Followin' the Rules

Becky at Farmgirl Paints is taking a photography course, and we all know there's no better way to learn something than to teach it.  She's called her class project "THRIVE" - isn't that great?!  Every week, she brings each lesson back to her readers!  YEA!! 


 She's translating photography lingo into real terms that make it easy to understand. (Except for aperture - I still don't get it.  That's not Becky's fault, I've just got a mental block - higher is lower, less is more, up is down - it does not compute.)

I'm learning all sorts of cool stuff about my new camera.  Normally, I'm an "AUTO" girl.  Put all the knobs and dials and buttons on AUTO and let the camera do the work.  That works when you're being a tourist and taking a gabillion shots of churches and various statues, but not so much when you're trying to get the artistic shot of your candle-lit dining room table. Also, you pay extra for all those knobs, dials and buttons, so I'm aimin' to get my money's worth.

This week's lesson is ISO and the Rule of Thirds.  I had heard the Rule of Thirds before, but never tried to compose or edit my pictures to comply (what a rebel - always breakin' the rules - yeah, right), and I was already playing with the ISO a bit.  I'm repeating a couple, but here are a few of my rule-following third pictures:

The barn door is on one of the intersection points of the 9-block 1/3 grid.

I don't know if this is right, but the pole is right along one of the 1/3 lines - and I like this one.  :-)

It's a little late for Santa, but he's also positioned in the right spot, and by the tracks in the snow, it looks like he just walked right into that spot by himself.

This one's divided into three sections.

And here are the REALLY, REALLY BORING pictures where I was playing with both the ISO and the aperture (lower to higher or higher to lower - I'm not sure, but at least I'm trying!):

  

I was practicing on the water spitters on the side of the pool - I really do not like those things - but they were a moving target.  For what it's worth, I like the last one of these the best.  It was a mostly sunny day, and I took these one after the other, I was amazed at the difference in moving the dials and hitting the buttons.  Cool stuff!

I'm linking up to Becky's project, so hop on over to Farmgirl Paints and check out all of the MUCH better photos.