A Day at the Zoo

Finals are over.  I had a day off work and grabbed my camera and headed to the zoo.

I had my Nikon with the 55-200 lens.  

The lighting is a little dark on him, but I loved that he was sticking out his tongue.  

Monkeys are always a good shot.

I cropped him in a little and adjusted the hue of his beak to contrast the white and black.

It was awesome how geometrically the beak was parallel to his neck and his 

black tail feathers were just fluffy and out of control.

He was really close and everyone said he was gonna bite me.  Ha!

This was not manipulated at all.  Beautiful!  

Not all of the animals are out yet, but it was a good day to shoot.

Visual Grammer

Trying to determine where to place your subject can be difficult.  With the digital camera it is  easy enough to shoot hundreds of photos and pick out the best ones.  Having a plan ahead of time makes it easier.  My plan was to photograph some red bud trees before the flowers blew off.  I decided to have some fun in the process.  I did get some good shots of the red bud trees but I was distracted with trying some different shots of my daughter at different angles.

Taken at level view.

Taken at a low angle and converted to black and white.

Taken at a high level

These were fun to take.  We were on the bank of a stream.

I will post the shots of red buds a little later.

These Are Just Pretty

I love Spring.  All of the beautiful flowers are starting to bloom.  I didn't do much to these manipulate these.

Spring is Here

I should be working on my Power Point slides for class.  My yard has been blooming like crazy and I just wanted to share.  The hyacinths are going crazy right now and I wish my camera could capture the scent.

This picture was taken at 6:42pm on 3/21/12.  ISO 100, flash used and f 8.0.

This picture was taken at 3/21/12 at 6:41pm.  ISO 800, no flash and f 4.5.

I am still trying to grasp how all of these settings work together.  I was amazed at the difference in the two pictures as a result of the camera settings.

Margaret Bourke-White

I have never heard of this amazing photographer before studying for this project.  Upon searching for a photographer that I was wanted to explore, I knew that I wanted my subject to be a woman photographer.  I am enrolled in a Woman's Studies class and am interested and fascinated with the path woman have taken through history.  I also wanted to study a photographer who was socially conscious and took photos from a different time period.  I wanted my photographer to capture people and their life circumstances.  Margaret Bourke-White meets all of these criteria.

Margaret was a college graduate who started studying photography at a young age as a hobby.  After college she became more serious about her artwork.  Margaret was the first in many endeavors.   Margaret was the first photographer from the West who was allowed into the Soviet Industry.  As a war photographer, she was also allowed into the death camps in Buchenwald. 

Her journey into war photography was as a pioneer.   She was the first female photographer who was allowed to enter the combat zones during World War II.  

During the Depression, Margaret Bourke-White captured American history through her eyes.  The photographs show hunger and desperation and tell a story about people during one of the toughest times in our country's history.

Margaret Bourke-White did not limit her photography passion to people.  The composition shown in her photos is truly an art.  The patterns and layouts are amazing.  

I am excited to learn more about this fascinating woman who did not let her gender get in her way of pursuing her passion for photography.

Name

Here is my name.  This was a fun assignment and once I started looking for letters in the little details and big pictures I saw them everywhere!  My W is from the Mastadon at IPFW.  My E is from a bicycle rack in downtown Fort Wayne.  The N is a from a window cutout on a building downtown Fort Wayne.  I think it was originally a doorway.  The D is the top window at Baker Street.  The Y is a tree at the IPFW campus.  I tried to stay with a theme of large objects outside. All of the pictures were cropped and a couple were rotated.  I hope you can see it!

Outdoor Photo

Adjusted Mastadon

Original Mastadon

I took this picture of the IPFW Mastadon Monday, March 12, 2012.  The day was very gloomy and dreary when I snapped him.  I adjusted the brightness, saturation, contrast and color.  I was trying to bring out his texture.
   

Indoor Lighting

Photo after manipulation with Photoshop

Photo before manipulation

This picture was taken of my daughter before she was headed to a business competition.  The picture was darker than I liked and we did not take the leashes off of the wall before the picture.  Marcy and Rosco were fighting for her attention.  I adjusted the lighting, shadows, contrast and took out the leashes.

I miss my camera

Had to send my Nikon back for a "warranty technicality".  I told them to just pretend I sent it back and switch the paperwork.  Nope...  They have to send me a different camera with a different serial number.  It is going to be a long week without it.  I keep feeling like I left something behind.  I guess I can work on some of the hundreds of existing pictures I have collected in the last month.

Updated Lighting on Horses

Original picture with greyed snow and background.



Photo with brightness and contrast adjusted to whiten snow.

I was able to adjust the brightness and contrast in the original picture to whiten the snow.  I left the barn alone.

Logo

I started with a picture my daughter took with my camera.  She was taking pictures of herself in the car through the mirror.  As I was reviewing them I noticed one that had clouds in the lens.  Very cool!  I tried to duplicate this picture with myself many times...fail!  I really liked the clouds in the lens, but for the logo wanted to break away from a solid photo as my main theme.  I took the original picture, cropped it a tad and lightened it a tad.  I opened it in Photoshop and used the poster edge filter and added some text.  I then created my film strip with pictures that I have taken and warped it.  I moved the pictures into Power Point and put a soft edge on my filtered picture.  I played around with placement of the warped film strip and filtered picture.  I found something that I liked and grouped the files. I turned the merged file into a JPEG.  I then turned the JPEG into a PNG and removed the background back in Photoshop.  This first picture was my inspiration.

This is the finished version.

This was a sample I was working with using 3D Cube Wrap in Photoshop.  I couldn't place my film in a way I liked so I abandoned it.

Flowers

These pictures were taken at the Botanical Conservatory.  I wanted to try my camera in the warmth.  I am really struggling with getting out into the cold to shoot.  I can't wait for Spring.

These pictures all display depth of field.  I did not edit any of them.

Little Red Barn

I saw this little barn driving around Harlan today.  The red was beautiful against the sky.
This is the straightened and cropped picture.  I manipulated this using Photoshop.

The lower picture is the original.

Down by the River

This photo was taken by Jan, 2012, by Johnny Appleseed Park in Fort Wayne, IN.  

The photo is adjusted in Picasa.   I adjusted the coloring, lighting and contrast.  No cropping was done.

This is the original photo.

Composition

This is a photo that I took behind IPFW at a barn by the Plex on January 21, 2012.  The sky was beautiful.  I was using a UV filter for the first time.

I tried adjusting the lighting, saturation and color. 

I finally settled on a cropping.

More cropping in Picasa

This photo was taken in Fort Wayne on January 28, 2012.  There was a carriage I noticed as I was driving.  Again, I had my camera in my lap and snapped a shot at the traffic light.

Using Picasa I was able to crop out a lot of the junk and focus in on the horses.

I took the picture a little farther and straightened and lightened it with Picasa.

I think I like the unlightened photo better.  The browns are deeper and look less washed out.

Cropping in Picasa

This is a photo taken on a Sunday afternoon in January 2012, in Grabill, IN..  I was driving and noticed an Amish gentleman trying to get his horses corralled into the barn.  I had my camera in my lap as I was hoping to catch some horses in a field. These pictures were taken from my car on the fly with very little time to set the shot

I cropped the photo in Picasa and was able to zero in a little bit and catch some detail.  This is the shot after I cropped it.  I was able to eliminate a lot of the white that washed out the picture and took your eye from the subject.

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