Green

I tried to photograph something to illustrate "green". In the garden at this time of year, pretty much everything is green - grass, leaves, buds - so I headed out into the garden thinking "easy". Actually, not so easy as it happens.

I think I have said before that in NZ the light quality was such that you could see "a million" shades of green in the trees. Well it turns out that you can see tens, maybe even hundreds of shades of green in foliage. So leaves have turned out to be not quite an ideal subject for this project!




This was the "out of the camera" shot of (I think) foxglove leaves, which came in at 1/100 sec f4. I thought the green was too light overall so shot again in manual mode.



1/100 sec f5.6. And this is undoubtedly too dark. But I do think that some of the "greens" represent the green I am after.

Because the subject has many leaves, at all different angles, shadows are being cast which are affecting the brightness of the image. I think if I continue with the idea of foliage and flowers, I need to use a macro lens to pick out a small area of the subject. Lighting, using natural light, should be easier on a small single surface too.

I'll have another go......

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Colour

Ok so I've been looking through the coursework and giving Colour some thought. Like I said, Colour was the section which excited me the most on this course, although I am not entirely sure why. I used to have my own darkroom and printed my own black and white prints from there for quite a few years. Given the choice I would always go for b&w shoots. The family portraits on the walls are all b&w. I love flicking through our old family photos - b&w of course.

However, we lived in NZ for a few years and the light quality there is incredible. And this means that the colours in nature there are stunning, the clarity is amazing. I have never seen so many shades of green in trees. The sky was more blue than I could imagine.

Whilst I am not really one for photoshopping and edits, I am now enjoying using the camera's manual setting to obtain truer colours while shooting. ( Also I have become a fan of Florabella actions, and love the subtle changes which can alter the mood of the image completely.)

I reread the section in the course book which reminds us that there are three qualities which define colour:

- hue (say red, blue etc)
- saturation (pure, intense, saturated -----> dull, weak, unsaturated)
- brightness (very bright ------------------> very dark)

I also gave thought to the Primary colours (red, yellow, blue) and Secondary colours (orange, violet and green) and the subject matter I might use to illustrate these colours in the next few projects. I had a thought that I could also do a "library" of the colours, or create a colour wheel, by using single flowers in each of the colours. I could also create a rainbow effect in this way maybe... As I am now completing the course just for me, I may tailor some of the projects to the kinds of photography that I most enjoy.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Project 30 - Colour Control (manually operated cameras)

For this project I had to find an object of a strong definite colour and photograph it with the cameras automated exposure setting. Then I had to take the same photo over and under exposing it.

I initially wanted to photograph a bright red dress I have, but the folds of the material meant that there were always shadows and variations in colour on the photos. So instead I chose to photograph a blue chair back.

This is the image taken on my camera's auto exposure setting. 1/125 sec f6.3

This was taken at 1/125 sec f5.6.

1/125 sec f5

1/125 sec f7.1



1/125 sec f8

By over-exposing the blue becomes lighter, and by under-exposing it becomes darker and stronger.

I have 2 black Labradors and I have found I have a problem getting their true colour in a picture if I use the camera's auto-exposure.

 

This was taken using the camera's auto-exposure setting.  It was 1/15 sec at f7.1.  The dog was lying on a dark brown couch under a window and the whole image has been lightened by the camera's auto setting.

This one was taken on fully manual at 1/15 sec f9.  By under-exposing the image slightly, the dog's fur is a truer black, but is still lightened by the sunlight from the window, and it isn't so dark that detail is lost.

I think that this project is so very useful, and has reminded me to use the manual settings on the camera more than my usual Av mode.