963.
EH: Oh.
She suddenly stops and then starts playing Phantom, Rocker and Slick’s No Regrets.
EH: You really should practice more. Your excuse sucks on par with your playing.
Me: Do they not teach manners where you’re from or are you making an exception for me?
EH: Dude, I don’t even know you and I can see right through you. You’re like glass.
Me: Huh?
EH: Transparent and easily shattered.
Me: Yeah, you don’t know me.
And then I woke up. Why Emmylou Harris? I have no idea. I enjoy her stuff but I’ve never been fanatical. What can I say? Dreams are weird.
I think my subconscious is telling me that I need to practice more often.
Doug Seven has a new, free video online. This one focuses on the right hand with several exercises to get your picking patterns down. Good stuff and free. You can’t ask for more than that.
I finally got around to cleaning up the country music playlist for my iPod. There were just too many songs I don’t want to hear and not enough that I do. Now I have 461 songs, which is 2.35Gb and will take 24 hours to hear. That’s not excessive. I still need to revisit Dwight’s stuff because I think I’m missing a few.
