Day 2: Outside your bedroon window.

Day 2 of my month long photographic trek to expand my creativity and master my camera.  Speaking of my camera I am shooting with a Nikon D-80 it is a couple generations past being the newest bestest greatest but it still does a great job, I'm not saying i am not chomping at the bit for Nikon to announce the D400 because I am :), but the D-80 will keep me going for a long time if I so choose.

The Day 2 Challenge was exactly that a challenge in several aspects.  I guess I added the challenge to my self that I decided i was going to shoot through the window and i also chose to leave the blinds down.  So in addition to a colorless lifeless back yard i gave my self the added difficulty of window blinds and glare to deal with.  (Thanks to Mr Gomez and unfortunately due to this damn drought we have clean windows at least i didn't have to worry about grimy glass to shoot through.)

Challenge 1 how to liven up the scene?  You guessed it Zoee :)  "Zoee go play with Smokey" and be sure to do it by the outdoor fireplace and kinda look back toward the bedroom window where I will just happen to be with my camera.  Colorless lifeless converted to colorful and fun, and a very happy Smokey.

Challenge 2 Window blinds.  What was i thinking not raising the blinds, seriously i knew better, but this exercise is about learning and pushing the creative envelope. (My creative envelope is about the size of a school valentine card envelope so i start pushing my creativity pretty quick.)  Aperture should be the key to this problem i think to my self so lets experiment: Mode dial to Aperture Priority and start shooting and changing the aperture.  Here is what i found, I think I knew the outcome isn't that the purpose of the scientific process set a hypothesis and experiment to prove or disprove, a wide aperture (little f number) gives the blinds and glare a very soft look since they as so out of focus a smaller aperture (bigger f number) adds some crispness to the blinds but they are still so close the the camera that they are out of focus but no so much and they add contrast and texture to the image.

I know your thinking shut it and show me the pic already.  Well here are two of the them one wide open

  and another stopped down.

I like the both so today I have 2 photos for the challenge.  Both have a little work done to them in Lightroom, the second the most due to my trying to bring the glare down a little since it fell right across Zoee's face.

Whats coming for day 3?  Somebody That You Love.  Let me take A wild guess it will be one of my girls, but which one the eager model or the elusive one, i love a challenge so i may have to be a little sneaky and covert.