Summer Photography Workshop (Friday Five Edition)

This past summer I took a 6 week photography workshop.  The workshop was for those who used a DSLR camera and knew how to use the manual settings on them.  The plan was to have minimal classroom time and go out to different parts of the James River most weeks to take photographs.

I took a couple of photography classes in high school and have a fancy (even though it is 10 years old) DSLR camera.  I haven't used it much in the past several years, especially after getting an iPhone, so this was a way to get me out there to use the camera.


The first week was in the classroom going over basics of photography: ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc.  Also what to expect for the rest of the workshop. 

The second week we went to Pony Pasture (where I ran the Pony Pasture 5k).  My favorite pictures from that evening were from me playing with the settings.  This is the same spot, the first was done with a faster shutter speed (water frozen in time) and the second is with a slower shutter speed (the blurred water making it look like cotton candy).

ISO1600 - f/5.6 - 1/400

ISO800 - f/22 - 1/13

The third week we went down to Bell Island and the T-Pott Bridge.

Richmond

 This is one of my favorite from the night.  I love the lines and the focus into the unfocused.

The park area have these odd circles.  I love how the light just comes through the trees.

The fourth week it was a very hot night with a good chance of storms so we had a classroom evening and looked at and discussed the groups pictures.

The fifth week we went down to Rockets Landing.  It was an overcast evening, which made some photos tricky, but it was fun to help each other try and help each other try different settings. 

 Another picture with the lines I love with the in focus to out of focus.

I do love focusing on just the one thing in the picture.

One of the city with some great reflections in the river.

As it got darker, we played with lights streaking.  This is done by having a slower shutter speed, like the river that looks like fog.

The last week we went down to the Flood Wall to do some light painting.  We wandered around and took pictures while we waited for the sun to go down.

This was done with a macro extension on the end of my lens.  I zoomed in to where it gave me the circle framing.

Once it got dark enough, we went down to the water's edge and did some light painting.  Light painting is where you have a slow shutter speed (up to 30 seconds) and have someone move a light to look like it is painted.  You do not see the person moving the light because they are either still or move in enough away from the light that the camera does not pick them up.  The light painting was my favorite week.

This was done with a light stick (like a light saber).  He twirled it in a circle while walking from one side of the photo to the other.

This was done with a light at the end of the string.  He spun it in a circle in front of him and then turned in a circle.

This was done with cage holding something on fire on the end of the string.  He is spinning the string in the air and you can see the sparks flying in the circle.

This was a very fun workshop and I wished we had more weeks to go out to take photos.  While we had a shared Dropbox to post our photos each week, I'd also like to have a few more class sessions to discuss them with the class.  I got some very valuable feedback from them.  The leader of the class has different workshops through the year and I really want to take more.

Have you ever taken a photography class or workshop?  Have you ever done any light painting?

I'm linking up with Fairytales and Fitness and Running on Happy for Friday Five 2.0

Sign Language Class (Friday Five Edition)

Since I lost my job I have been trying to stay busy.  I was lucky enough to get some training money with my severance and they did not have to be IT classes.  After telling my mom that I was not going back for another degree (she is a college professor and loves to encourage me to go back to school), I looked around at the local classes to see what I would like to learn.  I saw that one was offering Sign Language classes.  I don't know what my draw to Sign Language is as I do not know anyone who is deaf, but I have always been fascinated by it.  I love watching the interpreters at live events.

1.  I learned the alphabet and some basic words when I was in second grade.  I went to a Montessori school and there I remember being taught these basic things.  Up to the start of the class I could still did remember the alphabet and a couple words like love, want, and day. 

2.  The class was a 6 week course taught through one of the local universities which as a vast non-degree curriculum.  The class was taught by a deaf person.  The first day there was an interpreter there explaining a lot of the details.  The rest of the classes there was not.  It is a little challenging to take a class without an interpreter there, but it made us learn a little bit more to communicate.  We would write on the board or finger spell things to get our thoughts across.  I do think I learned more without being able to rely on the interpreter.

3.  We played games.  I think this was the most fun and the way I learned.  Remember the game telephone where everyone sat in a circle and one person started and whispered something to the person next to them?  They would go around the circle back to the first person and what was said was so mangled it didn't make sense.  We played the deaf version of that where everyone stood in a line and the person at the back would show a sentence (or word spelled out) to the person in front.  It would go through the line to the first person, and like telephone, it was a mangled mess.  It was funny to see what it started at and how it ended. 

The other game we played the last week was that the teacher started with a word and each person would add one word to that sentence.   The sentence we ended up with on the last class was "Women love watching birds fly in the evening and don't love to eat cats or dogs, but they want many flowers on Friday".

4. The hardest part for me was reading the signs, especially when it was spelled out.  It's easy to practice signing, but if you don't have anyone to sign to you, it's hard to keep up.  The other students had said the same thing, especially about the finger spelling.  Your brain is so busy trying to figure out what letter it is, you forget what the first few were and then you can't figure out what the word is supposed to be.  And it doesn't help that I'm a horrible speller.

5. The American Sign Language (ASL) sentence structure is different from the English language.  Like when you are speaking Spanish, the adjectives are always after the noun and in English the adjectives are before the noun.  In ASL the questions are backwards for the most part.  Instead of "Where were you born?" it would be "Born Where?". 

I have really enjoyed these past six weeks, though I feel like we haven't scratched the surface.  Luckily there is another 6 week course taught by the same teacher.  And I have already signed up for it. 

What other languages do you know?  Have you ever learned Sign Language?

I'm linking up with Fairytales and Fitness and Running on Happy for Friday Five 2.0

What's Next? (Friday Five Edition)

So today is my last day at work.  I have vacation that I'm using till the end of the year and then that's it.  So a lot of my thoughts are on what will I be doing next.  I have 7 months of severance so there are a lot of things up in the air right now.

1. Job hunting - I get this question often.  And really, right now, most companies are not hiring because of the end of the year, holidays, and budgets.  I have done a great deal of networking the last couple of months and will start up again in January.

2. Traveling - While I don't want to spend too much money on vacations, this is a perfect time go do some traveling.  I already had a couple things on the schedule and I'm trying to decide if I want to do anything else.  The only problem is that all my friends still have jobs, so it will be a little harder to find someone to do something spur of the moment.

3. Cleaning - I have to admit I'm a bit of a pack rat.  It doesn't help that I have very little storage in my house.  So I want to use some of this time to just purge and get rid of things out of my house that I really don't need.  Hopefully I can stay motivated and get a good amount done.

4. Classes - Our severance package includes some money to use for training.  We have two years to use it and it doesn't have to be IT specific.  So I'm looking around to what might be useful to my career and more importantly, what might be fun.


5. Relaxing - December and most of January probably won't be the best time for me to have a lot of time to relax as I have so much going on.  But it will be nice not to have to worry about work on top of everything.  So I'm hoping to get some reading done, binge some TV shows, and cuddling with the kitties.



Have you had some extended time off before?  What did you do with your time?

I'm linking up with Fairytales and Fitness and Running on Happy for Friday Five 2.0