Fun with Lights

So this is not the official post for the week, that will be here a little later.

However, there is this hill I come over everyday on my way home from work and I have always wanted to play with Bokeh a little more because you come over it and can see all the city lights.

So here one is, enjoy :)

Time Lapse

Time lapse is a technique which shows a naturally long process in a short amount of time, flower blooming, fruit decaying, sunsets, etc. 

This is a fairly simple process:

The first thing you are going to want to do is pick a subject or project. It can be something you are going to create all together or a natural process. 

After you have your idea in place, choose the amount of time between pictures, this is going to vary depending on what you are doing and how long you want your video to be. Your gap between pictures can be anywhere between a few seconds to a few hours.

Then you will need to set up your tri-pod and take the pictures you need.

After you are done taking all your pictures, you will need to insert them into a program that will play them all together, I know Adobe Photoshop has a program for this as well as Windows Movie Maker.

Here are my projects from the week:

Sunset from my apartment

About 50 pictures were taken  every 2 minutes for an hour and a half

Cleaning the living room.

In this Time Lapse I took some objects right out of the shot so they looked like they just disapeared and slowly moved some objects across the screen so they looked like they were moving on their own.

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Bokeh Filters

Bokeh is where you use a shallow depth of field to create a blur that has a pleasing affect on your pictures. This effect is not necessarily limited to highlights and points of light, however that is where it is most easily recognized. A Bokeh filter is used when you want to take indirect points of light and turn them into shapes or designs.
You can purchase Bokeh filters ( http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/bokeh-Kit/) however, they are very simple to make and the homemade ones work just as well.

To make a homemade Bokeh filter:

1. Gather all your supplies:

You will need, a lens of your choosing, the lens here is a Tamron 28mm to 80mm, a piece of dark construction paper(preferably black, but if you are like me and did not have black, any dark color will do), scissors, a surface to cut on(cutting board, piece of cardboard etc.), and a utility or  an exacto knife.

2. Now you want to put you lens face down onto the piece of paper and trace.

3. After you have traced the lens 3 or 4 times(depending on how many shapes you would like to make). Draw a small shape in the middle of the circle. Try making different shapes of different sizes so you can find what will work best for your lens. For what I was using it seemed the smaller shapes I made worked better.

4. Once you have all your shapes, use your knife to cut the shape out of the paper.

5. Now take your scissors and cut the circle out of the paper and cut down until it fits inside your lens.

The cover should just fit right onto your lens.

However, if you accidentally cut your circle too small, cut one strip of paper, place that around the edge where are additional light may come through, and use some delicate tape to tape in place. 

Now find a dark place with some indirect light point and shoot. This technique works the best at night however it can be done during the day as well.

Also depending on the circumstance it may be wise to have a tri-pod with you as you try this, so you can play around with the shutter speeds as much as possible.

Out come:

These were just taken of  the traffic lights next to my house.

The awkward introduction

I have been thinking for probably an hour about some funny, interesting way to start this blog. This is the first blog I have written that isn't strictly for a small group of my close friends. I really did not know it was possible to have stage fright while sitting in front of a computer with no audience to speak of.
Now that the awkward introduction is out of the way I can start the real story. I decided today that I needed motivation to write a blog, I have had one in the past but I have never really been one of those people who thoroughly enjoys writing, so i decided to entice myself with a new challenge to help my blog be more consistent. So I figured why not take something I love (photography) and combine it with something that I really want to love (blogging) and turn it into one epic adventure.

I have loved taking pictures ever since I can remember, I would always steal my parents camera and shoot until it ran out of film. When I was about 12 years old my parents bought me my first (nice) camera for Christmas and I fell in love. I would make them stand outside in the freezing cold with me for hours as I took 1500 pictures of the same thing. Though out High School my love for photography continued to grow, however I went to a very small high school where no photography classes were offered, so I was more of a "make it up as I go" photographer. When I started college I barely knew what an f/stop was, but I somehow managed to score myself a photography job, shooting for the university I was attending. This is where I really received most of my technical training and worked with some of the best University/Photo Journalist photographers in the business, these guys have been featured in everything from Time Magazine to National Geographic. With my new mentors set in place I took those semesters to learn everything I possibly could. After a year I took time off school, came home, got married, moved to Colorado, and started a full-time job, and left very little room for any sort of photography. So after about 6 months of barely even using my camera. I decided it was time to clean the proverbial dust off my camera and start using it again.
The whole idea of this blog is, each week I will find a photo technique/editing technique I have not tried before, attempt it, and then write a blog about it including photo's of the process and the final project. hopefully not only inspiring myself, but some others as well.

So here we are...the begining of what I hope to be an excellent adventure.