What you need to know about photography and your camera ... by Shani Marais

Introduction

The simplest form of a camera is a pinhole camera. Which is simply what it says – a light-tight box with a pinhole opening on one side of the box and film / photographic paper attached on the other side.

Light from the subject enters through the pinhole and forms a reverse picture on the photographic paper. The film is then processed to create a visible and permanent image.

Your camera is a modern pinhole camera. The fancy mechanics inside your modern model only make your life easier, but at the end of the day you don’t need a top-notch camera to create top-notch images. Only you can create that!

Get to know your camera

“Your manual is your new best friend!”

PORTRAIT
This mode blurs your background, making your subject stand out.


LANDSCAPE
Everything in your viewfinder / photo will be in focus (clear).


MACRO / CLOSE-UP
Use this mode to take close-up shots of flowers or insects, etc.


SPORTS
This is for fast moving subjects when you want to freeze the action.


NIGHT PORTRAIT
This mode is for shooting people outside at twilight or at night. The flash illuminates the subject and a slow sync speed captures a natural-looking exposure of the background. Tell your subject to keep still even after the flash fires. If you want to shoot a night scene without people, rather use the LANDSCAPE mode.


P – PROGRAM
This mode still does most of your thinking for you – i.e. aperture and shutter speed will automatically be adjusted, but you can change, say the aperture to suit you, while your camera will automatically change the shutter speed, or vice versa.

In this mode you have to set the ISO yourself, and also decide whether you will be shooting with or without flash.


TV / S – SHUTTER SPEED PRIORITY
In this mode you have to adjust the shutter speed yourself, while your camera will automatically choose the appropriate aperture. Once again – you can set the ISO and Flash manually.


AV / A – APERTURE PRIORITY
Here you set the aperture while your camera sets the appropriate shutter speed. ISO and Flash is set manually.


M – MANUAL EXPOSURE
In this mode, you have to set everything yourself.


Now that you have a basic idea of what those little pictures on your camera stand for – go through your manual and start playing.

You can't teach a hungry child

This is a slogan that has been jumping up in front of me from every angle these days. YOU CAN'T TEACH A HUNGRY CHILD

Sunday, 30 September, my hubby, my god-child and her parents and myself took part in the 'Blisters for Bread' initiative. We intended walking the 5km route - but had such a good time walking along the promenade in Green Point / Sea Point that we carried on and ended up walking about 8km in total. What an awesome experience!!

After parking in a designated parking garage at the V&A Waterfront, we had to walk to the Green Point Track where the START - FINISH point was. J & I thought, well - there... now we've walked far enough for one day! Hahaha! But as soon as we joined up with the rest of the thousands (I believe they had a turn out of about 14,000 people!) of participants, we got caught up in the hype of it all!

There were sprinters, strollers, even parents with prams and those nifty "carry your kid on your back" contraptions! So we fit right in - no matter which pace we chose. The couple who invited us along on this fun-family-charity walk were so amazing. G-man is a very very fit guy who does half marathons and who knows what else! But he did a sterling job in slowing down so we could keep up!

At the finish line - each and every participant received a medal and a glass of coke(this was such a well organised event!!). So, we thought it best to keep on walking until we reached the Paulaner Brauhaus in the V&A Waterfront. A very good decision all in all!

After the most divine beer and lunch, the day seemed to dissolve into the laziest Sunday afternoon - only U2 can best explain.

But back to this ever-popping-up slogan... YOU CAN'T TEACH A HUNGRY CHILD. There we were - full to the brim after a couple of blisters attained for a very worthy cause. A cause for specifically the opposite of what we had just experienced.

A cause for dedicated young children who get up in the dark hours of the morning to walk or catch a bus to school. Children who don't have parents with cars or money for breakfast. But they go to school to learn. To become more. To know more.

I have grown the greatest respect for all these wonderful organisations who arrange charity functions and fun walks to collect money to feed these young minds. And I will walk a million more miles to support them.

Perhaps this slogan is jumping up in front of me for a reason... perhaps not. But I am grateful for what is has shown me so far.

Beach Bum

Before I blog for today - a quick update after my previous one:

The roll of film in my Grandfather's camera was exposed to light due to the disintegrated seals... that's being fixed now and I can't wait to start playing with it!

For today... I'd like to focus on the beach bum



To be fancy free and wild again. No obligations or responsibilities... can you imagine?

I remember those times quite clearly - and isn't it amazing how I longed to be older then? How I wished for 'freedom'. Freedom from school. Freedom from home. Free to drive a car - to go into any pub or club.

Funny how that freedom came with so much of the opposite!

My son asked me yesterday: Mom, is it nice to be old?

My honest answer to him was: "Yes!... But how I do miss those care-free days."

I try really hard to get it across to them that they should enjoy every step of the way, and not spend their moments wishing for the next. That's quite a difficult thing to teach. How do you get them to focus on NOW when TOMORROW seems so exciting! When their NOW is filled with "No's" and "don'ts". How do you teach them what is right and wrong without restricting them from NOW?

My only wish is that they see me enjoying NOW. Hopefully that will be enough. Enough for them not to waist the little time they have on this planet by wishing it past.

Here's wishing you the best NOW you can possibly have!

x

Something old ... something new!

I got a gift from my dad the other day. It was supposed to be my mom's birthday, yet I got a gift too...what a lucky girl!

It is a camera that belonged to my grandfather when he was still around.

Olympus 35 SP.

These were manufactured between 1969 - 1976 - making it over 30 years old!!!

And it still has film inside it!

Photography is and has been my passion since I can remember - and here is this beautiful piece of machinery filled with sentiment. Just like me. And now its mine to explore.

My first step is to have it checked out, just to be certain that nothing is filled with dust... then I'm off to buy the best film I can find - take this baby for a spin!

Can't wait to add the new pics out of this old treasure to my blog... see you in a little while then!

Shani

A new experience... an experiment

So, today - I try this blogging thing again! Just updated my website and feeling so "net"-jetted right now!


As this is new to me - I'll see it as an experiment... something new. And perhaps for now, I'll hope that my pic will do the wording for me.

As this week brought new news about our new National Police Commissioner... a politician - my "Subject" should also be quite apt.

People having debates about what kind of action should be taken with criminals... what kind of punishment should be thought out to make them think twice before they commit a crime. Comparing our country with other countries where the Death Sentence is performed on a daily basis. The answer that one of Cape Talk's DJ's came up with... crime in those countries are NOT taking down in numbers, so - in fact - those kind of punishments are not working! Callers calling in arguing this and that... suggesting what Bheki Cele is to do with our country's crime rate.

But not ONE call saying that if our government were looking after their poor people, their people in need - that the need for committing crimes would not be there! Instead they see it fit to spend R70mil on 'celebrations' after the election. Money well spent!

I say - let's try something new... let's try a new experiment.

Let's start looking after our people.
Let's start a government-funded project.
Something like a daily soup kitchen in every needy area.
Like a government-funded 'fix and build houses' project.
Get everyone busy and useful - crime sprouts out of desperation and uselessness.

I can go on and on with this.

But for now - I'll focus on my photograph for today...

Something un-natural in something so natural ... the strewn crate on the beautiful beach, tangled in the bamboo the ocean threw out.

Not too different from the above, right?