February 18th: apertures, sunlighting

We have talked a lot about the basic mode zones and what you can do with aperture priority and and shutter priority. The article that I am linking you to is to help you get out of those zones. Why? So that
you can start looking at the more creative aspects of photography. "How to bypass the Portrait Mode"
Be sure to visit all the links this article has.

Next, let's look at our class this past week.

Facing the sun, okay it sure "brightens" the face. It down right washes it out, makes you squint,

cover your eyes, close your eyes, look down, peek through your bangs, all kinds of 'attractive'

features.....NOT.  While the background isn't bad you still see the cars, the overhang and other

small distractions. So what did we do? We not only changed the direction of the sun, we change

the angle from which I was shooting.

Shooting down takes away the distractions. The background is plain the focus is on the subjects,

you. Putting the sun to your backs allows you to open your eyes, there are no harsh shadows 

across your faces, nor are they dark from shadow. I metered on your faces. In other words I 

exposed or used the exposure setting best for your faces. It meant the background would be a

bit washed out, but that's okay since you are my subjects. If I had a fill flash I could have used 

that to lighten your faces and keep the background if it were important. The other thing the sun

does is create nice highlights in your hair that frames each face. An angelic look. 

My depth of field or f-stop was probably not big enough if I wanted you all focus. I think I had it 

near f8. I should have gone higher to f16 to get everyone focus. A smaller opening to let in

less light would have created that. If I had used f2.8 (a large opening) probably just Sarilda,

Kinzie and Lily would be in focus and everyone else would gradually get more and more out

of focus.

Here, one subject is in focus and others are slightly out of focus. The sun is behind, 

colors pop and you still see smiley faces and highlighted hair.

Your Assignment: pick a subject and blur the background. Get them in ASAP

PLEASE remember to put 'WHS Photography Class' in your subject of your email. 

If you don't it gets lost in my email and I have no way of finding it again. Also please 

don't give me links to photobucket or other sites. Just sent your jpeg.