Sunday, November 04, 2007

Picture Post, Sunday November 4, 2007

A hodgepodge of things.

Been going back through some of my old photos for worthy phtographs that, for whatever reason, haven't been converted to a size and format that I could post on either of my blogs.

So here ya go.

This here is a shurf's dee-partment boat patrolling the waters of the Indian River Lagoon at Grant, Florida.


Some of my Mother and Father In Law's flowers. Back in the early 1980s when Lovely Wife and I were dating and then engaged, I spent a lot of time at their home. They had a beautiful daughter, a beautiful swimming pool, and beautiful flowers to photograph for my photography addiction. My parents didn't see a whole lot of me during this period. What can I say.


On July 4, 2006, the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off for the first shuttle mission since the tragedy of Columbia in 2003. Lovely Wife and I went to the beach to watch, and while I waited, I watched this life guard. She was talking to a friend, but she was super alert and looked to be scanning the surf all the time she was talking. I decided to take a couple of photos because I liked her stand with all the flags and signs and I took one horizontal shot (not shown) and then switched to this vertical shot and she stopped talking and turned and looked right at me. I was a good ways away from her and using a telephoto lens. I've never believed that people could sense when someone was watching them, but she sure seemed to have the gift.


I used slide film for many years, and good photographic practice with slide film dictated that you, as photographers phrased it, "expose for the highlights." What this means is that with slide film, in general, most photos need to have the exposure adjusted to where the brightest part of the photo is in perfect exposure, letting the rest of the image fall into whatever darker tones happened. Just flip through ANY National Geographic with color photos and you'll notice that every image is rather dark looking, but invariably has some prominent bright highlight that isn't glaring at you. For me, digital photography is like shooting slide film in that the best photos expose for the highlights. I've had comments on some of my photos from time to time that an image was too dark, but this way of thinking of a photo's exposure is ingrained in my mind like multiplication tables from fourth grade. This next photo however, I WANTED to emphasize the glare of the intense sunlight on the water. Sometimes you have to break the rules to "say" what you want with a photograph. It was taken on a brutally hot and humid day and I wanted the photo to have a bit of that feel if possible.


Compare what I just told y'all about proper exposure and how I broke the generally accepted rule of basing exposure on the brightest part of a scene in the above photo with this next photo. The brightest parts of this next photo are the blue-green shutters over the windows of this restaurant and the front fender and top of the white car there. I set the exposure for these two things to NOT be as intense and distracting as the photo above. I was trying to get a good general and flattering photo of this pretty restaurant in Indialantic, Florida, so I played by the rule in this one.




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2 comments:

photowannabe said...

I love what you did with these archival pictures. The life guard one is a hoot...thanks for sharing.

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

lol at your parents not getting to see you too often....the flowers are really pretty :)

and yes lol @ lifeguard's ESP too!!!!