Thoughts, October 4, 2012

I have been thinking a bit about my learning log and decided (after reading a fellow students musings) to make it a bit more reflective, more diary like (the suggestion being Edward Weston’s Daybooks on the OCA student forum). So here are some thoughts and comments on what I’ve been doing photographically-and-art-related recently.

 I’ve been busy looking after a small baby and toddler, so I have limited time to do actual photography. On the other hand, I bought an iPad at the start of the year and have been doing lots of reading of blogs (fellow students), looking at websites of photo-artists, reading e-magazines (BJP, Professional Photographer, Inquire, Photographers I, Once, Practical Photoshop, DI Magazine) and just doing general websurfing of photography-related things as I think of them. I know my technical knowledge is lacking, so I have been concentrating on improving my skills (or at least knowledge) of Photoshop and Lightroom. So I’ve also picked up a recent copy of the magazine ‘Better Photoshop Techniques’ and have been doing some reading on tips and tricks relating to post-processing. I hope that this will help in particular with the next section of the DPP Course (the notes of which I have also just reread in preparation for starting soon).

 I’ve also been working towards finishing Assignment 2. I have taken most of the photos and am pleased with my results – I’ve been pushing myself to find ‘interesting’ high dynamic range photographs to take, and am just hunting down the last few. It’s been a fascinating assignment, and has really made me realise how ‘safe’ I normally am when taking photos – mostly choosing scenes within the range of my camera, keeping ISO’s low to avoid noise (not necessary when good noise reduction is possible in post-processing!!) and generally being a bit avoidant of potential problems, but probably also missing the good pictures in the process… So many lessons are being learnt…

 I’ve also been visited by the camera fairy (I must have been very good!) and have purchased a Canon 5Dm3. I thought quite long and hard about this purchase, and actually have talked about going full-frame for a few years now, so this has been a while in the coming. I picked it up on Tuesday and have just been reading the manual (downloaded as a pdf on the iPad for convenience!) and coming to terms with its various complex features. Because it’s quite a different camera to the 30D (which I’ll be lending to my Dad for the short-term) I’ll repeat at least the ‘your tolerance for noise’ exercise to compare the differences between the two cameras.

 I’ve been doing a lot of walking around the local area lately (with pram), and taking my little Canon S95 camera with me, so I’ll try to post the odd photo from those exploits on this blog also. I also am visiting galleries occasionally – mainly the QAG and GOMA – We went to the sculpture exhibition last week and it was great. I will try to blog about it soon.

 Thinking also about stopping taking jpgs on my camera to get more shots out of a card and decrease room taken up on hard drives. I can set a small jpeg and I think that’s what I’ll do moving forward. I’ve been holding back until I’ve improved my raw processing skills, but I think that I’m getting there on that front.

References:
Lavery, B (2012) Learning Log. Online, available at: http://digphopra.wordpress.com/ [accessed 3/10/12]

Banks, C (2012), Learning Log. Online, available at: http://catherinebanks.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/reflections-on-progress-as-at-31st-july-2012/#comments
[accessed 3/10/12]