Yeah, that’s what Laine’s 12-Week Photography course at 2peas has been! Totally fun!

We’re into our 2nd week, and the lesson for this week is even more fun than it was last week! I guess I have to admit that while I am far from being a great photographer, I’m not a newbie at it either… but I’ve never participated in any photography course, ever, so this kind of learning-road is pretty new to me (adventure, yeah! the word for the month), and I’m having a load of fun with it! I love that there’s always a challenge with an exercise to do (must be echoes of the school-age kid in me 😀 ).

This week is all about shutter priority (and then getting to love the manual mode on your camera).

The challenge for this week was to take a photo of water from your kitchen sink flowing at a slow shutter speed and then at a high shutter speed. The idea is to see how a higher shutter speed freezes movement–sort of like we used to do when we were kids and we played “statue-dancing” (you know, where you dance like crazy and then freeze when the music stops. All those who move get taken out of the running. Bless the poor child who just has to sneeze at that point! 😆 ).

So to create that splashing of water, we had to have some object of our choice that would get in the way of the flowing water, enough for the water to splash about. I used an overturned carafe and, for some excitement and color (because my kitchen happens to be almost all black granite and stainless steel… very nice but very boring for photos 🙂 ), I added some glass pebbles. And I used my tripod (because if you take at a slow shutter speed and you move slightly, you’re going to get a lot of blurring… so even if my lens is VR-equipped, I didn’t want to take any chances. haha).

I got soooo excited with the challenge that I… uhm… didn’t read the instructions too well. 😳 We were supposed to set our ISO between 1000 and 1600, and I foolishly just shot away at the ISO my camera was set at when I last took a photo (400. Waaaay below the required minimum. Geez.)

One more proof that I make a bad student: we were supposed to take 1 photo at a slow shutter speed and then 1 photo at a high shutter speed, right. 1 + 1 = 2. I took three photos at different shutter speeds. Hmmmm. Maybe my school-age kids shouldn’t ever see my blog lest they get any ideas about not following Teacher to the letter. 😆

So here’s what I came up with:

{ Click on the images to get a clearer, amazing view of the differences! 😉 )

Journaling below:

Water drops change: from an indistinguishable blur to “comet-like” drops with tails to distinct droplets floating in air. Wow!

Here’s another view that will show you the differences, even more amazing than the first one above. This shows you the difference in the water coming from the faucet:

And here are the individual photos:

With a shutter speed of 1/20 (this is the slowest shutter speed I used):

Shutter speed of 1/80 (this was the slowest speed that Laine had required at an ISO of 1000-1600):

Shutter speed of 1/200:

Cool, huh? Try it and have fun!!!

My LOAD for Day 15

Yeah! Halfway through! Fifteen days into the new year with fifteen layouts to show for it!!! Woohoo!!! 8)

Journaling reads:

you have got to be the most adorable santa’s elves i’ve ever seen in my entire life! how did i get to be so lucky?

CREDITS: Jessica’s fab DD template, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Katie Pertiet’s grid brush, Emily Merritt’s papers, Lisa Warren’s cardinal

Alright then! On to working on the next set of Pasteleria. I’ll be back in a few! 😉