As promised last week, I made an attempt at a fully manual shot for this week’s photo challenge. Only I didn’t challenge myself to shoot pictures of my quick-moving, hard-to-get-in-focus kiddos. I took a picture of food. It doesn’t move until I put it on my fork!
While trying to shoot in manual, I realized that since I haven’t done that for a really long time, I didn’t know which switch on my camera changed the aperture on the lens – so I ended up having to shoot in AP, but I used manual focus. My camera has very advanced auto-focus skills – so advanced in fact that I am not yet sure which settings do what and my camera just focuses on whatever it thinks is important. Only, since it doesn’t have a brain, “thinking” should be taken lightly. And sometimes, we disagree on the area(s) of focus. So my new assignment is to review my manual for how to shoot in manual… And review the chapter on auto-focus to see how to make that more, well, manual.
When I too, photography classes in high school, I didn’t have a digital camera at all, let alone a digital SLR. And, my film camera did not have auto-focus, so I had to move slow and take multiple shots. Many digital camera courses and information suggest that you should do the same with a digital camera because we have gotten so used to shoot, shoot, shoot, check image, shoot, shoot, shoot. Instead you should focus on getting the shot you want by composing it in the camera as you go.
For this image, I wanted the focus to be on the veggies, the peppers, toward the middle of my plate. I’m not sure if that is a good composition or not, but following the rule of thirds, there is roughly one-third of my dinner in the foreground, a slice of focus in the middle and a little less than two-thirds in the background. I also white-balanced for indoor tungsten lights, but there seems to still be a bit of a yellowish cast on the photo. Please let me know what you think.
So, that brings me to my image. Not only is it a big picture of food, it also represents a big change in my life. As I eluded to in my Day In The Life post, I have been steadily making changes in my life and in my eating habits. More on that later, but for now, what you should know is that a few months ago, a dinner of herb and garlic chicken breast with 2 cups of stir fried veggies would have bored me, and intimidated me (2 cups of veggies is a lot of chewing). Unless it had cheese, and/or rice, homemade bread or biscuits, or the whole works was served over rotini noodles. But now, I quickly and easily prepare delicious low-carb dinners that leave me feeling satisfied all night. And, here is one from this week. Baked chicken breast with herbs and garlic and zucchini and red peppers stir fried with spinach in cold-pressed olive oil. Yum!
Think Big Much 