Animals Can Be Silly Too

Image By: Mary Swaby

Apparently, comedy wildlife photography is a thing. There is even a contest called Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards where people submit photos of animals being silly. The rules are the following: if the animal makes a funny face or is just being funny, submit the picture for the contest. The contest also has a noble cause of encouraging people to make donations to the Born Free Foundation, which is a UK conservation group dedicated to saving wildlife around the world. Pictures on this article include a balancing puffin, laughing cheetah, a face-planting elephant, and much more. 

Website: https://weather.com/science/nature/news/comedy-wildlife-photography-awards

First Share 2 and Critique

Photos By Dan Kuske

The first picture is of ducks preening at the Shiloh conservation area. The second is a landscape photo taken at Riverfront Park near sunset. 

The Northern Lights

Image: Frank Olsen

In Jamie Carter's "How to Photograph the Northern Lights," he gives 8 steps to enable anyone to take a good picture of the Northern Lights.

1. Invest in a DSLR camera with a wide angle lens, take the shot with an aperature of f2.8 or less, and use a tripod. 
2. If you are unsure whether the faint glow is a cloud or a borealis, taking a picture on your camera will help you to determine for sure. 
3. Compose the photo of the Northern Lights with a good foreground. 
4. Due to the surplus of Northern Lights photos, be creative when taking the picture. 
5. Turn white balance to automatic, turn focus to infinity, use ISO 800-1600, and use a shutter speed of 4-25 seconds. 
6. Shoot in RAW and don't up the saturation that much.
7. Be prepared to be patient. Observing the Northern Lights is not a common occurrence.
8. Instead of making the Northern Lights the goal of the trip, focus on the overall destination of where you go instead. 

Website: http://www.travelandleisure.com/photography/photographing-northern-lights

Dominance Photos

Photos: Dan Kuske

For the first picture, I kept in mind the dominance rule that sharpness is more attractive than blur. Since the rabbit was running, I knew I had to have a fast shutter speed (1/200) to ensure that the picture wasn't blurry. For the second picture, I followed the dominance rule that states red is more attractive than yellow. 

Astronomy Photography

Photo By: Scott Carnie-Bronca

When I came about this article, I instantly thought of when we talked about exposure time in class. The above picture was taken in Harrogate, South Australia. The lines that cut across the concentric circles created by the stars is the international space station. This photo reminds me of the picture taken by Dave Shumway that he showed the class one time. In Dave's picture, with an exposure time of several hours, the stars made concentric circles in the night sky with his tent in the foreground. In the article, there are several other photographs ranging from solar eclipses, northern lights, and the Milky Way Galaxy. 

The article can be found here: http://mashable.com/2016/09/15/astronomy-photography-competition-winners-2016/#R5H6D5kQjiqw

Animals and Coexistence

Photo By George Stoyle

This photo is one of many in Selina Chang's article, "Perfectly timed photos of wild animals offer a lesson in coexistance,"which was written for Quartz. In her article, she focuses on the beautiful moments in which animals interact with each other. In the above picture, several small fish are seeking shelter in the tentacles of this jellyfish. Other pictures include many action shots of predator going after and catching prey, human interaction with animals, and even a playful picture of a lion cub playing with a pangolin rolled up in its shell. These pictures make me realize that even brief moments can possess beauty; furthermore, the interaction between predator and prey doesn't have to be portrayed as brutal and bloody. 

Here is a link to the article: http://qz.com/774610/perfectly-timed-photos-of-wild-animals-offer-a-lesson-in-coexistence/

Messing Around With Depth Of Field

Narrow Depth of Field

Wide Depth of Field

These are my first two pictures in this class. For the first picture, I used a narrow depth of field (F3.8). For the second, I used a wide depth of field (F13).