A New Beginning

It is the beginning of a new year and I decided to make it the beginning of a new things. To start the new year I decided to take a Digital Photography class at Kendall College of Art and Design. It is part of their Continued Learning program and is offered in the evening. I am taking it on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 9:30. I decided to take the class alone, to prove that I could do it! I'm much more comfortable doing something with a friend and it is usually more fun that way, but this is the new activity!

Our first assignment for the class was to take pictures and choose our favorite 3 to share with the class. The requirements of the assignment were to 1. Make the subject of the picture take up the entire frame, leaving as few distractions in the back ground as possible. I thought this photo that I named "Cold Birds" filled the first requirement. It's hard to see in this little picture but the birds are so cute and you can see their little eyes. Very cute. That boat lift in the back ground is a little distracting, but I'm guessing we'll be learning how to crop that out in Photoshop in our next class.

Our second requirement was to use the rule of thirds. I found this simple example of the rule of thirds at http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/rule-of-thirds/. The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. As follows.

The idea is to make the main subject or the focus of picture land on one of the four intersections that are marked in red. I used this requirement in my next two pictures. They pictures were taken last Saturday when we were in a blizzard here in West Michigan, but I had no other free time to set out and take pictures. You will see what I mean about the weather conditions in the pictures.


I called this "Winter Lighthouse". In Grand Haven, you are bound to see tons and tons of pictures of this lighthouse. However, most people get their pictures in the summer time...well this is what it looks like on the third weekend of January...at around 3:00 p.m. Not quite the tourist attraction everyone craves in August!!

Well, even though it is a little foggy, (actually that fog effect is actually blowing snow, not fog at all), you can still see that the lighthouse is on the right third of the picture, which follows the rule of thirds!

If you look, you can see the waves hitting the side of the boardwalk and those are ice chunks on surface of the water, burrr!





This is my favorite picture to the right. It also follows the rule of thirds. I have the circle of the cross beam matching the intersection of the thirds.

I decided I really like pictures with a lot of depth. I wish all of the lights would have been lit up on the building but I notice the 2nd and 3rd lights are burned out.

That little glow around the street light is actually a snowflake that landed and melted on my camera lens. Kind of a bummer, but good placement to make the light look like it's glowing.

I don't have a name for this photo, but it is my favorite, so I should probably come up with something to call it! It is the old Grand Haven Museum.

Those foot prints in the snow along side the building are mine and Ross's, this was not my first attempt and a cool night shot!