If Only I had My Lenses!

Like it? That's going to be me today, minus the beautiful face. I am going to get my hair cut into something a little less frumpy. Think it will motivate me to work on loosing weight? Though why I haven't is way beyond me since I only get snatches of food as I'm playing servant to three little munchkins and running my legs off consoling boo boos and picking up toys. I think its stress but then maybe that's just an excuse but today as I'm gone to the next town over for a variety of medical tests I decided to throw in something fun, a haircut.
When my sister stopped by yesterday on her way back home, I asked her isn't it an oxymoron to grow your hair out to have it cut, for that is just what I've been doing?

But for today I thought I'd do a little photo lessons since I've been taking scads of shots. I took my camera with me obviously to Thermopolis but my husband limited me to one lens since it was raining and we had to take the pickup and put everything in plastic garbage bags in the back, in the weather all but my camera and lone lens. Ouch! that hurt and as we traveled over the mountain I kept thinking 'Oh, if only I had my macro lens those flowers are beautiful!' I knew with the kids we could not stop ever little while for their patience was being stretched as it was and oh how I ached to have my telephoto lens and sit by the beaver ponds to wait for them to surface and, and, and, but alas I only captured a few shots and some of them were with the window rolled down as Kirk drove. The ache was so bad to photograph. One example was this shot of it snowing. Yes, I heard South Pass over on the western side of the state received 2 feet of snow and it closed the roads. Winter is long in passing in Wyoming this year.

Then when we saw Rocky mountain elk for the second time I lamented, "Oh! if only I had my telephoto lens you could actually see the Rocky Mountain elk instead of just brown dots on a hillside." Needless to say the trip without my full gear, which doesn't amount to much, was a painful experience.
But I did take a brief moment outside the truck to snap photos of the boiling waters rushing down the once placid creek. Since I'm going to be all poked and prodded today and you won't want pictures of that I thought I'd give you a little photo session time. The following pictures were take a few feet from each other or I just turned by body a little, yet the focuses are different.
Note how differently that changes the photo.

Above the water is rushing horizontally across the photo. This makes for a flat scene. Also the focus is the remnants of a wooden bridge in the dead center. In scenic photography that is almost always a BIG no no to put your focus in the dead center. Between these two, the water going horizontally across the picture and the bridge in the dead center your eye goes to the center of the picture and stops and you miss the details in the picture.

In this one, the creek is running at an angle so your eye travels with it through the scene and stops for a moment at the bridge before moving on, making it the focus of the picture.Here the bridge is just a dark shape on the left and your eyes freely travel up the creek. The creek is the main focus. Note how the rocks on the right nicely frame the picture and add complexity to the scene.
In this last one the bridge is more prominent but doesn't distract from the over all scene but adds complexity. It also helps to frame in the water. Naturally our eyes will go toward the light and since the water is the lightest thing in the frame, it is a good resource to use to assist our eye in moving it across the picture. Also note the nice changes in texture between the bridge, rocks, water and foliage. Also the difference in colors.
In this flat scene once more the water is going across the frame horizontally in a flat angle. Though I tried to capture a little diversity with the difference in textures by capturing the grass in the fore front, the camera just picked up suttle shade differences in the green. Keep that in mind when photographing something. It might be a spectaculiar sene with the naked eye but go flat on digital or film. If that weren't bad enough the picture has no focal point. Without one what are you trying to show someone?

This scene is better because of the angles that allow your eye to travel. There is also a more definite color difference and texture change but alas, no real focal point.

Did this tutorial help? Let me know. If so I'll give photography pointers now and then in my blog. It definitely won't be much gardening until the weather warms up. My garden hasn't surfaced yet. I hope it isn't dead.

But for now I must go and milk that sweet thing at the corrals and get ready for a long day of poking and prodding.