light through the day

I need to take about 12 images from dawn to dusk over one day or if necessary over a couple of days to take a look at what happens as the sun moves and how it alters the lighting in the scene I am trying to photograph.  Well that's the theory anyway but at the moment trying to get even a few hours of sunshine is nothing short of a miracle its either raining or cloudy, I have therefore decided to put this exercise to one side and continue on with the other exercises depending on the weather, therefore this blog might seem a bit dis-jointed but i hope its not too difficult to follow.
I am getting desperate now as I feel I am getting too far behind even thought I have gone on to some of the other exercises I would rather not go off on too many different paths at the moment.
Finally a sunny day (or at least it started off that way) and below are my first four photographs, one thing I should mention is that these photographs were taken in my garden which maybe wasn't the best place but as I said I needed to get on with it my grass is artificial so the bright green is correct and my screen is calibrated.

The first thing I noticed was how the sun was striking against the fence and how soft the light way with an almost golden tinge to it, the next three were taken over the next few hours and although the sun did go in for one it came back out again for the next one and I really started to notice how much more of the fence was lite by the sun.
The next four and by now I am noticing the colour change and also the shadows and how much softer they appear in the photograph taken around 1 o'clock.

I also noticed that the detail is not as clear in the 1 o'clock photograph I would not like to use this photograph.

The next four photographs and the light is really changing with bigger or should that be longer shadows and also there are more of them for instance there are now shadows from the decking posts which have only just appeared.

These have loaded the wrong way for some reason but I hope that by looking at the photographs you will be able to see the correct order.
The final photographs

by now the sun has more or less gone from here now but the main thing I noticed that for most of the day the settings didn't change much on the camera with it metering at around 1/320's or 1/400's and F9 or F10.

so what did I learn from this exercise? I learnt to watch how the light changes the look of something and how sometimes it is worth getting up early to get a lovely soft golden light rather than the brightness that appears later on in the day, although in a way this set of photographs was not all successful in terms of getting the sun it has really made me look and appreciate lighting so much more and I now find myself watching the light changing on my journey to work, My favorite time of the day was the early morning shots not only because of the quality of the light but also how peaceful it was.

Judging Colour Temperature 2

This time I needed to look at various white balance settings and how they alter the image, I decided to use hubby again so I could compare the results against the previous exercise, so after a bit of bribbery, (chocolate and wine) I set about taking the next set of photographs,the first set are taken in full sun and the white balance in order of the photographs is auto, direct sun and finally shade, (I will use this order for all three sets of photographs).

The first thing that I noticed was that the one taken with the shade white balance looked really un natural it almost made him look ill and I did not like this at all, the auto white balance was ok but I prefered the daylight setting, as although the auto setting was amost colourless it wasn't quite right still.
The second sset of photographs were taken in the shade this time I didn't really like any of the photographs the first two on auto and daylight white balance were only just ok and the shade one was not right either, the jumper colour was completely wrong and again he looked ill.

 the final set on photographs were again taken in the evening as the sun was going down,

This time I prefered the last shot the colours seemed to be more as I remembered them his shirt was black which was correct in the photograph  where as on the other two it looked more dark blue.

so what have I learnt from the last two exercises I think the most important thing I have come to realise is how much the correct white balance can  effect on the whole picture, and that I need to think about it more rather than jus tleaving it on auto white balance.

Judging Colour Temperature 1

The brief on this exeercise was to take three photographs with the white balance set to day light, the first in full sunlight during the middle of the day then another also in the middle of the day but this time in the shade and the third one either as the sun was setting and low on the horizon or very early in the morning when it was just rising.

I choose to take my third one in the evening and below are my three photographs, they were all taken on the daylight white balance setting as instructed.

I noticed that the one taken in the sun was colour less, the one in the shade had a slight almost blue tinge to it and the third one taken in the evening had a golden glow to it.
They came out more or less as  thought they  would have done I would have liked a slightly better sunset to take the final shot but the weather was not quite as good at the end of the day as it had been earlier other wise I might have expected a more orangey -red to the photograph.
The first two photographs were taken with a bright blue sky with no clouds (a rare thing at the moment in this country), another thing that I noticed was that any wrinkles were more pronounced in the full sun photograph.