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Health & Fitness

Homebody: A Photoblog of Kings Park (and Close By), #3: "Location, Location, Location"


                       #3: “Location, Location, Location”

     We’ve all heard this popular real estate advice about buying a home. Don’t overlook your own home as a great potential source of photographs. It doesn’t get any more “Homebody” than that.

      The accompanying photograph, “Parabolas with Asymptote,” is one of my favorites. It’s not the best photo I’ve ever taken and it has several technical flaws but I still love it for its many personal meanings. It was taken from my front porch on a summer’s evening. The settings were 30 seconds at f/6, ISO 100.

      I did not do much post-processing in the digital darkroom but I did change the white balance from daylight to tungsten, which gave it a very subtle but beautiful color balance change. I also was able to lighten up the grass in the foreground to make it a little more visible and give a better sense of where the photo was taken from. Fortunately, these changes were very easy because this was a RAW capture. Are you shooting in RAW? If not, why not???

      Kings Park Photo Club: Join our new photo club that meets the third Thursday of every month at the Kings Park Library at 7 PM. (Next meeting is on May 16, 2013). Find out about the benefits of shooting in RAW. Also check out the club’s “Eye on Nature” display at the Nissequogue River State Park. The display runs until May 4th at the Park Administration Building near the marina. The hours are 8 AM to 4 PM, excepting 12 Noon to 1 PM.

      Photo Tip: “It Worked For Me:” OK, you got your DVD and now you know the basics for your camera. The next step in getting better is to have that camera with you at all times. At home have it out of the bag, turned on, lens cap off, and set to one of the automatic modes to grab those once-in-a-lifetime shots of the kid's or pet's antics; the beautiful clouds before or after the storm; the sunset after dinner. This is one of those “simple, but not easy” things that can make a real difference in becoming a better shooter. If it’s not practical to have your SLR with you at a particular time, have a small point-and-shoot camera, or even your phone camera, at the ready. It took me a while to really achieve this but I have my SLR or my point-and-shoot with me pretty much everywhere I go. Those times I do still forget I usually kick myself because a photo opportunity usually presents itself and I’m skunked.

     Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions or requests for topics, please post them in the comments.

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