DUCKS!

*Note*: Click on any picture to make it larger!

I shoot at parks a lot, which means I am constantly surrounded by beautiful nature and wildlife!








...but mostly ducks.

Being surrounded by ducks often gives you the opportunity to observe their behavior.

These ducks were racing each other around the pond!

I don't know what that blurry thing is on the right...

This female was really pretty, she had purple feathers under her earth colored ones (purple being my favorite color).  I named her Belle!

We couldn't get too close because she was fiercely guarded by a male duck.  I named him Beast.

Beast would get angry every time we got close.  He'd stare at us and ruffle his feathers.  Getting into a fight with a duck is the last thing I need right now.  Don't worry Beast, you can have her.  She's not my type anyway...

And now for some "d'awwww!" moments!

OHMYGOD!  Baby duckie!!!

Every chance I got I shot this little family.  Can't have too many pictures of baby duckies!

These pictures were taken at the Fullerton Arboretum.  They have this really pretty pond filled with animals like ducks and fish and we even saw a turtle!!

These pictures were shot with my FujiFilm HS20EXR camera:  

Shutterspeed: 1/200 - 1/1000 (it was a bright day)

f/5.6 - f/11

iso = 100

Little Green Bunnies #1

Comic!

Know they name!

By the way, fumetti is an Italian word that means "puffs of smoke," which refers to the speech bubbles in comics.  Fumetti refers to all comics in Italian, but in English it refers to photographic comics, or comics that use photos.  I hope you like :D

Photojojo Review: Popup Flash Bounce

I recently purchased a product from photojojo.com: The Popup Flash Bounce.

Popup Bounce Flash and the fuzzy case that came with it

I was really excited when I received it!  It diffuses your popup flash to make the light softer. It bounces the light off  the mirror which then bounces the light off the walls and ceiling around you.  It makes the background lighter and the foreground softer.

Here is how the Popup Flash Bounce looks on my camera:

 I was super excited because, as a photographer who is just starting off, I have to rely on my popup flash more so than I would like.  This means either shooting at precise moments in the day to get optimal lighting, or spending hours afterward photoshopping the lighting.  The popup flash cuts my work in half (or more!).

Here are some examples of my flash with and without the Popup Flash Bounce attached.  The photos are of my Lovely Lady statue from Japan.

in front of my kitchen...which needs to be cleaned...

standing on my pen case, side ways flash

The package comes with a troubleshooting area that helps you figure out how to get it to work!  Up the ISO, longer shutter speeds, shoot in manual only, white walls and ceiling, lower ceilings work better, or bounce the light from the side (vertical) off of a wall.  I've tested all these methords and they definitely help!

Something that also really worked (for those pesky rooms that don't have low ceilings or white walls, or for any shots done outside where there are no white ceilings and walls) was to buy a white posterboard (like what kids use for projects, the ones made out of paper).  This kind of object is normally used to bounce light (like sunlight for example) onto the persons face or whatever your subject is so that shadows don't get in the way (kind of like what the Popup Bounce Flash is supposed to do with your camera's popup flash).  My lovely assistant, Liz, held the board over my head as I took pictures of our latest model, Emily, successfully bouncing the light that bounced off of the Popup Bounce Flash perfectly.  We had basically lowered the "ceiling" so that the flash would bounce off of a surface closer to our subjects face.  This technique really helps out difficult rooms!  My Lovely Lady photos are without the white posterboard, the ceiling and walls are white and enclosed enough in my place, so I didn't need it then.

The moral of the story...photographers need to have ingenuity!

Agfa Ansco 1A Readyset

Today was a photography adventure!  My husband, Austin, and I went garage sailing this morning (as we do most weekends), and we stumbled upon the nicest couple selling antique cameras.  Well, I fell in love.  They had about seven or eight beauties, and I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect one.  I did.  

Ahhh, the gorgeousness of this camera is astounding.  It was made in the late 1920s or early 1930s by the Agfa Ansco Corporation (tough name to say...).  It actually folds in on itself to a nice compact, portable carrying case.

Here's a closer look at the face:

It actually takes film (a medium format film, which is bigger).  And the view finder is that black box above the lens.  You actually look down into your subject area.  The shutter is also on the lens.  It looks like a little switch.

Unfortunately, being almost 100 years old, the bellows (the part behind the lens that looks like an accordian) probably leak light, so I can't really use the camera.  But that'd be one awesome shot.  Everything is fully manual of course, and the photographer needed to balance shutter speed with the amount of lighting available.  They didn't have Photoshop, or even the ability to instantly look at the photos after a picture was taken.  Back in the day photography was a hard science! 

The moral of the story...it's always nice to take a step back into the history of my most favorite hobby's roots.