Shooting for this audio photo story was an interesting task. Starting off, I had no idea what I would shoot, so I’m glad the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Detroit was approaching. When I arrived, I had a few things on my mind. 1) "It’s freezing out here" 2) "Who am I even going to interview? It’s 8 a.m., people are crabby, they’re with their families, and I have no credentials." and 3) "Man, I really hope I get some good shots out of this." So, I stood on Woodward Ave. with a lukewarm cup of coffee in my hand and a lot of anxiety in my heart. It wasn’t taking the pictures that bothered me. Parades move fairly slow, so I wasn’t too worried about missing much, and shooting outdoors is my sweet spot, so I wasn’t too worried about getting the wrong composition settings. I wasn’t worried about missing Santa’s sleigh, I wasn’t too bothered about the people around me (except for those kids who kept running in the street WHILE the parade was happening, that gave me some anxiety), and I wasn’t worried about my batteries dying. The only thing I worried about was the interviewing process. Asking people for their names and if I can use an image of them for my photojournalism class while shooting the feature assignment did not bother me as much asking for a full interview. Call me crazy, but my social anxiety would not allow me to approach people and ask that question. Eventually, I mustered up the courage to do it, but I was shaking the whole time. Editing was also quite the issue for me. I spent hours making a two-minute video, and about half of that time was spent on audio. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t awful, but this whole experience reminded me why I am a blogger, not a vlogger. So, here is my audio photo story covering the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Detroit, I hope you enjoy!
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Sports photography is like feature photography times 100. Everything is fast, unexpected, and you really have to stay on your P's and Q's at all times.
I have always been a sports fanatic. I used to be a basketball star, run track, and there was nothing better than watching college and professional football growing up. Needless to say, when I got an assignment to cover a sports event, I was ecstatic. Finally, I could cover something I love and understand like the back of my hand. Well, the excitement did not last long. Having to get approved to take the pictures was no issue, but everything that followed was definitely a challenge. This assignment really showed me why lens choice is so important. I really feel like if I had a better lens, all of my shots would have come out better. A kit lens isn't ideal when you have to shoot a constantly moving sport from such a distance. It's not like I could get up in the players and or coaches faces, I had to shoot from the baseline in a low lighting space. ISO is a main contributor to photo noise, and in a setting like mine with the lens type I had, I had no choice but to raise the ISO. Had I made it any lower, I would have had to lower the shutter speed which would have left a lot of my images blurry. Zooming made my aperture higher, so I had to keep changing the shutter speed, and all this did was turn my stopped action shots into blurred action shots. At this point, I realized that a telephoto lens would have been ideal in this environment. While these aren't the best pictures I've ever taken, I understand what I could have done better to improve the quality of my images. If I could go back and shoot again with the right lens and the knowledge I do now, my images would be better.
You can find 10 different shots in the gallery below. To better view the photos and read the captions, click the image you would like to expand.
Shooting photos or videos on manual mode can be quite the daunting task. There are a lot of terms, rules and even numbers associated with capturing the perfect shot. The three most important composition elements on any camera are ISO, shutter speed and aperture (f-stop). All three of these elements work together and depend on each other to get a desired look.
The ISO measures how much light reaches the sensor, and it is the main factor in how light/dark your photo is. It also determines if the photo will be grainy. The shutter speed determines how long the shutter remains open as a picture is taken. The slower the shutter speed, the longer the exposure time. The shutter speed and aperture work together to control the amount of light that actually reaches the sensor (this is how they work with ISO). The shutter speed controls how long light is exposed, and aperture controls how much light passes through the lens. The main job of the shutter speed is to determine the blur of a moving subject. If you wanted to take a picture of someone running and have them in focus with the background blurred, you would use a faster shutter speed to stop the action, and a slower shutter speed to blur the runner and focus in on the background. The aperture is the opening of a camera lens. It determines how much light passes through the lens, but it does more than that. It is also important for defining the depth of field. Lower apertures (like f/3.5) allow more light to pass through and produce a shallow depth of field, while higher apertures block light and produce a wider depth of field. |
AuthorHi ! I am a student photojournalist at Wayne State University. Archives
December 2019
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