My First Photography Album “Droplets of Life”

My Album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/sets/72157633640879069/

All photos have a story to tell.
Many photos have meaning.
Each photo, is a moment caught in time.
-Eve Cogan

I am thrilled to have completed my first photography album “Droplets of Life”. This has been a lot of hard work, but I am happy with the end result.

Photography is the art of capturing a moment with a camera. Mastering the camera settings, so it can tell the story of the photo in the best possible way. It is then back at the computer to triage the thousands of photos, to a final few. Finally it is hours toiling at the computer letting your imagination go wild in Photoshop.

I have learnt so much during my time as a photographer and it is more than just skill. It is skill and numbers. For the last month I have rarely been anywhere without a camera. I took so many photos to produce this album, approximately 5000 and it was not easy at all to reduce it to the final 26!

I have learnt that you can capture the same moment many times and you only like the photo from a certain angle. I have also learnt to appreciate skilled photographers. Now I understand how much effort is put into capturing the perfect picture!

Here are my three favourite photos with the description I gave them on my Flickr account:

1. Ruby Red

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8692244386/

   

   Figure 1 – My favourite photo of all the 26

   Portrait: My little sister, Ruby, enjoying a strawberry. When I looked at the original picture I thought:       “This photo explains my little sister’s personality perfectly – cheeky, energetic and rosy red.”

   I also noticed that the strawberry was the only red colour in the photo…now it’s the only colour in the whole photo!

   Details: 1/160 @ f5.6 (mounted on a tripod)

   Technical Note:
   The photo was straight forward with a slightly fast shutter speed of 1/160. The subject was the problem. I had to use all my negotiation skills to encourage Ruby to do as I instructed. The majority of the work was in the Photoshop work afterwards.
   The photo details are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8692244386/meta

2. Strawberry’s Dive

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8837112493/

   

   Figure 2 – My 2nd favourite of the 26

   Macro: I love to capture moments the eye can’t see. These moments make us think “wow”, even though they happen every day. I took this photo by dropping this strawberry into a bowl of water and snapping a close-up of how the water responded. What amazed me the most was the water in the bowl appeared calm except the section where the strawberry was dropped.

   Details: 1/200 @ f8.0 (mounted on a tripod)

   Technical Note:
   I have learnt plenty of skills in producing my first album. I’ve learnt how important it is to use a fast shutter speed to capture a moving object e.g. the strawberry in the bowl exposure was 1/200 (a borrowed DSLR, Nikon D90 camera). That is a fairly fast shutter speed to freeze the image. Also the photo kept going out of focus so I kept increasing the aperture up to f/8.0
   The photo details are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8837112493/meta

3. Ready… Set… Brrr

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8850383763/

   

   Figure 3 – My 3rd favourite of the 26

   Winter: It is a cold 10 degrees outside and even colder in. Add a few icebergs and you really are now truly crazy. This is my dad saying “Hello Winter, Goodbye Summer” at the Bondi Icebergs Pool.

   Details: 1/5525 @ f2.0 (handheld)

   Technical Note:
   Here the camera has done something I really did not expect. It was interesting to discover that the camera (my Dad’s Nokia Lumia 920 mobile phone) automatically reduced the “f” number to get the photo correctly exposed e.g. f/2.0
   It did this to increase the exposure and I did not even know about it until later. What was really peculiar was that the automatic setting chosen for the shutter speed, a massive 1/5525. That is very different to what I would have manually set the shutter speed to. I would have set it around 1/400 to freeze the moving people and because there was a lot of light, as it was a sunny day. I would have set the “f” number to f8.0 or higher to decrease the light and keep the whole scene in focus. So I don’t understand why the Nokia camera does this, but it took a great photo anyway.
   The photo details are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/evecogan/8850383763/meta

These three photos were the hardest to capture, the hardest to time and the hardest not to smile at.

However maybe your favourite will be one of the others. Photos are like people, we are all different. I am happy with all 26 photos and together form my first photography album “Droplets of Life”.

Enjoy my album and press the Flickr *star* on the ones you like (it is the same as ‘Like’ in Facebook).

 

-Eve Cogan