Photography class: Assignment 7 - Portraits

The assignment for this week was about portraits, we had a basic class about the different types of portraits and a few techniques, not a lot because portraits is a course in itself, so this assignment was to have a brief idea of how to take portraits. The assignment was to take 2 portraits of somebody else and this person was supposed to be posing for the camera, also I had to take another 2 portraits but in this case the person didn't have to pose, it has to be spontaneous so we can capture the person expresion without being influenced by the fact that a picture was being taken of them and lastly I had to take to self-portraits to get used to see myself in the other end.

Posing for the camera


This is a picture of my sister, posing in her garden with her orchids, which she loves. I took it in a cloudy day, no flash no other tools used.

Posing for the camera


My sister again in a different pose, similar settings.

Spontaneous


This picture was taken in the office with some good light coming from the window, again no flash used.

Spontaneous


This is from inside the office as well, lot of light from the window, no flash used. Made it black and white to hide a bit all the light that comes from the window in the top right corner of the photo.

Me


I took this inside my house, in my bedroom to be exact, during the night, I used a mirror and the external camera flash.

Me again


Same here, however since the position is different the flash created an effect that could make you think I took this one in the afternoon with sunlight coming through the window.

With this assignment I learned that portraits are hard, you need to get the light right so you can show people how they really are, self-portraits are harder, you have to be very creative to get a good photo. At end as usual it all comes to practice, patience and to be creative and most importantly to have fun.

I had my last class this week and this was my last assignment, the whole course and every assignment were very interesting, I learned a lot and now I am off to practice everything I learn.

I am going to be sharing all my photos in my Flickr account in case you want to follow me there and check on what I am up to in terms of photography.

La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens - 2 years after the earthquake

Two years ago there was an earthquake of 6.2 in the Richter scale in the area of Poas Alajuela, Costa Rica. It was very devastating, a lot of people lost their houses, their businesses and many lost their families or their lives. The roads were very affected, in some of them is still not possible to drive, others are open but with areas that only 4x4 cars can go through.

The area of Poas is visited by many tourist during the year, local and foreign, because Poas offers a lot of beautiful natural attractions like the Poas volcano, La Paz waterfalls, the rain forest and many more. However, after the earthquake people in this are have been struggling because the amount of tourist visiting the area has diminished a lot which affected their businesses.

Since before the earthquake my husband and I have been wanting to go to La Paz Waterfalls, but then the earthquake happened, we heard that a lot of the roads to get there were not safe, we didn't know the state of the place, etc. However, this year I am taking a photography class, so I said to my husband "this is the perfect excuse, let's go there, it is time and I know I can take a lot of beautiful pictures there, plus it is summer, let's go!", so we called and I made sure the road was safe to go and gathered a group of other friends who happen to be photographers aficionados as well and made the trip last Saturday. It took us like an hour and a half to get there, we took the road that goes through Barva and Vara Blanca and made it safely. Part of the road was really crappy but nothing terrible, if you have a 4x4 though. It was really impressive to think that after two years those roads are not fixed yet, specially since this is an area that depends a lot on tourism, what kind of government we have?

Anyway, we got there, it was foggy and a bit cold but in a few minutes we were off to see all the different and amazing things they have like butterflies, hummingbirds, orchids, monkeys, different types of birds, jungle cats, frogs, snakes and the amazing waterfalls.

I am not going to say more about how beautiful this place is, I am just going to show you some of the pictures I took so you can see the beauty of this place yourself.































It was interesting that when I presented one of my waterfalls pictures in my photography class my teacher thought it was taken before the earthquake, I had to say that it wasn't, that I took it last Saturday, he was amazed of how well the place looked, how well it has recovered. Also a classmate said that I was very brave for going there, which was a comment that made me think on how much people are still afraid of an earthquake that happened two years ago and how they think the area is not a nice place to visit anymore, I can see how that affects the local tourism and that shouldn't be, maybe the government, the Institute of Tourism should make sure that people are informed and help promote these areas as safe and beautiful places to visit.

Because of this is why I decided to write this post, to show the world that you can go to La Paz Waterfalls and to Poas and have a great time in such a beautiful place. Don't be afraid, just go and don't forget your camera!

If you want to see all my pictures that I took that day go to my Flickr account.

Photography class: Assignment 6 - Motion

My sixth assignment for my photography class was to capture motion, basically take from 5 to 10 pictures in which I either freeze motion or show how certain things move in the photo, like light or water for example.

I took a lot of pictures, seriously a lot and at the end I came down to these 10, my favorite ones:

Splash - Strawberry falling on water


Settings used: 1/200s . f/9.0 . ISO 100 . 50 mm

Splash - Strawberry falling on water, different angle, different aperture


Settings used: 1/200s . f/5.6 . ISO 100 . 50 mm

Splash - Strawberry falling on milk


Settings used: 1/200s . f/5.6 . ISO 100 . 50 mm

Splash - Strawberry falling on milk, different splash


Settings used: 1/200s . f/5.6 . ISO 100 . 50 mm

Light graffiti


Setting used: 10s . f/14.0 . ISO 400 . 20 mm

Light graffiti, different angle


Setting used: 10s . f/14.0 . ISO 400 . 18 mm

Light graffiti, candles and reflection


Setting used: 5s . f/20.0 . ISO 400 . 28 mm

Light graffiti, candles and reflection


Setting used: 5s . f/25.0 . ISO 400 . 28 mm

A ghost in my house


Settings used: 10s . f/22.0 . ISO 400 . 18 m

La Paz Waterfall


Settings used: 0.3s . f/22.0 . ISO 100 . 22 mm

As you can imagine for all of these pictures I used a tripod, for the splash ones I also used an external flash since I took these during the night with no other light source. I must say that I like the splash with milk better, because milk has more texture than water.

For the light graffiti, I used total darkness, a long exposure of 10 seconds and then started drawing with a small led lamp, always using the tripod of course.

For the ghost picture, I use a long exposure, 10 seconds, and then have Carlos walking towards the camera for the first 5 seconds and then stop in the same position for the last 5 seconds, it came out really well I think, it looks creepy :-D

To take the one of the waterfall, we went to La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens in Poas on Saturday, it was a great experience mainly because it is a beautiful place, so I am really happy we went there. If you want to see more pictures taken in this place go to this set in Flickr, you will see a lot of the amazing things you can find in this place.

This assignment was very interesting, I really enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun plus it allowed me to take pictures that are very different from the pictures I am used to take, now I want to spend more time doing light graffiti.

Pictures of Cities I visited in Italy

While I was in Spain I had the chance to do two trips to Italy, one in December 2004 and the other one in May 2005. During the first trip, I only visited Rome and then in the second one I visited Florence, Lucca, Pisa and Venice.

During these trips I fell in love with Italy, my favorite city of those I visited was Florence, mainly because the amount of art you find, the architecture and the whole environment of the place, it is simple amazing.

As mentioned in a previous post, my camera got stolen after I returned to Madrid with almost all my pictures from Rome, I only saved a few because they were in another card, the smallest card of the two, what a luck. Here is a photo from Rome I saved:







During my second trip to Italy we arrived to Florence first, this city is a must see, if you are planning to go to Italy, make sure you visit Florence.







We went to Pisa for a day, it is really a small town, so you can see everything you might be interested in in half a day.





On our way back to Florence from Pisa, we made a stop in Lucca, another small town, super cute.





Last city I visited was Venice, it was awesome, I loved it. Good thing is that you can see it all in two days.







Italy is a beautiful country, a lot of things to see, places to visit, food to eat, history, art, etc. I would love to go back for a month or two. Someday I will!

Photography class: Assignment 5 - Controlling light

The assignment for this week class was to take 5 photos in different lightning conditions so we could use different camera settings to control the light, for example:

• ISO
• White balance
• Flash
• Exposure compensation
• Flash compensation
• Metering

The photos I took are the following:

Sam resting


I took this photo in my living room under a few fluorescent light that was coming from the kitchen, so no direct light, I used fluorescent white balance, ISO 200, spot metering and the external flash not pointing directly to avoid weird eyes.

I like this photo a lot, I feel like all the colors look very real plus the fact that Sam's eyes look perfect, no craziness. Of course, Sam's cuteness helps a lot ;)

Irazu Volcano



I took this photo on the Irazu Volcano, it was super cloudy and super cold, so I used cloudy white balance, ISO 200, no flash, no no exposure compensation and matrix metering.

A young horse



This was was also under a cloudy day but with more sun light, so I still used cloudy white balance, ISO 200, no flash, no exposure compensation and matrix metering. Loved the horse!

My Kindle



This one was taken under an incandescent light, a lamp light, so I used incandescent white balance, ISO 1600, no flash, matrix metering and exposure compensation of +1.

Sam posing



This one was taken under an incandescent light too, so I used incandescent white balance, ISO 1600, no flash, matrix metering and exposure compensation of +1.

This is super interesting, there are a lot settings in the camera that you can use to control the light, so knowing what each one of these settings does is super important and specially when to use them, you can play with them, using different settings taking the same photo and you will different results.

I was told that using the White Balance in Auto usually gives good results, there are some specific cases where you might need to set it yourself, what do you think? Do you think Auto works for most cases? What is your experience?

Please add your comments in the blog post!