Really dumb frustration (pointless - just venting)

[Sammie_Lou]

I am already SO sick of it being pitch black outside by the time I get home from work. I bought Understanding Exposure and I'd love to be able to practice more, but it's just so dark outside whenever I'm not working. That leaves me weekends, which are usually super booked up. I'm SO ready for the days to be longer again so I have a little bit of daylight to work with each day.

On the plus side, I think Santa might be bringing me a (cheap) external flash and maybe that 50mm prime that I've been wanting...

 

[pgriz]

You know, you can get some pretty amazing shots even with the light being supplied by ordinary lightbulbs. Just set your white-balance setting to tungsten, and you should be pretty close. If you have a tripod, then you can explore the shutter speed range of 1/2 sec to 30 secs... There are ample things to discover, like light trails, "ghost" people, motion blurs, and so on. Zooming while shooting also creates lots of potential interesting images... Let the dark be your friend for staging drama!

 

[Derrel]

You know, you can get some pretty amazing shots even with the light being supplied by ordinary lightbulbs. Just set your white-balance setting to tungsten, and you should be pretty close. If you have a tripod, then you can explore the shutter speed range of 1/2 sec to 30 secs... There are ample things to discover, like light trails, "ghost" people, motion blurs, and so on. Zooming while shooting also creates lots of potential interesting images... Let the dark be your friend for staging drama!

This, this line of thought sounds awfully,awfully close to the optimistic, "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade!" type of optimism that has been the ruination of the antacid and prescription tranquilizer industries! Knock it off pgriz!!! Now is the time for more doom and gloom!:er:

 

[Sammie_Lou]

Haha normally I'm a pretty optimistic person...but the darkness mixed with the cold and the constant rain has me feeling pretty gloomy. Just needed to vent. lol

 

[KmH]

I've always loved the morning light (sunrise). I always did everything I could to schedule morning location shoots. They do that a lot in the movie and televison industries too.

There is a lot less dust and other particulates in the air, so the sky is a little bluer than evening light, and there is usually less wind. No doubt, this time of year it's also the coldest part of the day.

In addition to time before work, do you get a morning, lunch, and afternoon break at work? With a plan, you can do a lot in 10 minutes.

 

[unpopular]

I need to get myself some of those nonprescription tranquilizers.

 

[Sammie_Lou]

If I could just get my lazy butt out of bed in the morning before work...haha. I didn't even think about my lunch hour, though. Thanks! You've solved my photography dilemma....care to solve my whole "sick of the never-ending rain" dilemma??

 

[Sammie_Lou]

I've been skimming the forums a bit and I'm now thinking about making one of those homemade light boxes...could be fun.

 

[Tony S]

Just a good bare bulb and tripod will give you lots of opportunities to practice making great images. Play around with anything that makes light and see what you can come up with.

care to solve my whole "sick of the never-ending rain" dilemma??

Yeah... move out here to Washington and then you'll realize how nice it really was in Michigan.

 

[Sammie_Lou]

Haha fair enough. I just can't believe we totally skipped fall. We went from 80-90 degree days to 30 degree days in, no joke, about a week. So much for taking photos of the pretty leaves that usually make fall my favorite season. They went straight from green to brown.

 

[photo guy]

Summer wasn't long enough!! Fall was too short too.

 

[gsgary]

If you can only shoot when the sun is shining it's time to sell your camera

 

[Sammie_Lou]

I'm not saying I can only shoot when the sun is shining...you totally missed my point there. I'm saying I'd like some decent weather (i.e. not pouring rain in pitch black) to work on getting the exposure correct. My house is pretty dim when it's dark outside, so I'd end up having to use the on camera flash, which I keep hearig over and over again is horrible and not to bother. Besides, you can only take so many pictures of stationary objects in your home over and over again. Basically, I'm just saying that I'm sick of crappy weather and feeling like I'm holed up in my house. Just a rant.

 

[JohnS.]

I feel your pain. I usually get home by 3:45-4 and the sun is already almost over the horizon by the time I can get home, grab my gear, and be somewhere.

But you should definitely try some indoor stuff! You don't even need a light box. Just a large piece of white cardboard arranged in a particular fashion will do. I've experimented a lot in the past with both a light box and white piece of cardboard and you can turn out some pretty cool pictures!

Lately I've been wanting to buy some white muslin fabric to get more into portrait photography but I simply do not have an area in the house I could set it up properly.

 

[Sammie_Lou]

My FIL has a large cartridge collection (I get yelled at for calling them bullets lol) and he's trying to sell some pieces. I'm thinking that maybe I'll try the lightbox thing to take some photos of his cartridges that he's trying to sell for when he places them on the arms auction sites that he goes through. Then there'd be a purpose to the photos rather than me just sticking random objects from my house into the lightbox. lol