Hi everybody!
In anticipation of just about everyone lamenting the end of the weekend and having another Monday to overcome, here are some fun photos to feast upon (alliteration is my favourite).
This blog post is all about shooting in the dark (whether outside or inside), as well as a cool trick that any photographer can do with an easily downloaded, free bit of programming:)
But first, here is what I feel is my first truly successful star streak photo thus far. It was minus 30 last night, but hey, no pain, no game right?
I seriously dig this photo. It was taken at midnight over about a 35 minute time span. I believe the colours in the sky are from some solar radiation, as I was hoping for some cool Northern Lights last night as well. Unfortunately, no dice, but I am very happy with this.
Now, just to prove that you can accomplish some pretty amazing things in the dark without having to stray into minus 30 weather, here are some candles my lovely lady set up this week. A mid-range ISO setting and relatively quick shutter speed allow the candles to appear to be set in pitch black. (They are actually on my kitchen counter)
Always strive to find new angles. Even though I was a little worried about what the heat coming off of the candles might do to my camera, it turned out fine (no fires) and I got an interesting perspective out of it.
One of the best things about shooting in the dark is the depth you can get from a simple portrait shot. Also helps when you have a superb model!
Even without a really long exposure, the stars last night were just spectacular. Again, you can see some cool colours from the anticipated Aurora.
Finally, here is the profile mosaic I was talking about. It is a photo of me made out of hundreds of my own photos. Cool, ey?
This photo is actually really easy to achieve. All you need is a photo of yourself, or anyone/anything really, a bunch of photos that are not too big (mine are 1200 pixels across or less), and a free program called Andrea Mosaic.
I downloaded it just from googling the name, and learned how to use the program with a few more google queries and fiddling around. You can set the program to only use a photo as a tile once, or multiple times. I found I had to allow the program to use the same photos lots to accomplish the image. The trick seems to be making sure that the same photos are not too close to each other (there is a setting for that too).
I find this especially cool for pro or semi-pro photographers to show off their stuff in a novel way, but obviously anyone can try it and show off what they were able to get, along with some of their other work!
There it is. I hope you enjoyed this Monday photo break. Tell me what you think, and I will see you next time.
