Central Point of Interest

Dog Blog Post #296:Oh dear. Fell asleep on the sofa again, and now it's really late. Will have to brief (will try not to be brusque.)

Today's Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph with a central point of interest today.

Here's what I did last time this one came to town...

I hadn't looked it up until just now, and it's certainly not making me feel any better about today's picture! :)

But I'm taking to heart what greygirl25 said that as I'm learning, I'm getting pickier. I also think I'm trying more things, resulting in some winners, and some... not so winners.

I don't have time to look it up on the blog, but based on the background, I'm guessing this was taken outside, using the BBQ to throw the dark shadow in the background, with Henry posed in the sun just in front of it. Now that I know how to take this, I could bang them off all day (or at least as long as the sun/shadow were in the right spots!) Does that diminish the picture in my eyes? Of course not! But I guess I'm trying to be more than a one trick pony.  :)

Today's shots were taken indoors. The one at the top of the post (my Daily Shoot selection) was taken with Henry right up against the screen of a west facing window, but without a sunbeam (too early in the day). He's standing on the sofa, paws on the back, and I'm luring his head downward with a cookie in one hand, while banging off the picture in the other. You'll notice that it lacks the crispness of yesterday's picture, although pretty much the same pose, due to a bit less light into the camera. I'm also not using a tripod, which does the picture no glory either.

I'm just guessing, but I think inability to handle low light situations is one place where point-n-shoots really suffer compared to their pricier dSLR counterparts.

Those bigger lenses can suck in more light.

(I'd love to hear from those with dSLR's as if my guess is right or not! Or other thoughts!)

The shot above was taking in the middle of the room, lit by my north-facing window, no additional light. It shows the coldness (blue tones) that mark those shots (although I did try to warm it up a bit in iPhoto) and, again, is less crisp. In that case, I was trying for "Low Contrast" (a Scavenge Challenge item) and while I got it, I'm not happy about the graininess, and will keep trying.

Arg! Spent too long chattering. No time for other topics. Will try to cover Timer Delays for Sugar (although the details are no doubt camera specific), and opine about what people have so far commented about how they pick their blog pictures tomorrow - good thoughts, all!

(Not to late to add your two cents on that one! I just broached the topic yesterday and would love to see them.)

Editor's Note to Wendy: "Missing skill is training the dogs to hold a chess piece and make it look like they're actively doing a "move" in the game. :D" Ok... I'll take you up on that. If you can get your Zack to do it before this round of classes is over, I'll give it a try with mine! :)

And finally, I leave you with my Scavenge Challenge photo - as I remarked in flickr, if you have dogs, you probably have these as well...

... and yes, I actually like that picture very much!  :)

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