Happy Friday, all! Excited to share more photography love and a fairly new inspiration site on our radar, Pinterest. There is just no end to the visual eye candy available to us these days.
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Before I forget…Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day tomorrow! Can you believe we have a day for what we love doing all the time??? Oh well, let’s celebrate with a coupon code to the whole shop.
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Especially in autumn I find myself drawn to shooting into the light. The sun is lower in the horizon most of the day here in the northern hemisphere…and, the soft, evocative imagery possible really inspires my creativity.
You see sun-washed images everywhere lately…commercials, cinematography, magazine ads, wedding photography. Lens flare is those dots of refracted light or rays of sunlight and loss of contrast that come from light spilling into the lens and it seems to be something that either you love or disdain…some avoid it at all costs. Lens makers normally supply us with lens hoods. The main purpose of a lens hood? To prevent light from hitting the front lens element from the sides – reducing contrast and creating flare. But for me and so many others it is what we get really, really giddy about! So, no, I don’t use my lens hoods much these days. 🙂
It does take practice and often is hit and miss. You may ask if it is hard on your sensor or lens to aim directly at the sun. I’m certainly not an expert, however, here’s some information on photo.net about it.
For those aiming for strong sun flares, the higher the f-stop the better. f/8 or f/11 for example. Shooting wide open at 2.8 or lower will lean you towards beautiful bokeh backgrounds but the sun’s rays will be less defined. It’s all about what you’re going for. In some of the images below I just wanted rim light around Alyssa’s blond hair so I kept the sun out of the frame.
Flickr groups especially aimed at celebrating flare are:
And, if you haven’t yet heard of Pinterest, it’s really neat. What is it? Their description of themselves is: “Pinterest is a social catalog service. Think of it as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can post collections of things you love, and “follow” collections created by people with great taste.”
I’ve just used it a tad but find it delicious to look at! Here’s a pinboard I created of some favorite golden light images:
Alyssa made a sweet one of her life in cartoons.
Rules of etiquette can be found on their site here.
Would love to see your pins, too!
Happy weekend and enjoy creating something meaningful for you. 🙂
Michelle