PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE: WEEK TWO

Sorry I've been light on the posts this week. Have a lot of exciting things under foot that I'm really looking forward to sharing.

Week Two of our photography challenge is done and dusted. I highly recommend it to ANYONE looking to improve the quality of their pictures, or wanting to be challenged to take a different perspective. I will be the first to put up my hand and confess that after a long day in the office, followed by "the evening routine" I've got just enough energy to beach myself on the couch and not many reserves for picking up the camera. This challenge is providing exactly the kind of motivation I need.

As I progress through this challenge, I thought I would start sharing some "things I've learned" - photographically speaking:

On creating capturing the moment 

• Mundane situations just need a different perspective. For instance, getting ready for daycare is hardly the highlight of the day particularly when Master 1 is refusing to put pants on and you're already dangerously close to missing your 8am meeting (and losing your mind). What to do, what to do?  Take a deep breath, pick up the camera and get down to their level. It's amazing what you can see from that altitude.
• Keep your camera in a handy location in the house. You never know when you may need to be a responsible parent and encourage behaviour such as shoe theivery. Timing is everything with kids!

Tips & Tricks for capturing movement

• I'm no expert in this area, it's something I'm dead keen on improving on over the next few months. That said, to capture the "hole in one" image this week I used my trusty tripod. These don't have to be expensive mine was around $35 (will confirm where it's from shortly), but it's a must when you're wanting to capture movement of your subject without blurring the background or (as some would argue) anytime after 5pm. The evening was overcast, but the glare allowed me to drop the ISO to 100. I opened my aperture up to f/8 and used a shutter speed of 1/15 giving both good exposure & keeping the integrity of the basketball. Final tip on this one - to avoid shake when pressing the button, set the camera to an auto-timer. I used my 2 second timer in this pic.

Hope the above helps!

Here's the "week that was"

Jacq