Photo Quest # 16 - Photo Journalism - Run from 5/14 - 5/27/08
I apologize for being late with the Quest post this week. Note becasue of the nature of this quest, you have two weeks to post your entry. This quest may push you to do something that you are not comfortable with and have never done before. But go ahead push yourself out of your photo comfort zone. Who knows you might end up becoming a photo journalist for your local paper or taking photos for flyers about your town, or your vacation. I've added some photos I took of my first experience with this type of assignment as examples. I went to the Tucson Rodeo and took photos of some of the events and the environment. I was terrified of doing this but ending up having so much fun that I took over 400 photos in 3 hours!
What is Photo journalism you ask? Let's pretend you are a photo journalist and you are on assignment to take photos of a wedding, birthday party, school play, chili cook-off, political rally, PTA meeting, club meeting, a fire, little league game, car show, home show, quilt show, show play, horse race, county fair, any event that you can get close enough to take a photo. So put on your traveling clothes, grab your camera and go to work.
Here are the rules this is a two week quest allowing you extra time to find an event to photo. Photos must be taken by you during this two week period. Here are some pointers for this quest:
- Try taking photos that include the name of the event or the name of the place where the event is located.
- Watch your backgrounds, check for intersection lines (fences, trees, horizons, people, bleachers)
- You might have to use your auto setting for moving subjects as it is difficult to take photos of moving subjects in a manual mode.
- Take lots of photos and set your camera on continous photos if you have that option. Because you won't have a lot of time to set your photo up take lots of photos so you can one in focus. lol
- If you are taking photos of people you don't know, if possible ask their permission, be polite. You'd be surprised how many people are flattered that you are asking to take a photo of them, their car, their dog etc.
- Be careful of taking photos of children, parents are protective and might think you are a strange person if you want to take photos of their kids. If your are an old women like me you can get away by asking...just be careful I don't want any of you put in jail for participating in this quest! smile
- If you decided that you could use the photos to submit to your local paper, you will need to get permission of the people you take photos of to take the photos. Take a notebook to document the event, time, names of the participants and or the names of the people, pets, place that you photograph.
- If you can go to the place of the even ahead of time and check out the lighting...example if this is an outside event, where should you be to take the best photos of the subjects with the best availble light for the time of day that that you will be taking photos.
- If you have a digital camera be sure to bring extra batteries and make sure you have enought storage to the photos you think you will be taking.
- Watch your white balance setting as you might need to use auto or change it often.
- Watch your ISO speed.
- Bring something to keep your lens clean, a lens brush, a lens cleaning cloth.
- Bring a tripod only if it works for the shots you can take...usually a tripod doesnt' work well as you have space limits.
- Above all don't limit your self by my examples..go forth and have some fun!
- If you have any questions please ask, if I don't know the answer the other in the group probably do.
Here are some photos I took of the Tucson Rodeo. The photo below is an example of a real busy background...the banner in the background is an example of bad placement as you can only see part of it in this photo. Photo is also an example of movement and having the right setting on your camera to catch speed without having to stop and change settings. I ruined a lot of my photos as I had the camer on the wrong white balance setting and was using the manual setting. Lesson learned!
Here is a good example of getting a photo of the name of the city for this event. This photo also has a strong diagnal line that makes it an interesting photo. Can you see this photo on a Tucson Rodeo flyer, on the Tucson Rodeo web site?
This photo would have been better with a shorter depth of field to blur the background more so it isn't so busy.
I like the wavy lines from the hats...good example of repeated lines and curves.
This photo isn't the best as my cowboy is almost out of the photo but the deph of field burs the background better.
Good luck to you take feel strong enough to take on this quest...this is the hardest one yet!
Comments
Darn Miss Minda, I'm so sorry about have your cast put BACK on!
Depth of Field in controlled by the F stop of the camera or AV. The larger the number the depth the focus and the small the number the shorter the depth of focus. Example is for a maco shot that you would like to have a nice blurred backgroun you would need a short depth of filed and would choose the smaller F stop say around 2.8. For a landscape photo with mountains in the backgound you would choose a larger F stop say around 20+.
Does this help you understand the depth of field setting?