My Classroom as a Camera Obscura

The other day we made the photography classroom into a camera obscura. Blacked out the windows and door, cut a hole in the paper covering the door, inserted a uv filter, hung a white backdrop across from the "lens" opening, and turned off the lights. I really like this activity, but then again I'm a photo geek. Hopefully the students liked it too...got a few ooohs and aaahs =] The exposure time for these shots is 25 seconds. The first image is with the uv filter-sized pinhole--nice and bright, but blurry. Small depth of field? Maybe.

If you don't know what my classroom looks like the door is just off to the right. The inverted image is of the two portable classrooms across from my room. You can also see several students in white t-shirts. At the bottom right are some students sitting on the floor.

This second shot is with a much smaller pinhole--about 1 cm in diameter. Darker for sure, and I believe it's also clearer. It seems to line up perfectly with the way apertures work, but I'm not positive if that's the reason for the difference.

Have I mentioned before that I have the best job ever? Add this to the supporting evidence :)

My "Pastels II" Challenge Entry

Even though this is now my personal worst score on DPC (70th out of 157 entries) I'm still glad I entered. I'm not a big fan of pastels, so it was a challenge for me, but that's the point. The other and more difficult challenge to overcome was the fact that we had family visiting from WI and MN the whole time the challenge was going on, so I didn't have a lot of time to shoot or edit. The day the challenge closed we went to the LA Zoo with my mom and step-dad, and that's where I shot this flower. Dustin gets the credit for pointing it out to me and holding it steady for the shot :) It's an HDR, and much more vibrant than it should probably have been for a pastel challenge, but this is how it looked after merging the three exposures, so I left it.

Hesperia's Picture This! Photo Contest

Anybody interested in entering a photo contest? Just got an email about Hesperia's Picture This! Photo Contest and it sounds easy enough to enter. The theme is Environmental Awareness. Here are the official guidelines and the submission form, which includes more ideas of what kind of picture they're looking for. The top 13 photos will be printed in the 2012 City of Hesperia Environmental Awareness Calendar and posted on the city website.

Students: Just a reminder that I always offer extra credit for entering your work in photo contests other than those within our classroom.

Banner Design

So, we're using a new website at school this year and it seems like it'll be really great. The only downfall I've encountered so far is that it's very cookie cutter looking. I want to spice up my pages with a photography-related banner. I really like the one shown here but don't want to use somebody else's picture without permission. Since I'm not well versed in fair use and copyright law, I'd just rather err on the side of caution. I'm going to try and whip something up myself, but the next week and a half are crazy busy! So, if anybody is feeling creative and wants to give it a shot I'd be interested to see some other ideas. I'm looking for about 600 x 100 pixels. It can include text or not.

If you're taking photography with me next year an attempt at this banner will count for extra credit :) Just email it to me.

Many thanks in advance!

Venice

The Venice boardwalk is so colorful in every sense of the word--the people, the artwork, the smells, the ocean, the architecture, the music. I was there visiting family, so it wasn't specifically a photography trip, and therefore I didn't spend a whole lot of time shooting. I'm definitely going to need to go back. And next time I'll have to bring a long lens, a pocket full of one dollar bills, and a braver attitude, becuase there are quite a few "No photos please" and "$1 for photo" signs up by the various vendors and performers.

An Artist at Work

At the skatepark.

Shame on me, because the first time we went to the skatepark there were tons more skaters and some were doing crazy tricks, but guess who didn't have her camera. We went back specifically to get photos, but there was barely anybody there and we only had about five minutes to shoot. There's always next time...

Shoot From the Hip - Harry Perry

This was my one brave move. While watching another group of performers this guy skated behind us playing his electric guitar. I quickly turned, shot, and turned back... so sneaky :) Or so I thought... When I looked at the shot later it looks like he was looking right at me.

"Ballerina Clown" by Jonathan Borofsky

Apparently a symbol of the variety of people you'll see in Venice. It's gigantic and is perched above the enterance to the CVS on Rose St. Yes, I realize we're looking right up his/her skirt. Guess it just adds to the weird factor.

"The Binoculars Building" by Frank Gehry

This is an alternate view that doesn't look too much like binoculars. You might have seen this building in the movie I Love You, Man if you were paying close attention. Also by Frank Gehry: The Guggenheim, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Experience Music Project, and many others. He's worth looking up.

Time Lapse

This morning I stumbled upon this SWEET video by Tom Lowe. I've been itching to do some long exposures of star trails, but this looks pretty amazing too.

TimeScapes: Rapture from http://vimeo.com/timescapes on Vimeo.

Here's a how-to video that I thought was pretty heplful. It was a little annoying, however, to see that girl lounging around underneath the tripod. The idea is to keep the camera s t e a d y !

Timelapse with a DSLR from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.

More Traffic = More Money :: SEO for your Blog

I was recently checking out a blog that I've been following for a about a year now--Rachel Clare Photography. I absolutely love her style of photography. You should check her out. Anyway, I was noticing again how she titles her blog posts--always a simple title followed by the location followed by the word photographer or child photographer or wedding photographer, etc. For example: "Bryce & Lora :: Married! - Orange County, CA Wedding Photographer." I've always thought the titles were a bit peculiar and wordy, but when I started to think about a little thing called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) I realized how brilliant they were. Since several of my followers are up and coming professional photographers I thought I'd post a little bit about this topic.

I'm no expert by far, but I know that in order to make money off of photography people have to find out about you and what you do. A blog or website is a great way to do that, but how do you get people to visit? How do you get search engines like Google to show your site when someone is searching for a photographer? I hunted around and found an article that I think does a good job of answering these questions. If you'd like to increase traffic to your blog I think it'd make for a helpful read.

SEO Tips for the Professional Photographer