Time-Life Photography Series

My good friend Zeba is hosting a giveaway for my artwork on her blog. Please checkout her blog, and I look forward to seeing you all have the opportunity to win.

http://justmy002worth.blogspot.com/2011/02/fine-art-photography-jewelry-and.html

I have just re found my copy of The time-Life photography series. I have 12 of the books, I don't know how many were in the series. The Camera was published they year I was born, (look it up if you're curious) and of course only refers to the old 35mm film cameras. Since I have decided I need to polish my photography skills, I am going to go back and re-read the series. If I could find my photography text book form college, I would do all the exercises from that again too, but that has been lost to the mists of time. So from time to time, I will be posting about what I am learning.  

Without Editing

And my reason for wanting to do this? I have to confess it is the appeal of HDR photos. High Dynamic Range photography can be overdone, but what technique hasn't been used poorly and made to look cheap? Without knowing what I was doing, I was trying to create HRD photos in Photoshop. I would try to bring out detail from over exposed or underexposed photos all the time. I am very excited to find that other people have been doing this and have much to teach me. And the first requirement for creating the HDR photos I've admired it to shoot bracketed shots with a tripod. When I first read about HDR, I wasn't even sure my Nikon D50 would do bracketed exposures, so I had to look it up. Then I realized I had been relying on the camera far too much and not enough on my own skills. 

Edited with Levels

I also want to begin working on becoming a certified photographer, and have the confidence that comes from knowing that I know the basics of my trade, rather than be the gal who kinda sorta remembers how to do this thingy.... Since I frequently am shooting wildlife, I use Auto quite a bit, and I just don't practice enough with the manual settings. Nothing is wrong with using Auto, but if I want to shoot manual mode, I should be able to do it from my head and not have to pull out the manual. That just doesn't look professional.

And now for something completely different: Why you might ask, am I wearing a veil in this photo? I was at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve, near Alamosa, Colorado, and the wind was blowing the sand. These veils are far more practical than I would have ever guessed until I spent time in the sand. 


These dunes are the tallest in North America, and formed during the Pleistocene, concurrent with mammoths in the last great Ice Age. This is not the largest dune field in North America, but it looks surprisingly out of place when visitors first find the park.


This is the same photo I use for the blog's background.