For our last photography assignment Allison asked us to photograph light as the subject. Basically, "painting with light". I did some experimenting and settled on the above image as my favourite. Below are two other interesting images that resulted from my playing with light-centric ideas.

For Lesson 4: We had to shoot a whole reel of film using only one inanimate object as our subject. We had to try and transofrm our subject so that we were looking at in a way that was different to how we'd normally see it. The photographs were required to be taken outside, in one session and in black and white. I chose to photograph the antenna on the roof. These pictures were taken at around midday.

Lesson 3: I was required to show maximum depth of field (where everything is in focus). To achieve this, a small aperture and longer exposure were needed.Because the shutter was open for longer, moving objects in the scene (the balloons) ended up blurred, resulting in 'show motion' at the same time.

Lesson 2: "Close to Home" to be taken in colour. This picture illustrates use of "directorial" style. Self portrait taken on my deck around 9am. I was trying to draw together elements of my current home in San Francisco with elements (such as tea, marmite, a letter) from the home of my birth, England.

Lesson 2:The subject "Close To Home" to be taken in colour. This one in "documentary" style was taken at the SF Ferry Building Farmers' Market, a few blocks from my home, at about 8.15 am.

Lesson 1: To show that purposely photographing a white scene with incorrect light metering (reading the light off of white instead of a grey-card) results in the white subject looking grey

Learning Photography Again

The company I work for have been kind enough to organise 6-week photography courses for staff. The course was very popular and I had to go on a waiting list. I eventually made it to the front of the queue and am now over half way through the course which is taught by Allison Petit. I did learn photgraphy at college nearly 20 years ago but since the advent of digital I have spent more time taking snaps than photographs, so the opportunity to go back to basics was much appreciated. For the course I borrowed an SLR (Nikon) and had to relearn about light meatering, exposure, aperture, depth of field and a whole list of other technical information, all over again.