white balance

White Balance:  "Normally our eyes compensate for lighting conditions with different color temperatures. A digital camera needs to find a reference point which represents white. It will then calculate all the other colors based on this white point. For instance, if a halogen light illuminates a white wall, the wall will have a yellow cast, while in fact it should be white. So if the camera knows the wall is supposed to be white, it will then compensate all the other colors in the scene accordingly" (http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Digital_Imaging/White_Balance_01.htm).

So, what does that mean? Basically if your white balance isn't set correctly your pictures will look like they're tinted and all of the colors won't look right.... 

For example: I went with my friend Lauralai to the Morikami Japanese Museum and Gardens a few weeks ago (I'm a member there, in case you're wondering why it appears so often in my photos).   I attempted to manually set the white balance to what I thought was correct for being outdoors in natural sun light.  I was wrong.   As you can see, everything came out looking like it was tinted blue.

Normally, I would continue to try different settings until I get it correct but it was really hot and humid and I wanted to make sure that we some good shots so that Lauralai could give them to her parents, so for both of our sakes I changed the white balance setting back to auto for the time being...

Here are the results of the day:

You may have won this round, white balance, but I'm not done with you yet!

And thanks to Lauralai for being a great subject and for letting me post these pictures!

 

rain rain go away

Well, it's only been a week and I've already fallen behind.  Shame on me, I know.  But it's not entirely my fault - I had an idea of what I wanted to shoot, camera in hand I walk out the door and it starts raining. Since what I wanted to shoot was outdoors, and here it goes from sprinkling to pouring in - well, I cant think of a good comparision so we'll just go with really quickly - I couldn't go get my shots. And as its been raining every day since then... Phooey on the weather for thwarting my photography attempts!

Hopefully I'll get to share those pictures with you soon (well, as soon as I'm able to take them). In the mean time, here's a shot of one of my favorite subjects - my adorable, loving, lovable, non-stop-tail-wagging dog, Shadow.  Who, by the way, turns 7 tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Shadow!

Thanks for being a wonderful dog and always meeting me at the door
with the best greeting a person could possibly ask for!

weekly challenges

You may or may not be familiar with the website Digital Photography School, which is a great online resource (thanks to my sister for introducing me to that one :-)) .  Every week they give a new assignment and challenge.  Although I can't promise that I will be able to complete each challenge, I hope to be able to share my assignments/challenge results here each week - so keep checking back every week to see what's new!

This week's challenge:  part of a whole.  (ie: your toes are part of your whole body...)

flowering bush
Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens

stone lantern
Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens

wedding photography

Snapping photos at my friend's wedding is actually what sparked this whole project in the first place...

As I mentioned, I have always enjoyed taking pictures and for years I have pondered the idea of getting a "real" camera (ie: not a point-and-shoot).  At a friend's wedding a couple of months ago, I had SO much fun taking pictures and I found myself really wishing that I had a better camera to capture the moments.

A few weeks after, I mentioned to my friend that I was playing with the idea of getting into photography - she encouraged me (I'm lucky to have some great friends! ;-)) and as it turns out, her bf was thinking of selling his nice camera that he just didn't use anymore.  Deal :-)

Here are couple of photos from my friend's wedding (taken w/ a point-and-shoot camera). I think the candids are some of my favorite :-)

welcome to jfoto

Hello!

I'm Jaime F. and this is my new photography blog.  I have always enjoyed taking pictures and I hope that you'll join me on my journey as I learn more about photography.

Feedback is always greatly appreciated (constructive please, not just criticism).

I hope you enjoy!

-jaime




Morikami Museum & Japanese Garden