What's that? I signed up for an e-course on lighting? OH... right. I did do that. And just like I said back in August, if I didn't finish before September, I might not finish until Christmas. Now Christmas has come and gone, it's March and I'm only working on my second assignment. But here it is none the less.
The task for this assignment was to experiment with white balance using a regular bulb and a daylight bulb. I was familiar with white balance and I'll admit I've been guilty of purposely using the wrong white balance to get a "cool", blue effect on my photos (that was a long time ago I swear), but daylight bulbs were news to me (hardware stores intimidate me, I don't like to spend time there). Since buying a couple we have actually used them quite a few times for small projects around our very dimly lit apartment and until we can finally move somewhere with more than two windows, I'm happy to have daylight bulbs around. They definitely have an effect on the colour of the photo as you can see in the photos above.
This photo did not turn out very well, but I like the contrast of the daylight bulb in the lamp on the right and the light on the left coming from the normal bulbs in our kitchen. My poor aloe plant probably just wants some real sunlight, come on spring!
Lately time has been passing very quickly and I'm feeling rather old. It makes me really think about how I'm spending the majority of my time. Usually it's working and since I'm not sure that my career and my career path are what I want right now, I've been trying to learn more about other things that I'm interested in and I've been focusing on adding more creativity into my daily life. Over the winter, I was taking courses in web design, but with a break from classes over the summer and many hot, sunny days to distract me, I've been feeling less motivated. Thankfully, as I was deliberating taking my first e-course, Arrow and Apple's The Study of Light, they offered an excellent discount and I quickly made up my mind. Though it's a go at your own pace kind of course I'm hoping it will keep me motivate for the rest of the summer and encourage me to learn more about photography. I haven't really had a chance to get started yet but fall is quickly approaching and I'll be starting new classes in September so I'm hoping to go at a bit of a faster pace - otherwise I might not finish until Christmas!
I still have to pick up most of the supplies for the course but I did grab a couple of things the other day from the dollar store. I learned a very important lesson: dollar store safety pins are not, I repeat not, good quality. They bend when you try to push them through slightly thicker fabric, but they will do for now. I'm going to pick up the other supplies over the next few days so that I can do some learning over the weekend, but in the meantime, I have been trying to take more pictures, pay more attention while I'm taking them, and relearn how to use my manual settings! I've also started a photography board on pinterest to gather inspiration and I'm keeping busy on instagram.
Here are a few of the pictures I've taken lately.
1. Relaxing in the park 2, 3 & 4. Vancouver alleyways 5. Kayakers by Rocky Point
6. Goodnight moon
Photos were taken with either my Canon Rebel T3i or Panasonic Lumix GF1 and are edited with Photoshop and RadLab.
