Kate's ITP Blog

For my final assignment, I played with the technique of using a plastic water bottle with lighting on either side and the camera balanced in a hole at the top to take close-ups on objects inside the bottom of the jug (with the bottom cut out). Perhaps due to the relative thinness of the plastic in the jug I used, I found that I was still getting some hot-spots from the lights, so I placed another clear bottle full of water in front of the stronger light to diffuse it more. In the future, I'd definitely use halogen lights instead of tungsten, as the results are slightly yellow despite white balancing, but overall I think the technique produced some appealing shots.

Continue reading "Diffuse Light Close Ups" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 01:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week we discussed time lapse photography and stop motion animation. I came up with a brief storyline, and played it out with stop motion. All in all, I'm happy with the results, but I learned a few lessons along the way... I need a larger memory card for my camera (I ran out twice, and switching out the card jostled the camera a bit). Also, there are a few shots in the sequence that did not auto-focus quite right, which is annoying, but can be avoided in the future by using manual focus.

Continue reading "Stop Motion Animation" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 03:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week's assignment was to experiment with capturing images with a basic flatbed scanner. I really enjoyed this technique, and experimented with a ton of different objects and backgrounds. At first, it was frustrating to deal with the limited depth of field (the scanner will only focus to about a quarter of an inch from the plate), but I learned to work within the constraints. Some of the best shots are included below. I haven't included high-res versions because they are so large (and incredibly detailed--fun!). This is definitely a technique that I'll continue to experiment with in the future.

Continue reading "Scanner Photography" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, I experimented with the technique learned in class of holding a 35mm lens in reverse in front of the digital camera lens to achieve an extreme closeup. The aperture of the lens I had at hand was really too small to experiment all that effectively, but I got a good sense of the process--particularly the challenges!

Continue reading "Extreme Closeup" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 01:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For my first shot this week, I revisited night photography yet again to experiment with twilight. In our readings, it was noted that night photographs tend to look better when there is still color in the sky, and I did find this to be the case. To draw out more color from the sky, I ever so slightly overexposed the shot (as evidenced in the brightness of the moon, which gives it a nice glowing effect, though it's so small it does look a bit odd...).

Continue reading "Twilight Photography & Color Challenge" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 02:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week was spring break, but I took this opportunity to experiment some more with night photography. My main goal was to improve the exposure, which I struggled with the last time I tried night photography. I believe I succeeded, as the histograms on the following images seem reasonable for the content. I think the first photograph would have been improved by taking it just after sunset, as opposed to full dark, so I may try to retake that one in future weeks. Disappointingly, the noise levels in the sky in all three shots are relatively high, despite the fact that I took all of the shots at 100 ISO.

Continue reading "More Night Photography" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week's assignment was to experiment with night photography. This past weekend I went up on our roof and played around for a few hours starting at sunset. The shots below were the best of my results, and I was planning to go out for more again this week to correct some of the problems I discovered when I examined my photos on the computer--unfortunately the weather has been brutally cold and wind, so I couldn't really get back out with my tripod for long exposure shots like this. I'll play around with this some more over the coming weeks, as I really do like the effect of night photography.

Continue reading "Night Photography" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 01:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For this week's assignment, I experimented with 3D photography. As we learned in class, I achieved the 3D effect (which can be observed using a 3D viewer) in the shots below by taking a shot, then repositioning my tripod four inches to the right and recentering the frame.

Continue reading "3D Photography" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week we learned about intelligent ways to use flash in our photography. In my shots this week, I tried to implement the tips we learned on how to avoid unflattering and/or unnatural-looking portraits through flash diffusion and adjusting the flash intensity.

Continue reading "Flash Photography (and White Balance Revisited)" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, I experimented with panoramic photography. Tackling the challenge of my dim apartment once again, I first set the white balance using my grey card, then followed Eric's recommendation to take the first shot facing the brightest light source. I quickly realized that the uneven lighting in my apartment was going to cause problems.

Continue reading "Panoramic Photos" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of this week's topic was histograms--how to interpret them, and what to aim for when doing so. I learned that I should be avoiding any shots that had pixels stacked at either end of the histogram, indicating under- or overexposure. In practice, it was a bit trickier to actually take shots in which this didn't occur.

Continue reading "Histograms" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 02:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

For my first assignment for Digital Imaging: Reset, taught by Eric Rosenthal, I experimented with my Canon s60's Av, Tv and M settings. I'd (sadly) never used these settings previously, and therefore had never experimented with using depth of field on a digital camera.

Continue reading "White Balance, Depth of Field & Manual Focus" »

Posted by Kate Monahan at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)