photography challenge – Page 2 – Something to Ponder About

HDR – filter. Do you use it?

Employing it with some photos in my library did not work. Subjects looked over bleached, or suddenly developed a halo, however it did successfully bring out the features that were normally darkened. The image I have chosen, came alive with the HDR effect in Picasa, even if it wasn’t an entirely natural effect. I felt like the snow was suddenly within my reach.

Photo 1: Without HDR filter

w hdr — Picture 2 – With HDR Filter in Picasa

It certainly brings out the features that I wanted in the photograph. I am quite happy with this although, I did have to find try a few before I reached this point.

Thanks for the challenge, from weliveinaflat and Meghan from Firebonnet.

In another photo that I almost used, the mountains were better defined, with the HDR filter, but it wasn’t the best photo choice.

Some photo effects to ponder about

The Daily Post challenge encourages us to photograph one tangible object, being conscious of Aperture, composition, focus and depth of field. Furthermore, the post tells us some photographs, like portraits, focus on individuals, while still-life moments capture the beauty (and often treasured stories) of belongings and found objects. I had already been experimenting with aperture the last month or so, and thus, I had this photo ready, (unknowingly), for this challenge. To me, it seems to encapsulate the beauty of our Australian family Christmases with the various Scandinavian traditions inextricably entwined with typically Australian ones.

I used a low f stop to blur the background and make the Danish and Swedish decorations stand out.

To help me learn aperture settings and meanings I jotted down these notes from Photography 101 ‘focus’ tips found here

Shallow depth of field – bigger aperture – lower f number,
Deeper depth of field – smaller aperture – high f number.

Deep focus for landscape, architecture, interior design,
Shallow or short focus for sports, food or people.

The closer you are to the object, the less the depth of field,
The further away you are, the greater the depth of field in an image.

In my second photo, there was no study of depth of field, it is posted because it is one of the weirdest “objects” I have seen on my travels. It is the sort of thing that seem like a good idea at the time, that is: to advertise a fish shop, with an enormous fibreglass prawn, but then, when the fish shop closes……