Assignment #1

I am taking a photography class offered by the city of Meridian. It is one night a week for four weeks. I had my second class tonight and so far I am loving it and wish it would last longer than only four classes. There is only one other person in the class besides me so it is really layed back and comfortable.

At the end of each class our teacher gives us an assignment to do. Last week our assignment was to take a holiday picture. I was super excited to tackle my homework and I had a couple of ideas rollin' around in my head before I even left class.

On the drive home, when I got into our neighborhood, I looked for houses that still had their Christmas lights up. Most of our closest neighbors had already taken theirs down, but I did find one just down the street that had a great big tree out front that was decorated with colored lights. So I stopped the van right in front of it and started experimenting. It was really dark outside, so I couldn't get a normal picture of the tree and lights (at least not with my limited knowledge), but we had just learned about a really cool shutter speed setting called bulb. In the bulb setting, the shutter opens when you push the button to take the picture and doesn't close until you push the button again. So I started playing with this setting that I had just learned about and realized that by juggling the camera with the shutter open it made the Christmas lights make really cool patterns. Of course I took a bunch of different pictures using this new trick, and got a couple that I thought were cool enough to take to class to show.

After I got home from taking these pictures and downloaded them on the computer, I called Eric in to look at them. I thought they turned out great and I was stoked about all the new knowledge I had gotten from my first class and I wanted to show Eric the cool, new thing I could do with my camera. He was not very impressed with my photos, however. I was a little discouraged and even had second thoughts about taking them to class. I'm glad I did, though, because the teacher loved them! It felt great to be able to come home tonight and tell Eric neener, neener, neener. :oP

The other idea I had for a picture was to put Anna in her Valentine lovebirds shirt and take a picture of her playing with a Valentine's Day balloon. Of course this was easier said than done. Whenever I get down on the ground to take her picture she automatically crawls towards me, so I have to keep running away from her. She chased me all over the playroom before I finally got these pictures.

My teacher also really liked these, especially the one where Anna has her mouth open. I think I like the one with her looking at the balloon and smiling better just because I rarely get photos of her smiling and this one is especially sweet.

Overall, the teacher was really impressed with my photos. He said I have a good "eye". This week's assignment is to take a photo of a common household item. But, you'll just have to wait until next week to see what I come up with.