Horizon

Dog Blog Post #309: Some days, the stars align and the events of the day and the Daily Shoot are perfectly synchronized and in such harmony that you would think some cosmic fortune teller had planned out the day just for you.

Today was definitely not one of those days.

Today was the sort of day where the dogs spend the majority of daylight over at the day spa (ahhh.... fresh, clean, fluffy, soft, sweet smelling dogs... is there anything better?)...

... so, of course, Murphy (that perveyor of cosmic irony) decides the Daily Shoot should be an "outdoor thing". An outdoor, not at home, thing.

(sigh)

Today's Daily Shoot assignment was:

Make a photograph that features the horizon.

... and while I suppose I could have tried using the edge of the kitchen table to create a horizon, or take a picture of a carton of Horizon Milk (hubby's suggestion), or use a dog's head head to create a horizon (been there, done that)...

... none of those things really "spoke" to me. In the end, I shot a few pictures of Zachary near some shrubs to create a horizon (not pictured), a few pictures of Henry near the same shrubs to create a horizon, Henry in the backyard smiling (included just because it was cute - no horizon potential there), and some artsy-fartsy (hubby word) shots of Henry illuminated by the setting sun while sitting on the sofa (created by taking some wretched "looking into the sun" shots and pushing the brightness way down the way down and the contrast way up.)

For the curious, I tweeted the shot at the very top of the post up, but I prefer the one below. Although I readily admit is just a plain ol' "pet shot", it's my pet, and there's something to be said for that! :)

Editor's Note: Yesterday, Greyhound's CAN Sit was asking about reading histograms. The histogram on my camera shows the distribution of brightness from dark to light on a tiny little chart on the LCD. I took some sample shots this morning, so here's a low contrast shot (using a creamy stuffie, as the dog's weren't around) with a picture of it's histogram...

See all the (white) lines shmushed together in the middle of the little box? There's very little distance from the darkest (left) to the lightest (right) values.

And here's a high-contrast Zebra stuffie and histogram...

The large white lump on the left is all the dark in the shot, while the second (smaller) lump is all the white in the shot. The creamy blanket is probably the (much lower) lines in the middle.

(Truth in advertising - the histograms are approximate, as I took a picture with newer camera of the histogram as shown on the back of the old camera (on the tripod), moved the old camera aside, then shot (as best I could) the same thing with my newer camera. But hopefully you get the idea!)

If your camera updates the histogram dynamically as you move it around, without having to take a picture, then it's fun to turn it on and sweep it around the room, watching the bars jump up and down. Point it at your white sink, then move across a black pot and see how the bars move. Try looking a something with several bright colors - you might be surprised at how little contrast there really is!

What's it good for? Supposedly it helps you with exposure (not a big deal for us point-n-shoot folks!) If the bars are mid-way up the graph on the last line on the right, you're probably overexposed.

And that's about all I know about that!

Come on Daily Shoot. Throw me a bone tomorrow!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved