February 2017 – Harvard Free Course, Smoke, Reflection, Crystal Ball
Ok, let’s admit it. Secretly, we’ve all wished we had went to Harvard. It’s not too late. Harvard has just made available it’s photography course online for free. They’ve uploaded it to a site called Alison that specializes in online education. And, if you complete the course and get at least a score of 80%, you can get some kind of certificate. I wonder if it says Harvard on it? You can find the info here.
A couple of weeks ago I was stuck in the house for a weekend after some minor surgery. I used my confinement time to experiment with an article on photographing smoke. Man, was this cheap and easy.
A $2 box of incense, a flash and my camera. Here’s one shot I did.
The instructions can be found here in this article by Chelsea O’Neill Titled, if you can believe it, “How to Photograph Smoke”.
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-photograph-smoke/
One of the things we look for when we’re setting up an image is if there’s a reflection that maybe we can take advantage of and incorporate into our images. Sometimes it’s there for the taking and sometimes the world just doesn’t want to cooperate. But don’t give up hope. We have Photoshop. Here’s a good article from the Digital Photography School titled “How to Create a Reflection in Photoshop in 6 Easy Steps” by Darlene Hildebrandt.
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-create-a-reflection-in-photoshop-in-6-easy-steps/
Here’s a free resource on the web from one of my favorite photographers, Jim Zuckerman. Jim spoke at one of our club meetings a couple of years ago. Each month, Jim puts out a free magazine filled with useful information. Here’s a link to Jim’s website. If you go down to the bottom, there’s a box that says “Sign Up” for the free eMagazine. Sign up and you’ll get a notice for each issue. At the end of each issue there are links in case you would like to read back issues.
This looks like a fun project that could turn a photography outing gone bad into something interesting. As I read this article and started looking around for a place to acquire the necessary prop, I didn’t realize how popular these items were. I guess you’ve gone main stream if you can find dozens of these things in all sizes on Amazon. Here’s an article on “Crystal Ball Photography” by Deborah Sandidge.
https://www.debsandidge.com/2017/01/crystal-ball-photography/