Week 4 Workshop Assignments

I'll be honest kids, there was some slackin' going on with the homework this week. Alex was sworn in as a citizen, so we had a house full o party. Seems like a great photo opportunity, but our homework was mostly still life and prepared food. By the time our feast was prepared, I may have been served a PUI (photographing under the influence) for attempting a shoot, so my camera was spared the risk. That said, I'm taking cupcakes to work tomorrow, so here's something to make you bust your diet.

You can find these babies on 39th street in the Shaw neighborhood at SweetArt. Pretty cool place with all kinds of "home" made eats and no ingredients you can't pronounce.

A few more shots from Week 3 Assignment

A few more shots in the "animals" assignment, and also in the florals. I believe we were actually supposed to find live flowers, but I live in Missouri people! The trees hardly start blooming and the Botanical Gardens has limited hours - so I improvised!

Workshop - Week 3 Assignments

There was quite a bit of homework for week 3, which hasn't even happened yet! While we were having class in week two, the "random guy" below walked through our group of aspiring photographers and decided to "vogue", no idea why. Thank God I have a trigger finger, because one second later, I think his shirt went all the way up.... anyway, not part of the homework, but fun.

This week's assignment was a little harder to pull off due to variety of requirements. For example, there are requirements for several "vista" shots, specifically not cityscape, but landscape, which meant a roadtrip on Sunday.

An easier part of the assignment was several animal shots, focusing on beauty or humor. Beauty (below, aka Tonta the cat) and Humor (aka Loba the dog) live with me so that was easy enough.

There were also a variety of "architectural" requirements. Not sure some of these shattered barns count as architecture, but they were present during my vista/roadtrip session so I went with it.

Architectural abstracts must have been the most challenging, since I live in the literal, and am challenged by all that is not. I did my best to take photos of stuff on buidlings in a way that one could not tell what the heck it was. How did I do?

Studio Altius Workshop, Week 2 Assignment

I started a six week Beginners Digital Photography series at the beginning of March. Each week, we have a set of assignments to exercise what we have learned. Here are some of my first week’s shots. Hopefully by week six we’ll see marked improvement! I leave for vacation the very next day and hope to really get some great shots while I’m out of the country!

Week 2 Assignment gave us a variety of requirements to practice various aspects of manual photography. I'm a fan of a low depth of field, which would be the first couple of shots.

Of course, grapes are very close to my heart, they make my favorite thing. Wine.

The pitiful look is due to the peice of chicken on top of my lens, and partially because she isn't allowed to have it until I say "OK". This explains why she gets so excited anytime I touch my camera...

Downtown St. Louis in a place Alex wouldn't let me go alone!

Can you name this guard rail?

Probably only if you read ahead. ;)

Random assignment requiring variety of angles of a single item.
I liked the reflection of this one.

Kelly Manno Workshop

So this spring, before some travelling I decided to get some education on photography. Lucky me, right after this decision, alot of interesting local things popped up. I was thinking I'd have to spend big bucks and vacation time to travel.

Sunday launched the spring training with a workshop from Kelly Manno. It was great! I'd tell you about it, but I wrote Kelly a letter and she posted it, so you can read it on her site. :)

http://kellymanno.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

During the workshop we got to do a shoot. Most of my pictures turned out horribly as I wasn't so great at not tripping over other photographers and generally to short to run around the back... especially with my 50mm lens! So, here are a few of the best!

Waiting for Baby Beatrice

Nearly missed the opportunity to shoot my friend Amy and her daughter while she was still pregnant. That darn three week flu overtook me and arrived on the day we were planning to get together. Lucky enough we planned a girls brunch a few days before she arrived, and I was able to spend some time before brunch with Amy and her daughter Camille.

This has probably been my most challenging self-assignment so far. Between Camille, Amy, the cat Euclid, and the family dog, it was a bit of a juggle to get good shots. Definately a skill I need to work on. I was so distracted with that, and trying out a new lens on my camera that I didn't realize until later that I had shot the whole dern thing in auto. So much for practicing my skills!
I've signed up for a 6 week class starting next month, so I'm hoping for clearer sharper more creative shots in the future! Here are some of the better shots from our "waiting for baby Beatrice" session. Perhaps we'll have the opportunity to do a Baby Beatrice shoot soon!

Puerto Rico, yo nunca dejare de amarte!

A quick follow up from our New Year's trip from Puerto Rico, and a few of the best shots. Still have a ton of editing to do whenever I get the chance. We stayed in a great place right on the beach with only 9 rooms, but spent most of our time in search of deserted beaches. The city was packed with visitors for the new year, so we steered away from the crowds.


We found a bike path along the ocean and wore ourselves out for 3 hours, finding this shot before we turned around.

These next two were in the city near our small hotel in the Condado area of San Juan


We ultimately found 3 or four secluded beaches, no buildings, no people. this was the first, midpoint in the sweaty windy bike ride. We washed down the ride with a bottle of water and kept going to the end of the trail, only to return for a sunset dinner and extremely cold beer! Experimenting with self portraits, very interesting.....especially with no remote!