Lens Fixed @ 18mm

The day first started with class and then it ended up with a collage of images of babies. Shooting with an 18mm lens is not easy.  Trying to compose correctly becomes
a challenge and makes one yearn for
other focal lengths.  Lens choice is as important as choosing the right tool for the job.





The lighting’s pretty nice on the baby and mom and friend, but there’s too much background distraction.  I wanted some background for context, but it’s too in focus.



The approach in photographing children is to bring the camera down to their perspective.  In other words giving a child's view of the event.  Dad’s busy signing up for more pink tutus and cupcakes.  If I’d waited a bit longer the figure behind the dad might have walked out the picture too, which would have made it simpler, more focused, however by then I might have lost eye contact with the little girl.

I wish I had gotten the light right for this one. I’m trying to stay within the parameters of the camera's suggested exposure.  What caught my eyes was the side light hitting the child's face, catching a poignant expression, and the flow of the colors from mom to baby, with that good burnt orange in the background. We’re missing the mom’s expression though, and that would have pulled it all together. Maybe that tent top should go, and a little shift would have eliminated the tiny head in the background.

What makes this image  is seeing child and how he has his own point of view.  Mom’s attention is one way, the child's another. The focusing could have been sharper on the baby’s eyes; less sharp for the background.








What caught my eye here was all the green - dad in his shirt, his daughter in her green; the green on the table and butterfly











You have to like the candor of baby’s before they learn to pose!  Not bad, not great. A bit flat in perspective.

The image below almost works.  The subject of the image is placed between the foreground interest – the dummy with the pink tutu- and the real subject, that little girl carefully peeling her banana. Too much green on the left takes our attention away. The grid on the right is OK, but it also might be a little too much causing the little girl to get lost in its pattern.



What do you think?  How would you have made similar images with a single focal length?  I guess that is the beautiful struggle when working with a focal length.  Keep in touch and see how I improve.

MCooling

Ramblin' Road Trip

I took a road trip in March with two friends and creative forces, Tiffany Napper of Bats on Strings and Megan Victoria of Jupiter Lala. We had a plan: roam across the South, from New Orleans to Nashville,  and make magic with whatever the wind blows our way. 

We each had our essentials for the trip: loaded iPods, a grandfather's ukelele, a flask, handcrafted jewelry, favorite boots and Milk Duds. My essential packing list included several cameras and lenses. I wanted to try and document not just the places where we stopped along the way, but also the improvised, whimsical feeling of the whole trip. There were stops at state borders for impromptu dances and sit-downs in coffee shops and boutiques that turned into collaborative sessions for future business ventures. I wanted to capture the invigorating brisk temperatures, the comfort of an old leather sofa, the luxury of time to just ramble at our own pace through the landscape.

I played with several cameras and lenses on the trip, looking for details and light, in color and black and white. I tried to not be the nerd with the oversized camera bag everywhere I went, though; I limited myself, mostly, to one kind of camera for each stop. A Holga, an old film SLR, my DSLR and a point-and-shooting. What are your essentials for shooting while traveling?

JKay