Photo Project | Water + Oil = Fun Photos

May has turned into the month of macro photography! I've been enjoying experimenting with it, and I still have a handful of macro photo projects on my list, so I expect my macro trend will continue for a little while longer.

I'm still getting the hang of my lens, plus I have limited experience with macro photography in general, so it seems like I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve.  However, I know it takes time and practice to improve, and I can tell it's getting a little easier with each sucessive attempt.

I have been struggling to get my images in tack-sharp focus, which is apparant in many of today's photos. Of course, I'm hand holding the camera instead of using my tripod (have I mentioned how much I despise using a tripod?), so that's probably the majority of my problem. I suppose I need to just bite the bullet and start using it instead of complaining about out of focus images, huh?

I really had a lot of fun taking and editng these photos.  I just love the bold, bright colors in many of them.  I had a hard time narrowing down my favorites for this post, so I went a bit overboard.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

These next two are favorites.  I just love the in focus area inside the oil bubbles...

I had to include these next two for my hubby, since orange is his favorite color...

If these images look vaguely familiar to anyone, it might be because I took similar ones a few years ago when I was experimenting with a macro lens I had rented.

Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2017 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Photo Project | Playing With Smoke

At the workshop I attended at the beginning of the month, we learned the lighting set up to take these awesome cigar photos.  Since I recently purchased new lighting equipment that would allow me to take them, I decided to give them a try for this month's photo project.  I asked on facebook if anyone would be willing to volunteer to be my subject, and I was thrilled when Josh agreed to help me out.

Here are a handful of the images from our session...

  This is definitely a favorite!...

So is this one...

Love this one, too!...

And this one...

Who am I kidding? I love them all! It was so much fun experimenting with this technique, and I would love to do it again. I might have to consider shooting weddings after all, just so I can start taking these shots at the receptions. :)

Did you miss some of my past photo projects? Clicking here will take you to all of my photo project posts.

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area.
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© 2013 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Photo Project | Getting Creative With Motion

A few years ago, I read Bryan Peterson's 3rd Edition of Understanding Exposure (which is an amazing book if you are looking for a resource to help get you started with using a DSLR in manual mode). In the book, there is a chapter discussing shutter speed and implied motion. He suggests that one way to get creative is to hand hold your camera at slow shutter speeds to induce motion into the subject. His example photo really caught my eye and inspired me to give this a try.

I briefly experimented with this last year while I was working on the motion post for my tips and tricks series (which I need to get back to!), but I wanted to spend some time playing around with it a little more to see what fun images I could create.  As you know, I love bright, bold colors in photos so I decided to experiment with taking photos of some of my patterned clothing.

I basically set up a place to hang the clothing outside on a rare cloudy day, and photographed different ariticles of clothing using different shutter speeds and corresponding aperture and ISO settings.  Here is an example of the same item photographed with three different shutter speeds. As I slowed down the shutter speed, the movement resulted in a more abstract appearance to the photo.  I fear looking at the first two for very long might result in a headache (or perhaps a seizure) but the last one is kind of fun...

I also experimented with moving the camera in different directions to see how it affected the images.  Of course, how fast or slow I moved the camera also had an impact on the results.  Here is a series of images taken of the same item while I tried moving the camera in different directions...

As I was experimenting I found that some of the patterns required a slower shutter speed than others to induce the kind of abstract blurriness that I wanted to create.  It was also interesting to note the type of pattern played a huge role in what type of image the motion created.  In general, the larger the pattern on the item the softer the blur was in the resulting photo.  Here are a few examples...

While the clothes that had smaller patterns on them resulted in more linear results in the photos.

I'm sure this experiment could be done with just about anything, but I wanted to see what kind of bright abstract images I could create here. I don't think any of them are exactly frame worthy, but fun and interesting never the less.

So far I am really getting a kick out of planning and photographing these monthly photo projects.  I enjoy getting to stretch my mind a little and do something outside of my usual routine. It's great fun to ask myself, "I wonder what would happen if ...." and then to grab my camera and try it.  Permission to try something new and different, without fear of failing - that's what these photo projects are all about for me!

Did you miss some of my past photo projects? Clicking here will take you to all of my photo project posts.

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area.
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© 2013 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Photo Project | Christmas Light Bokeh

Over the past few years I have complied quite a list of photography tips, tricks, and techniques that I am interested in trying out some day.  However, no matter how well intentioned I may be when I add the items to my list, once there they take up permanent residence and never leave.  It's high time I evict some of them, and in order to help propel me in that direction I have decided to add a new monthly feature to the blog.

Every month I will be experimenting with one of these ideas and sharing the results.  Some of the ideas are new tips and tricks that I have read about and want to learn how to do.  Other things are subjects that I have seen photographed and want to try my hand at photographing for myself.  Some are simply challenges that I want to give myself to help me think outside the box.  No matter what the subject for the month, the photos will show up on the blog in the form of a photo project post.

For my first personal photo project, I decided to tackle something that has been on my idea list forever! As you probably know, I am a sucker for soft dreamy bokeh in photographs so it makes perfect sense that I would want to try my hand at creating some using Christmas lights.  So, before I took the tree down this year, I did a little experimenting with my camera.

The first thing I did was put my camera on my tripod and take photos of the tree using different apertures and corresponding shutter speeds.  I wanted to compare the size and the shape of the bokeh balls using larger and smaller apertures.  I did take all of the photos for this project using the same lens, but it would have been interesting to compare the exact same settings of different lenses to see how the bokeh balls changed. For each of these images, the aperture, shutter speed and ISO is listed before the photo.

(Note to self: clean your lens before doing anything like this again in the future! Every smudge is easily visible in these photos and it looks like you let the dogs lick your lens before your took these.)

f/1.6 1/125 ISO 400

f/2.0 1/80 ISO 400

f/2.5 1/50 ISO 400

f/3.2 1/30 ISO 400

I then decided to play around with placing some of my other holiday decorations at different distances from the tree so see how the bokeh balls changed as I moved my subject closer and farther away from the tree lights in the background. In general the closer I am to the tree, the smaller the bokeh balls and the farther away from it I am the larger they are.

This first photo cracks me up because it looks like it is just a floating snowman head. It is actually attached to a little post, but the scarf is covering it up so it looks like it has no base on it...

My brain was apparently stuck in portrait orientation. Sorry for the monotony of the rest of the images! Hopefully the pretty colors make up for it!

I have a thing for singing christmas stuffed animals. The cornier the better! My mom bought me this one for Christmas a handful of years ago, and I decided to take his portrait this year...

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love snowmen holiday decorations! About 90% of my ornaments and other decorations are snowmen. Poor santa and his reindeer get left out in the cold at my house!

Can you believe that I don't own any white lights? I didn't realize it until after I had already done all of my holiday decoration shopping or I would a bought a strand or two! I had a few other ideas up my sleeve that I wanted to try with some white lights, but I guess they will have to wait until next year. Until then, I hope you enjoyed my first photo project and will join me back next month.

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area.
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© 2013 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC