I had a photo assignment looming over my head and today was the perfect day to take care of it. I am learning so much. I almost need to take another one just to ingrain it in my head. I am starting to look at my pictures with a new eye. I can pick out compositional mistakes like crazy right now. I'm hoping that I'll start decreasing the mistakes and start increase good compositional elements.

Isaac was more than happy to help me out today. I set up the chess board with a chess problem and while Isaac solved the problem I would take pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

I like this picture. It tells the story of Isaac thinking through a chess move. Something he needs to work on. Head is a little blurry but compositionally a good photo.

Here there is implied motion with his hand. I used a small aperture and slow shutter speed to show the movement of his arm. But the sweep of his arm looks really strange. I kind of like that.

I like the look of Isaac's face in this picture but it looks like someone else's arm is moving the piece. I am eye level with him and at that angle you don't see how his arm is bent. That and the fact that cut off his elbow. If I hadn't done that it would have looked a ton better.

I like how Isaac's mouth is open like he just discovered something on the board. All of these pictures have a shallow depth of field meaning that usually the background will be blurred. Maybe a tighter crop or a lower camera angle.

Here is my favorite from this photo shoot. I haven't cut anything off that is important. I filled the frame with my subject and defined it with a shallow depth of field. There isn't anything growing out of his head, and distractions have been minimized or eliminated. the focus of this particular photo is on his face. It could have been on the chess piece with him blurred in the background which would be OK too.

Here is a favorite photo from this weekend. Pros: He is in the air, and the action is frozen. Cons: I cut off his cape instead of including it. Should have stepped back a bit and taken it from lower.

Right now we are into week 4 of our class. Let me tell you, the technical aspect of exposure and how to change it on my camera and how to meter is intense. My camera is so old that it won't do some of the stuff we are talking about. I think that it is only 5/6 years old. Amazing how fast things change. Just think in a few more years this little antique with be taking pictures with an antique.