Weekend Assignment

Where do I want to go with my photography, what do I want to do, what sort of photographer am I. These are the question s that I wrestled with over the weekend. I decided that my passion is objects, people and scenery. Scenery could wait as it takes more time, taking a food photo at home takes les time, and with three kids…

Saturday I needed to pick something precious. I decided on the two things that Saturday first presented to me, my breakfast and Ruby. The weather cleared so I took Ruby to Cornwall park, after I had a photo of the French toast, one of my most precious breakfast items.

Taking photos of Ruby, my most precious girl, was a real challenge. She can be very busy and it is difficult to get her to slow down, add to this shooting on manual and many shots were not exposed correctly, I simply forgot in my haste to get the shot. I became aware of how lazy my shooting is. Shooting on manual I kept forgetting where the aperture control was, or I couldn’t quite reach it. I was so busy with shutter, aperture, exposure and composition that I didn’t even think about playing with exposure.

But with all the problems and getting past Ruby’s playing to the camera I still managed to get some good photos. Lesson learnt is to spend some time on full manual until it becomes second nature.

I love what a shallow depth of field can do. It is a way to accentuate something that may otherwise be lost on the crowd. The row of cups could easily have a caption against it “There are many choices in coffee, but only one stands out above the rest.

I also loved what a very slow shutter speed can do, the wisp of a person as the guy rode past on his bike, I love the idea of remnants, an idea I had not thought of before. To capture an ethereal humanness is something I would like to explore rather than the crisp clean typical portrait.

Can you see the trace of the person on the bike, is it a man or a woman?