A silhouette is a view of a object or scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. The term has been extended to describe the sight or image of a person, object or scene that is back lit, and appears dark against a lighter background.
Many photographers use the technique of photographing people, objects or landscape elements against the light, to achieve an image in silhouette. The light might be natural, such as a sunset or an open doorway, a technique known as contre-jour or it might be contrived in a studio.
Quite simply, your challenge this time is to take a photo where your main subject is a silhouette with no discernible features visible. It should be black and outlined by the light situated behind it. The subject and post processing is up to each individual.
I think this was one of the firsts challenges that I’d gotten a decent number of votes in. I knew what I needed to do to get a silhouette, but I needed a subject. Well, once again I got my little model to help out.
He had just gotten ready for bed and I asked him to put an ornament on the Christmas tree. While he was busy finding a spot, I shot a couple of photos for the challenge.
I added a black faded border around the picture and played around with the levels to enhance the glow from the lights. I think I got a decent shot. View the image at flickr to see the camera settings.
The Rule of Thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in visual arts such as painting, photography and design. The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to photograph a subject of your choosing while keeping in mind the challenge topic.
Any new photo where the Rule of Thirds is used properly in your photographs composition is welcome. The manner in which you create your photo and the post processing is entirely up to the individual.
Once again I needed something at the last minute to make the challenge deadline, so I looked out of my office window and took a picture. That night I processed it and met the deadline. I wasn’t looking for anything special. It was a rainy day and kind of dreary outside. I’m not even sure if I have got the concept correct (the car was part of the subject). I guess you win some and you lose some.
A couple of weeks ago, I took the boys outside to take some pictures for our annual Christmas card. It was definitely very trying for me because they were all over the place. I’d read in a Flickr forum that following toddlers around and catching them in a pose was a good way to get a picture of them. I decided to try that along with some posed shots to see what I could get.
I don’t know how photographers did it back in the days of film because I took around 130 pictures. Most were unusable, but there were some that I was able to keep. I thought I’d share some of those along with the final poses I used for the card. The last picture is the card that I created at ritzpix.com. I probably should review their service, but I’ll save that for another post.
This photo was taken for the Nikon D80 Challenge #92. The assignment for this challenge was as follows:
“The colour orange occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 585–620 nm, and has a hue of 30° in HSV colour space.
This challenge couldn’t be more simple…find an item or object that is orange in colour and create something interesting enough to impress your fellow photographers.
Any new photo where the colour Orange is featured in the composition is welcome. The manner in which you create your photo and the post processing is entirely up to the individual.”
It usually takes me a week to come up with an idea for these challenges. Sometimes I just come up blank and it’s those times when I’m not thinking about it that I see something I like. On the day I took the picture, it was a nice sunny day with very little cloud cover. While the sign was warning drivers of the work ahead, I looked at it from another angle.
Romans 7:14-25 in the Bible that reads “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”.
This verse talks about the constant struggle we have when it comes to sin. I like this verse because it acknowledges the constant evil and tempations that are all around us. But it also reminds us that there is victory in Christ and that we do have the power to through Him to win the battle. One of the goals in life of a Christian is to live a life pleasing to God. It’s not easy, but it is possible. People may think you’re weird and call you names, but that’s all a part of being “set apart”.
Now, I’m sure the million dollar question is how did I get this from a picture? I don’t know, but that was my intention when taking the photo. I even created a motivational poster out of it. Enjoy.
The weather this weekend was amazing, so I decided to take the kids on an afternoon outing to the park. Earlier that week, their daycare gave them some pumpkins and we weren’t able to go to the pumpkin patch this year, so I figured why not bring them along. My boys are my practice models and I hoped to get some shots in while they were playing.
Here’s what I learned:
Don’t go to a crowded park if you want them to focus on you. The playground was packed and my youngest was all over the place.
Make sure you have plenty of daylight and a fast shutter to prevent blur. I couldn’t set my shutter speed too high as the sun went down, which caused some of the pics to come out dark.
Make sure the camera focuses accurately on the subject. Moving targets can be hard to get in focus.
Take plenty of pictures. With digital you can always delete the ones you don’t like.
BTW: For those wondering, I know pumpkins is spelled wrong in the title. That’s how the boys say it.
