Year in review time!

We are almost starting the year of our lord 2011 and before that happens i would like you to do a year in review of the photographic art you created during 2010.

It is a important step into becoming a better photographer by learning from your photos and memories of what happened during those times you were shooting.

You may ask though: Why would i want do a review of the past??

The answer is to learn from your experiences and to remember the mistakes that did or may have ruined a great photo from being created!

So i would suggest to you to look at your photos from 2010 and pick 30 that made an impact on you. This could be by feeling, by the technical difficulty or by what the experience of taking that photo was.

Then make a list of thing you did right and a list of thing you failed at and use those things as a way of learning. Then finally write a list of things or places you want to visit so that you don´t miss that special seasonal moment again!

Most importantly do the year in review throughly so that it you really learn and become a even better photographer!

Have a happy holiday and a happy new year :)

Expose for the snow!

The other day when i went and shot a roll of tri-x 400 film and today i developed the roll and found out that i didn't expose for the snow!

So why is exposing for the snow important?

The lightmeter on a camera tries really hard to give you a good exposure but snow plays a nasty trick by being really bright which results in pictures where the snow is grey instead of being white.

In my case my Canon A-1 is from the late 1970:s and it has only one light metering mode (center weight), as a comparison a modern dslr has four different ways of metering light!

Thankfully center weight metering mode is easy to use and as long as you remember to adjust the exposure the result will be great!

So as a "this happens when you fail" example here is two images that show how badly underexposed some of the photos ended being for me:

So the next time you go out for some snow photography make sure to go into your camera settings and overexpose the image and you will see that snow will look white and not gray!

What is your experience when using a film slr and compensating for the snow?

Challenge yourself!

If you are feeling down and need to find that inspiration again then its time to challenge yourself!

I recently found myself being in a stage of non creative mode and finally decided to do something about it!

So i loaded my Canon A-1 with a 50mm 1.4 lens and a roll of Tri-x 400 b/w film and told myself go out and not to come back until i taken all 36 frames!

Well it worked allot better then i thought and not only did i take 36 frames i carefully composed but i also challenged myself to be creative!

So tomorrow (dec 10th) i am going to develop and scan the roll so you can see what i saw today.

So the lesson is to tell yourself to go out there and do something so that your day becomes allot better and you will feel great after accomplishing the task/s!

So what are you waiting for get creative and be feel great about yourself!

How do you get out of a non creative mode?

Please share your tips and tricks :)