Photo Lesson; Self-Assignments
The Editors, January, 2005
Photography is one of those things you learn best by doing it. Here are some
photo projects that will help you get more out of your photography.
1. Decorate Your Home with Your Photos
Considering all the time, effort and money you put into making your photographs,
you should display the best ones for all to see. A good place to start is in
your own home. Hence our first self-assignment: Make display prints of your
best work.
You can do this the easy but costly way, by having a pro lab do it. Or, if you
have a large-format inkjet printer (11x17- and 13x19-inch models are available
for relatively low cost), you can make your own. If you like to do such things,
you can mount or frame the images yourself. Or you can let the pros do it.
Here, editorial assistant Renee Chodor chose one of her favorite photos of her
dog Ashley, put it in a Artograph projector and traced it onto her canvas, then
painted the canvas, and hung it as a painting in her living room.
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small print of Ashley the doggie becomes wall art, thanks to an
Artograph projector and an inspired photographer.
Photo and Painting © Renee Chodor, All Rights Reserved
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2. Neon Dreams
Neon lights make great photo subjects, and they’re easy to photograph.
You don’t even need a tripod (although bringing a tripod will give you
more shooting options). The trick is to come up with new ways of seeing the
lights. Try photographing entire signs, abstracting portions of signs, zooming
a zoom lens during exposure, deliberately moving the camera during a long exposure,
and even making multiple exposures of different signs on a single frame. Exposure-wise,
if the neon sign pretty well fills the frame, your camera’s built-in meter
will give you a good starting point. If the sign takes up only part of the frame,
and there’s a lot of black area, the black area will fool the meter. In
that case, with ISO 400 film (or a digital camera set for ISO 400), bracket
around a starting exposure of 1/60 at f/4 or f/5.6.
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Above
Top: Try zooming the lens from its shortest focal length to its
longest (or vice versa) during a long exposure to create “zoom
explosions.”
Above, Bottom: You can also simply move the hand-held camera in
an arc or even randomly for interesting abstract blurs. For both
effects, shutter speeds from 1/2 second to several seconds
can be effective.
Photos © Lilly Leach, All Rights Reserved
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