My first Soundslides assignment is about scooters as a major mode of transportation on campus. So all of my pictures for the Photo 1 assignment were taken outdoors. More than anything else, I was concerned about showing the scooter culture on campus without being redundant. I didn’t want all the pictures to be people getting on and off scooters parked scooters. I also thought it would be really challenging to capture nice pictures on scooters in motion. But the weather became my biggest issue the week I decided to take pictures.
Either the sun was really bright, or the sky was cloudy and rainy. So I opted to battle the morning and midday sun and avoid possible thunderstorms during the afternoon. Many of the pictures have that glaring “sunlight-just-before-the-rain” look. When I started taking pitures, I thought it was great to have a lot of natural sunlight. But the sun actually washed out some of the color and details in the pictures.
The sun took over a lot of detail in both of these photos so I had to adjust the levels in both. Two weeks ago in class Mindy shared with the class how certain times of the day are favorable for taking pictures outdoors. She said the natural light is usually beautiful between 8 or 9 in the morning and about one hour before dusk when the shadows are still long. Mindy also said always setting the appropriate white balance and ISO on cameras could help us take better photos. In the Kenneth Kobre text we use for class, he discusses how to deal with different sources of light on pages 240-246. According to the text, all sources of light cast light that isn’t purely white and has a trace of some color. But Kobre notes that when the internal controls for color in digital cameras are used correctly, white objects appear white in the final photo no matter what the light source was in the original setting (p. 240).
Kobre’s advice for avoiding the harsh sun midday photos is to photograph the subject in the shade or take them with their backs to the sun (p.243). In this picture I was trying to avoid the morning sun, which was rising behind the officer while she gave tickets.
I don’t know what kind of camera you are using, but one way of getting the details in a picture is using a UV filter (if you have that function in your camera).
What a UV filter essentially does is it reduces the brightness of natural light (blocks the UV rays)which increases the clarity of the pictures. I have heard people use UV filters to get good detail shots of clouds and other things which are a problem to shoot because of bright light. I haven’t used it too many times myself, but I sure would like to see how well it works in different scenarios.
Hope that will be of some help in the future, just in case.
My point-and-shoot camera has a white balance option, but I not really figured out how it works yet! However, when I put the camera on “manual” and choose the “sunny” setting for light, it does pretty well. It’s also important WHERE you stand. Sun at your back is usually good for pictures, but your people might be squinting!
Kecia – I like the picture of the officer writing tickets – nice angle on the “scooter culture.”
Laura