Bokeh, Baby

     I’ve heard of bokeh before, but I’ve never really attempted to intentionally create bokeh in a shot. Despite that, I went through a bunch of my photos to see if I could find any accidental bokeh. And w00t! I found some. While it may not be as good as intentional bokeh, I don’t think it’s too bad. I took the photo above in our backyard of a tree with beautiful red leaves. I, uh, accidentally took one out of focus, and kept it because I thought the end result might make for a nice wallpaper on my MacBook with the way the colors/leaves seemed to blend together.

 

Movement

I went to my niece’s soccer game this weekend. Naturally, I took my camera with me. My poor niece has had a camera in her face since the day she was born. I don’t think a visit has gone by where I haven’t taken a picture of her, or if any have, they have been very very few. Part of this is because I feel weird taking pictures of random strangers, and, well, she’s the only one who will let me take pics of her in my family. The rest of us are not photogenic at all, whereas she is simply used to it. Anyway, the soccer game was a challenge for me. I haven’t done a lot of photography that involved a lot of movement, plus I was using my dad’s 55-200mm Sigma lens, which I haven’t used that often. I wanted to make sure I could get some closer shots of the kids playing.

 

Bubbles, but not today

     I didn’t take any photos again today, but I will take a bunch this weekend. My niece is coming over and we are going to have a camp out… in the backyard. We have fun stuff planned. Also, in the morning we are going to watch her play in a soccer game, or football if you prefer. I plan on taking a bunch of pictures of that too. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from my time in the U.K. – what is it about bubbles that can make a group of twenty-somethings act like five year olds?

     Speaking of bubbles. They are extremely difficult to photo. You definitely can’t use auto focus, because the device can’t seem to focus in on the transparent bubble (and I know this is true for many cameras, not just mine). So manual is the way to go. Of course I also found it difficult to get that manual focus tuned just right as well. It doesn’t help that I really need a new pair of glasses, because I’ve been having difficulty discerning when things are in/out of focus. This makes for a frustrating shooting experience, especially when you only have a few moments to get that focus right – like trying to shoot bubbles. The fragility of the bubbles, plus the effects of winds (and unruly flatmates), makes those precious instances very very important. I can get the focus right when I have all the time in the world to be scrupulous, but when in comes to transitory happenings, having to waste time twiddling with the focus means fabulous pictures missed.

     I’m not sure I will be posting this weekend, seeing as how my niece will require most of my attention for entertainment purposes. But, if I don’t post this weekend, I might do some double posts next week. Anyway, time for sleep now, otherwise I might sleep through the football (soccer) game tomorrow!