Dec. 9, 2012- Photo Workshop – Part 9 - Photo Tricks

This is the last set of photos from my workshop at the North House Folk School. It was a great experience, as you can tell from all the photos I’ve shown you. If you are a photographer, I’d highly recommend it.

This week you’ll see some of the photo tricks that we learned. To take this shot, I set my camera at ISO 200, f 20, and 1/15 sec. I held the leaf at arm’s length with one hand and the camera with the other hand. I focused the camera on the leaf. Then I moved both the camera and the leaf at the same speed while taking the shot. The relatively slow shutter speed blurred the background but kept the leaf in focus. It’s a good way to get some motion into the shot. I might not use this technique a lot but it’s good to know how to do it.

FallLeafblurredbackgroundnearGrandPortageCookCounty20121005

It was pretty dark already when the whole class lined up at the edge of a forest. We set our cameras at ISO 400, f 16, and a very slow shutter speed of 15 seconds. Our instructor, Layne Kennedy, had a red flashlight. We pushed our shutter buttons and he walked quickly through the woods in front of us twirling the flashlight. The result was this trail of light. We were amazed that you can’t see him at all, because he’s moving quickly enough that the camera cannot record his image in the low light.

LightTrailsGrandMarais20121006

Here he did the same thing with a white light in one hand and a red light in the other. Can you see two places where he went behind a tree?

LightTrailsGrandMarais20121006

He almost finished spelling his first name (LAYNE) before the 15 seconds was up

LightTrailsGrandMarais20121006

The trick to getting sharp photos of the stars at night is to use a shutter speed between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. This photo was taken at ISO 1600, f 3.5, and 30 seconds. It’s hard for the camera to pull in enough light if you use a shutter spend less than 30 seconds. Stars do move, however, and if you leave the shutter open more than 2 minutes they will have moved enough to make them appear blurred. See if you can find the Big Dipper in the lower left hand part of the picture.

StarsBigDipperMapleHillCemetaryGrandMarais20121006

Here’s a different part of the sky showing the Milky Way. There’s a horizontal streak of light on the left side of the picture. I think it was a satellite moving across the sky.

StarsMilkyWayMapleHillCemetaryGrandMarais20121006

This one takes some explanation. One night we all lined up along the shore of Lake Superior. We set our cameras at ISO 400, f 11, and 30 seconds. One of the class members had a metal kitchen whisk with a cord attached to the handle. He stuffed a piece of steel wool into the whisk and lit it. I had no idea that steel wool would burn! We pushed our shutter buttons and he swung the burning whisk around and around. You see its path as the thick, really bright streaks in the center of the photo. As it swung around, sparks flew out and made all the thinner streaks shooting out from the center. I like the way the sparks bounced as they hit the pebbles on the beach.

FirePaintingGrandMarais20121006