All photos were taken on a Canon Rebel XS.
- Shallow depth of field
- Natural Light (indirect light, in shadow)
- Editing: lightened, warmed temperature, increased saturation
- Shallow depth of field
- Natural Light (cloudy)
- Editing: lightened shadows and darkened blacks, increased saturation, warmed temperature
- Shallow depth of field
- Natural light (cloudy)
- Natural color contrast (warm vs cool)
- Framing
- Natural Light (Sunny)
- Editing: warmed temperature
- Leading Lines
- Rule of Thirds
- Natural Light (Sunny)
- Blurred movement
- Rule of Thirds
- Editing: Cropping, increased saturation, warmed temperature, sharpened
- Rule of Thirds
- Cropping
- Editing: Increased contrast, increased saturation, increased blacks, warmed temperature
- Shallow depth of field
- Symmetry composition
- Natural light (indirect light, in shadow)
- Cropping
- Rule of Thirds
- Editing: lighted shadows but deepened blacks. warmed temperature
- Shallow depth of field
- Rule of Thirds
- Editing: Cropping, brightening
Reflection
Throughout this class, my favorite photos have been the ones including animals. They are the photos I'm most excited to take and the ones that bring me the most joy when I look at them. This is not a big surprise -- I've always enjoyed featuring animals in other areas of art. So I decided to have every photo in my final feature an animal. I had hoped to include more photos of wild animals, but luck was not on my side in the past couple weeks, and I did not come across many of the larger animals that live around me.
My biggest challenge is that my subjects are not always cooperative. With the farm animals, I have a better chance at getting good shots, but they may not be positioned in the optimal light conditions or they may be moving way too quickly. Also, animals, both domestic farm and wild, tend to be most active around dawn and dusk, so I found myself often shooting in low light conditions. I've become better at adapting to this through the class, but its still creates a struggle in getting crisp photos.
My goal when taking animal pictures is to capture their personality or spirit. I feel that many of these photos capture the animals' moods, quirks, and dispositions. If others can see that in the photos, too, then I would count that as my biggest success. One of my favorite techniques is using a shallow depth of field. Its especially helpful when taking portraits; it allows me to clean up noise and clutter in the background and direct all the focus towards my subject. I tried to not rely on this technique too much, because I didn't want the collection of photos to feel very repetitive, with every photo being a shallow depth of field portrait. I tried to create a bit of variety, but if I were to expand on these photos, I would try to include photos that have a greater depth of field/more subjects in the photo.