Drawing with Light - Photo Class Fun!

I teach a beginning photography class at the Boys and Girls Club of the Lower Merrimack Valley . This month I have six very creative and eager 3rd and 4th graders.
Light drawing is a fun way to teach them about shutter speed, motion and light at the same time!
We have a small digital arts lab that we can completely darken and set up our cameras on a tripod for light drawing with flashlights, LED handheld lights and light sticks (Star Wars style).  You can buy these light sources at Rhode Island Novelty.

Each student had a job to do during the shoot: director, lights, and performers.  I rotated them all through each job so that everyone had a chance to be the director and create a light drawing.  Here are their amazing results:

Create a Book!

I just published a book of my mother's poetry with some of my photography as illustrations.  It was a wonderful thing to do with my mom.  We both had a lot of fun and found a new appreciation of her poetry and my images!  Take a look!

Landscapes by Caroline Farley Matthews with photography by Kathleen Milstein | Make Your Own Book

Berlin in Sepia Tone

 I was so excited to be visiting Berlin for the first time since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989!  Ok, so it was February and cold and overcast... I would make the best of it.  
But an overcast sky gives photographs a flat, gray look with a depressing feel and that is what I had all week!  What to do?
There is one option: don't include the sky in any composition.  But that didn't solve the problem of grayed out color.  I decided to experiment with sepia and I liked the results.
Here is a comparison of the same dome in both color and sepia:

Notice that not only does the color photo look gray but the color also competes with the tree branches and they look too busy.  Two fixes were called for: not as many tree branches and the use of sepia tone.  The sepia tone calls our attention to the age of the building.  It gives the photograph a "period" feel.

These two images were taken on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin.  The buildings are large and beautifully designed.  The sepia tone give a feeling of grandeur.  The gardens are asleep this time of year but people are not.  I love how my daughter captured the movement of the people walking to the museum.  
This accordion player was entertaining tourists as they bought tickets for the museums.

My daughter was a willing addition to my photographs to give them a feeling of perspective and motion.  The buildings and the sculptures were very large.  You can see that in relationship to her.  Doesn't it look cold?  I wanted to give the images a wintery feel.  But spring is right around the corner.  The bicycles and people strolling give a feel of everydayness to the image on the right.  

The Tiergarten is a huge park in the middle of Berlin filled with turn of the century architecture and lighting.  Paths, ponds and gardens are beautiful in spring.  In the middle of the park is the Victory Column with the Goddess of Victory in gold at the top.  It was moved to the park by the Nazis along with other monuments in the 1930s.

The modern glass buildings of Berlin are striking in color but my favorites are the sepia toned images.

Quebec City - Fireworks and Fun! - Notes on night photography

How do you tempt someone to join you for a vacation in Quebec City?  Just mention the International Fireworks Competition that is held each summer there!  It doesn't hurt to talk about the European feeling (read "romantic"), the food and the WOW factor of Canadian scenery.  Do you imagine cobblestone streets, fun little shops and restaurants, street entertainers and music?  Yes!  The beer is excellent and the fishing and hiking too!  Portugal won the fireworks competition with a superb 30 minute show set to great rock and roll music.  They will be back in 2012 to defend their title.

Poutine is slang for "mushy mess" and comes in all kinds of variations.  The basic recipe calls for French fries, dark brown gravy and cheese curds!  Mine had some meat added and sprinkles of fresh parsley.  It's not to be missed!  Comfort food Canadian style!

An hour or two outside of Quebec City are huge national parks that offer gorgeous scenery and great fishing, hiking and skiing.   My fisherman husband caught and released 8 beautiful rainbow trout that day.

                           Waiting for the fireworks to commence at Montmorency Falls Park.

I did not have a tripod with me so I experimented with a very high ISO on my Canon EOS 5D.  Using railings and benches as a platform I got really great photographs at night with no noise to speak of.  I say experiment and see what happens!!
Quebec City was so much fun that we are going back next summer for more fireworks and poutine!!

Reston, Virginia - Wine and Food Festival

It's harvest time and wine festivals are in full swing the world over!  Virginia you say?!  Yes, Virginia is for "wine" lovers!  There were over 20 Virginia wineries represented at this 2 day festival in Reston, VA..  We bought a ticket, grabbed our souvenir wine glasses and began to taste!

I had decided to bring my camera and concentrate on creating narrow depth of field images.  So I used fstops  in the 3.2 to 5.8 range.  That meant I would have lots of blur in front and behind what I chose to focus on.  A great look for close ups!  If you are using a small point and shoot camera you can use your macro or "flower" setting.

Aren't these wine glass huggies cute?!  Find yours at Shop Linda's Line.

There was food to taste also:  Balsamic vinegars, cheeses and tortilla soup!  Surprise! Surprise!   Mary Amons of the Real Housewives of D.C. was there to cook tortilla soup and tell her fans about a website she is promoting: Cancer Schmancer Movement  Lots of information on this website about how to shop wisely and avoid cancer causing products.  Check it out!

Mary Amons and my friend, Brenda, a big fan of the show.  The soup was fabulous!  Mary can cook!

UC San Diego's Birch Aquarium - La Jolla, CA

Don't miss this aquarium!  The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  What a view!  It is full of species and habitats from the colder waters of the Pacific Northwest to the warmer waters of Mexico.  It is an interactive museum with an outdoor explorable tide pool.

So how do you take pictures inside a darkened museum with glass fronted exhibits?  This was a first for me too!  And I didn't have a tripod with me.  The first thing I did was to up my ISO to 640.  As I found out later, I could have even used up to 2000 with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  I used an f stop of 4.5 and a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second.  I'm pretty good at leaning against a wall, tucking in my elbows and holding my breath at that speed.  But not always.  Next time I will bring a monopod at least! And no flash to eliminate reflections.
Here are a few of the better results:

If you have a small point and shoot camera turn off your flash and/or try some of your scene modes like fireworks or candlelight or indoors.  If you use your flash stand to the side so there is no reflection in the glass.  Experiment!

This ugly boy is a wolf eel.  Friendly, but fierce-looking, he is really a fish.  They live all along the western states in rocky reef-type habitats.  They form pairs and sometimes mate for life!

There's Something About Seahorses is a wonderful exhibit, which teaches about many species and how the aquarium is helping to conserve this threatened creature.  The leafy sea dragon above is a relative of the seahorse.  Breeding seahorses in the tank is below:

Kids love to watch a starfish turn itself right-side-up without breaking the surface of the water outside by the interactive tide pools.

So much fun to see, learn and photograph!

Garden in the Woods - Framingham, MA

A wonderful place to take pictures!  To quote their brochure: "In New England Wild Flower Society's renowned botanic garden, you'll discover an unrivaled collection of both rare and common native plants offering a changing tapestry of flowers and foliage through the spring, summer and fall seasons."
I wandered on the paths through wet and dry landscapes, beside ponds and meandering streams, shaded by trees of every kind marveling at the beauty all around me.

It was a slightly overcast day just after a night of gentle spring rain.  Perfect!  These lovely, airy things are Tiarella or Foamflower.  The website for Garden in the Woods offers a Bloom Board, which lists what is blooming in the garden at the present.

There is a native plant nursery on the premises as well as a garden shop.  Several classes are offered each season in horticulture, gardening, design trips, botany and conservation.

 The paths offer many places to just sit, relax and feast your eyes!

Trillium come in several colors and absolutely carpeted the ground!  Another violet-like ground cover is in the photograph below.  If you know the name of this one, let me know.  The droplets of rain on everything adds to the feeling of a wet spring and gives us an extra clue as to how big the flowers are.

This is an interrupted fern - one of the strangest plants I saw.  It is named for the blackened leafs that "interrupt" the green leaves right in the middle of the stem.  Green towards the bottom and again at the top.

And the best find of the day were these beautiful lady slippers!  I did not bring a tripod with me and in this low light situation I used the wider apertures available with my Canon 24-70mm macro lens.  That gave me a smaller depth of field with less in focus - a great way to photograph flowers.

The day I spent at Garden in the Woods was such a rich photographic experience.  I hope I can do a field trip with some of my students in the future!