I was sitting on my couch one evening, looking out the window admiring the gorgeous sunset.  As my eye wandered, I noticed a dandelion head in full puff in the middle of the lawn.  Taking inspiration from Milkay’s run of dandelions, I jumped up from the couch and dashed out the door with my 50mm lens attached to my camera.  I plucked that thing out of the ground and raised it to the sky.  Using an aperture setting of f/1.8 so the background was out of focus, I took my first shot.  Although my light meter said my exposure was dead on, it was actually way overexposed, washing out the sky and drowning the dandelion head.  The only thing properly exposed was my hand holding the weed.  Obviously not the look I was going for.  So, I sped up my shutter by a few notches, and voila.

(ISO 640, f/1.8, 1/640s)

Another evening I was hanging out on the deck with my darlings.  The setting sun was casting a beautiful golden light.  I was struck by Little Girl’s face as she sat next to me chatting about her day.  This time I had my handy 18-200mm lens attached.  I left the camera at it’s f/11 aperture setting, and adjusted my shutter speed.  I love how the light captured her skin tone and eye color so perfectly.

(ISO 640, f/11, 1/400s)

Then I called Big Girl over.  I used the same settings at first, but wasn’t satisfied.  Instead, I chose to underexpose her shot by a couple of stops.  Much better.

(ISO 640, f/11, 1/800s)

And her’s converted quite interestingly to black and white.  I could not get the same quality with Little Girl’s shot.

Another great challenge Scott! Don’t think I “pushed any envelopes” but I was forced to really think about what I was doing.  Thank you.  NOW I can go look at everyone else’s!!  WhooHoo!

(In case anyone is wondering, I tend to keep my camera’s white balance set to “cloudy” and a couple of dashes into the lower right quadrant…I like the warmth this setting adds to most shots.  Now and then I have to try something different, but this is my goto setting.)

…is the one you have.  I’ve heard it said many times, our very own Scott Thomas being a firm believer in this adage.

I rarely remember that my phone even has a camera function, and it’s such a pain to transfer images back to my computer to use, I rarely bother.  But last night, Mister was so darned cute watching the basketball boys at the Y gym, that I actually used the thing.  Not bad, I must admit.  This is SOOC.

And while I was downloading that one, I came across this one from a year ago that I forgot I had taken.  Thought it was worthy of a moment in the spotlight.  Very slight sharpening was added to this one.

I think my little cameraphone is worthy of a little practice from it’s owner.

Head on over to Scott’s Views Infinitum for the next Photography Challenge!

This month’s topic–Creative Exposure.  Scott says, “One of the first decisions a photographer makes before he takes a photograph is what exposure to use.  There is no wrong answer as long as the photo is not over or underexposed.”  I will go one step farther and say, that there is no wrong answer…period.  As long as your exposure is intentionally aimed at creating your photographic vision, even over or underexposure has it’s place in photography in my humble opinion.  (But then again, what do I know?! I’m still a newbie.)  😉

One case in point:

This photo was dreadfully underexposed technically, but correct creatively.

Sounds like a fun assignment, one that can be interpreted broadly.  A great opportunity to experiment with those aperture settings.

So let’s see…a dig into the archives for some examples, perhaps?

Can’t wait to see what our cyberfriends from around the globe do with this one!  Happy Shooting!