Just had to share

I was going to post about my experience taking a class in precious metal clay, and show you the jewelry I made that day, but I have to take some decent photos of them and in the meantime I couldn't resist sharing this glorious sunset with you.

 These photos, by the way, are NOT Photoshopped or color edited in any way.  The only editing I did outside of the camera was a simple crop around the edges.

How did I get these spectacular colors, you ask? 

 

 First of all, obviously, you need a beautiful sunset reflected in a lovely lake.  But just as important is the camera settings you choose.  I did NOT use manual camera settings for this, even though I am trying to use them as much as possible.  My camera (and probably yours, too) has 'scene' settings that include one for sunset and another for dusk.  These settings are selected to optimize the sunset with both exposure and color balance. The dusk setting is a gently warmer color balance, and the sunset setting has a more dramatic warmth.  They do not change what I saw, but they enhance it.  If you have these settings, use them!!!  Don't just hang out on the 'automatic' setting, but don't be so stuck on doing things yourself that you don't use what Nikon or Canon has put there to give you success.  

UPDATED POST: Camera exploration & the superb paintings of Janet Fish

 The photos to the left is an edit of a photo you will find at the end of this post.  I'm inspired by what I was able to do, and keep in mind, I do NOT have Photoshop. I will explain later what I did, and what I might do with it, but for now I want to get on to the topic of this post.

The images in this post are mostly photos that were taken by me.  The only exception is the beautiful artwork of Janet Fish that I include a little further down the post.

A week ago, I attended a little workshop to help new DSLR camera owners to get to know their camera.  Only 2 people showed up for the class:  One was obviously me, a former photography teacher with a good understanding of aperture, exposure, depth of field, and other basic camera concepts, but a poor understanding of maneuvering around the complex menu of a DSLR.  The other person knew nothing about her new camera, zip, and hadn't even turned on her camera (or even knew there was an on/off switch) and obviously knew nothing about those basic photo concepts.

We have one more session together, and we were given a 'homework' assignment to take photos using the various scene presets on our camera, and see how they affected exposure etc, to help us make good decisions about what settings to use and to keep us from shooting everything on the basic automatic setting.  The poor teacher didn't know what she was getting into asking me to do this.  I'm assuming the other gal will show up with a dozen or so photos on her camera.  She was terrified to even use it.  Me, well, here I am, hundreds of photos later... I'm going to have some serious editing to do before I go back to class on Friday.

First,  I went outside on a cold day but had trouble keeping track of the settings with gloves on, so instead I decided to do something inside.  I was inspired by the gorgeous paintings of Janet Fish.  If you've never seen her work, here's a few images to inspire you.  Many of her still life paintings include glassware, and vibrant saturated color.  If you've been to my Pinterest page, you know that's what I like.  Anyhow, here's a selection of Janet Fish paintings:

OK, back to my photo homework.  I set up a still life of assorted glassware.  I shot some pictures with the still life draped with an embroidered white tablecloth, others with some black and metallic patterned scarves, and then still more with vibrantly colored scarves.  Then I went back and shot the still life lit with candles, and a black drape.  Tomorrow night I plan to photograph it yet again with the candles, but this time with the colored scarves and with the white tablecloth. If I get any interesting results, I will show you, I promise!  In the meantime, here's a selection of the photos I took, edited down to this selection for this post, from about 200 photos.  Help!

I had fun cropping some of the photos, and am considering using some of them as inspiration for some painting.  Below you will see some side-by-side comparisons of various shots.  We were told to use all the different scene settings on the camera, and I had some fun surprises at what I discovered.  I expected changes in exposure and depth of field, but I did not realize that the digital settings also change color balance.  The sunset setting, for example, gave me rich warm color in my photos, such as the one on the right in the first pair below. I love the warmth, though I also love the clear yellow in the left-hand photo.

Below, a little cropping fun!

More comparisons...  I used settings for sunsets, for dusk/dawn, for food, for foliage, for blossoms, for autumn colors, for pet portraits for action, for closeups, for portraits, for night landscapes, for night portraits, for landscapes, for candlelit, for indoor parties, for food... YIKES!  How am I supposed to remember what does what?!

I actually have another (preferred) version of the photos below, with more drapery showing in front of the glassware, but it keeps uploading sideways so you'll just need to trust me for now.  I like the composition on the ones with more drapery.  These look cut off, but with the drapery, I see them as future painting inspirations.  Oh well.  At least you can see the exposure differences.

I set up the camera on a tripod for the candle-lit batch below.  Look at how the color balance changes from one shot to the next!

And more candle-lit photos:

Enough?!

And for fun, of course I had to shoot a few pictures with my favorite creative feature on the camera, the vivid sketch (which eats batteries, but that's another story entirely).  The first shot below was highly cropped after I put it on my iPad. 

And this last one is uncropped, though I have played with a couple of different croppings,one using just the lower left, and the other the lower right.  It's fun playing with the abstract compositions. 

A final note: I have discovered that if I upload my photos to the post using the Blogger app on my iPad, the verticals actually remain vertical!  Yippee!  Then I go to my laptop or PC to shrink the images and edit the post, since you can't do that in the app.

Newly added to this post, three more crazy edits of the last photo above (one at the top of the post, the other two below), this time done on my PC using both Microsoft Photo Editor, and  with Corel Photo Album for the color edits.  I think, folks, I may have just had a 'eureka' moment.  My easel has been sitting with a half-finished painting on it for months.  I hate the painting.  It's just not me.  The composition and color I have discovered cropping these images have me excited to use them as painting inspiration.  What do you think? 

 I probably should have numbered the photos in this post, but I don't know how to do that without everything moving around.  Because, I really would like your opinion.  I know this was just a homework assignment, but I like the photos but am having trouble selecting which I prefer.  Which color balances do you like?  Which images, which croppings?  Please, dear readers, please express your thoughts and advice.  I trust you!  And what do you think of my extreme edits?  Am I stuck in 50's psychedelia, or have I hit upon something?

My kitchen, my camera

This is my kitchen, newly painted (oops, you might notice a paintbrush on the counter), with my new curtains done, made with the fabric I bought at Mood!  Ta da!!!

There are some tins on top of the corner cabinet, and actually, on all the cabinets, plus on three shelves on the opposite wall, also pictured here.  I collect tins. The ones up high in the corner are junky; but my favorite and best ones, the antiques, and the most unusual, are on cabinets to the left of the left-hand window, not visible in these photos.  I put them there because they are farthest from the stove and associated grease.  The stove is just to the right of the right-hand window.

Below, you'll see two photos where I was playing with some creative controls on my new Nikon.  Seriously, sometimes I can't figure out how to do the simplest things, but I have figured out some of the crazier features of the camera.  One feature is sort of an outline or sketch, but it reminds me of a solarized image.  The other is a selective color feature, with the selected color obviously yellow.  I haven't figured out how to change it to a different color yet!

 Above and below are a few more views of my windows and their new curtains.  The crazy shelf-thing in front of the window is a seat for my cat.  She loves sitting there and looking at the birds and squirrels in the tree outside the window.  Sorry they are sideways.

 

Below is the fabric from the former curtains.  We used to have a chrome/vinyl dinette set and a cheerful flowered border, and this whimsical fabric went great.  We have removed the border, and now have a dark reddish-brown wood kitchen set, and deep red chair cushions, so the whimsy just didn't go any more, and the curtains were very faded. 

 On another wall, there was an arrangement of framed photos, underwater photos that I shot in the 1980's while SCUBA diving!!!  It's time to replace them, so I am going to pick all new photos, repaint the frames, cut new mats, and when it is all done, I'll show them all to you.