Online Photography Classes - Shoot Fly Shoot

Click image to go to Shoot Fly Shoot DSLR camera online photography classes website

One of things that blogging has enabled me to do is work on my photography skills.  I've really enjoyed experimenting with my camera to improve photos of my interior, vignettes and occasional food posts but there's always room for improvement, right?

I thought I'd let you know about:

Click link to go to website

 ...Shoot Fly Shoot, a website and blog, that helps the helpless when it comes to improving your photography.  The brainchild of photographers Kevin Palmer and Josh Moates, Shoot Fly Shoot has just started the first of what I hope will be several online classes in photography, film and Photoshop.  If the name Kevin Palmer isn't immediately familiar, you'll most likely recognize him as half of "Kevin and Layla" from The Lettered Cottage.  I dont' think there could be any better testimonial for this course than the wonderful photographs we've all enjoyed on their blog. 

The "classes" are all video which was great for me because my eyes typically glaze over when I start reading about this stuff.  The Photography 101 workshop is for beginners and focuses on getting your DSLR camera off the automatic setting to improve your photographs.  They use a Canon Rebel 5D (I believe) for their demonstrations and actually show you how and where to change each of the settings.  It would be a bonus if you had a Canon camera but the settings they talk about are universal enough that it shouldn't be a problem if you have another make and model unless you have a simple point and shoot.

The lessons in the Photography 101 class are:

• Exposure
• ISO
• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• Metering
• Lenses
• Equipment
• (Beginner) Interior Photography
• (Beginner) Portrait Photography
• (Beginner) Product Photography
• (Beginner) Landscape Photography

Each of the lessons builds on the next so if you're the kind of person that needs to have things repeated several times before you absorb them, that's built in to the program.

The cost of the Photography 101 workshop is $69 and I would say it was a great value.  They say that's an introductory price so I'm not sure it that will change at some point.  You'd really have to take a course somewhere to get what's packed into this video series.  Once you purchase the course, you can watch it as many times as you want.

Shoot Fly Shoot also has a blog and a camera shop that has recommendations for cameras and lenses  at "good" "better" and "best" price points.

I really enjoyed the course and I'm really inspired to upgrade my equipment put some of what I learned to use.  I should also add that I am not being compensated in any way for this post.  Some of you have expressed an interest in taking better photographs and thought you would appreciate knowing about it.

                  Check out Shoot Fly Shoot by clicking on the icon below:

Photographing Interiors for your Blog, Part 2

I've really struggled with this post.  Other than coming to your house and showing you how to adjust your shutter speed, it's been really difficult to think of a way to approach it.  So I hope with a little description and some examples of photos at different shutter speeds, you'll get the idea.  I'm afraid you're going to have to dig out your manual to figure out how to adjust the shutter speed on your own.

This is a photo I took of sister back in the '80s.  It was taken in our basement in complete darkness.  Using my grandfather's old camera, I taped the button down so the camera's shutter (or eye) stayed open.  Just as if you were to sit in a completely dark room with your eyes open you would see nothing, it's the same with a camera.  In TOTAL darkness, a camera could sit with its shutter open for hours and record nothing.

To create this image, I used colored flashlights to illuminate the objects (my sister and glasses on the table).  There is a sheet hanging behind her which I lit with a red flashlight.  And, finally, I used a small penlight to outline her so she looks like a neon sign.

This may have taken two or three minutes to create with the camera shutter sitting open the entire time....and she had to sit completely still.

To take photos with a slow or extended shutter speed you're definitely going to need a tripod.  With your camera's shutter open longer, any movement of the camera will make the photo blurry.  You don't need anything fancy.  Here's a tripod on Amazon that's $17.

In this old photo of the kitchen, I might have used an exposure of (kept the shutter open for) one or two seconds.  As you can see, the cat in the foreground moved (against my strict instructions) and he comes out a little blurry.   I kind of like the effect as it shows action.

via

There may, in fact, be times when you want blur to show movement.  Here, in this photo of a carnival ride, the blur allows you to see the motion.

So blurry might have it's uses...

...but it's not necessarily something you want in your blog photos.  A tripod will help prevent photos  from looking like this.

Slowing down your shutter speed isn't a matter of more is better.   You can really overdo it.  This image is terribly overexposed.

By adjusting the shutter speed and taking a few test shots, you can find a setting that gives you a nice quality of light, even on a cloudy day.  

Also notice in this photo the placement of the camera.  It's just above the height of the table.  

Here you can see the placement of Michael's camera during the photo shoot.  

By placing the tripod down at the level of the objects, or a dining room table or a bed, it feels more intimate.  It puts the viewer right in the shot.  One of my favorite blogs, The Vintique Object, has done several posts in which she analyzes how wonderful interior photographs have been taken.  Here's an example of one of Camille's posts.

This photograph demonstrates a typical problem.  Your room looks like it has good light but when you take a photo, it comes out very dark.  The reason for this is your automatic camera setting.  Because the camera is faced directly into the light coming from the window, the camera is trying to automatically adjust for that bright light and it leaves the room looking very dark.

By switching to the shutter speed setting, I'm able to slow down the shutter to allow more light into the camera lens.  I don't think this is a great photograph necessarily, because the sun is shining outside and making the light look a little harsh, but it's a tradeoff.  This kind of light can make a photo look very dreamy if that's the look you're going for.  It would be better to take this photo on a cloudy day or at dusk when the light is much less severe.

We'll get to the flower arrangement in a minute.

I thought I would do a little experiment with this scene.  I took these photos a few days after the photo shoot when the flowers were still alive.  The sun has set outside and the house is dark enough to turn lights on.  I would never consider taking photographs in this light.  On an automatic setting, the camera does a pretty good job of capturing the scene but notice the image is very grainy.

I tried taking a photo with the flash and, as you can see, it looks just terrible.  I don't think there's ever a good reason to use a camera mounted flash for an interior shot unless a room has no natural light and you're forced to. 

I put the camera on shutter speed priority and extended the shot to eight seconds.  It's not a fantastic shot but it's essentially dark outside so I think it's pretty good.

I zoom in to take a closeup with a 15-second shot and you'd almost never know it isn't the middle of a sunny day.

When yesterday's forecast predicted a rare October snowstorm, I ran outside and cut the last of everything in the garden.  These are the blue hydrangeas that have aged to green, mauve and burgundy, coleus, new rose growth and Japanese maple.  We were lucky to get only a few inches of snow but this is definitely the last arrangement I'll get from the garden...presented in the style of the Dutch masters. 

Here's another darker spin on the arrangement just for Halloween.

This last flower arrangement celebrates Jane's last day of smoking.  Join the celebration at this ex-smoker's flower party....and good luck, Jane.  Be strong!

Now get out those camera manuals and tweak your shutter speeds!

Photographing Interiors for your Blog, Part 1

For nearly 150 years, bloggers have tried to capture beautiful interior photographs to share their homes and DIY projects with the world.

via Minerva's Salon

As an example, I've borrowed a photograph from the Victorian blog Minerva's Salon in which she talks about her new gallery-style installation of paintings.  Notice the reflection of extremely bright light being reflected in the mirror.  If Minerva, had controlled the light coming from the windows, we might have a clearer view of her salon wall.  We can learn a lot about photographing our homes from Minerva's mistakes.

  

Back in July when I took the photos that I knew I'd be submitting to Better Homes and Gardens, I shot the photos over the course of three days when the light was best.  In the morning, the sun shines directly in to the garden side of the house; in the afternoon, it shines in from the driveway side. I found the rooms looked brightest during the few hours when the sun was directly overhead and the light was bouncing off each of neighbors' houses.

This photo of the dining room was done about noon when the sunlight was bouncing off my neighbor's house.  It does make for a nice bright room which was really necessary to capture the dark background of the shelves but you'll also notice that the window mullions and tops of the pillows are overexposed.

Around the same time, I also started playing with my shutter speed.  Whenever there wasn't enough sunlight to capture the photo I wanted, I would try slowing my shutter speed to get a brighter photo.

So fast forward to the day of the photo shoot.  It was a dark, gray day and when the photographer and his assistant arrived, I mentioned that I was bummed that the day was so gray.  No, they said, this is the perfect day for a photo shoot.  The object to good photos is controlling the light.  A sunny day makes that much more difficult.  If the room is dark, the camera lens is left open longer to get the quality of light they're looking for.

On the second day, in fact, the sun came out and made the dining room shots problematic.  To cure this,  two different gels (I think that's what they're called) we placed over the outside of the window.  The first layer was similar to wax paper.  It blocked the direct sunlight but dispersed the light more generally around the room.  The second layer was a clear, dark gray film (similar to tinting you might put on your car windows) that reduced the amount of light coming in to the room.

I wish I had a photograph of the gels over the dining room window on the outside of the house but you can see the light in the dining room is much dimmer than the light coming in through the door in the kitchen.  Even though the sun is shining directly in to the dining room, the gels are controlling how much is coming in.  You can see in Trina's Country Living shoot how they controlled the light coming in to her house...even when the window was under the porch.

In my next post, I'll put some of this knowledge to the test.  I doubt anyone is going to buy light filters to hang outside their windows but with a tripod and few camera adjustments, you can put away the flash and take still create a little sunshine on the cloudy day.