Are you a photographer or do you just have a pretty camera ?

           

Light painting is shot that requires darkness, some for of light to paint with and a longer exposure than normal pictures. It requires a longer exposure than normal pictures. This one which took 30 seconds to create was done with blinking foam swords. 

           When you take a picture do you just turn the power on, take off your lens cap and then point and shoot? If you said yes then chances are you just own a pretty camera. When you know and understand what your camera actually does then you can call yourself a photographer.

The giraffe outside Legoland looks much bigger

because of the angle it was shot. 

            All cameras do the same thing.  It’s the quality of the camera that will make the difference in the quality of your image. My first Nikon was the D40. It is 6.1 megapixels in comparison to my Nikon D3100, which is 14.20 megapixels. The next thing of value is a good lens. Personally I have the two lenses, an 18-55mm and 55-200mm. When I got the newer body I saw the difference in the pictures, but after seeing the different lenses people use around me I have learned that lens quality matters. So, that is next on the list of equipment, but first I need to decide which one is best for me.

             I also think about what am I shooting and why am I shooting it. I think about my camera’s settings: ISO, white balance f/stop and shutter speed,  then adjust to the lighting of where I am. I take a few test shots if I need to because different places require different settings even if you just move across the room.

            I shoot a lot sports because I am the sports editor, but for this assignment I took my camera back to Boston. When I got there I grabbed my nephew Dustin for some inspiration and visited Legoland, where I shot a huge giraffe made of Legos. That was just the beginning! They recreated Boston sports arenas and all kinds of other historical places with Legos, as well as having a station to build cars and two tracks to test them on.  As he said, “it was wicked awesome!"

            While there, I shot a giraffe at an angle  that made it appear huge among the buildings. She looks just as big as her surroundings!
            The other building I shot for this is the Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. I shot that one because they did a firework show on the wall every couple minutes or so. When the lights in the place dimmed so there was a night effect, that was a whole new setting from what I had my camera set on. 
           We also got to build Lego cars and test them on tracks, he tested his on both, but one of them I made him to a few time because I wanted to stop the motion. I shot this because I wanted to stop the motion. He didn't mind at all, so when I finally got rid of the blur so moved to the other track., which was a smaller slop, making it easier to stop the motion.

Gillette Stadium is lit up for a night effect. The settings 

are totally different than they day effect settings. 

            Later that weekend Dustin and I took some foam swords that had red, green and blue blinking lights. He wanted to learn how to light paint. This is another form of action pictures. It requires a different setting, and more importantly a longer exposure than most motion pictures. The pictures we shot were 30 second exposures, so in this image we fought for 30 seconds and that is what is captured. The other form of action pictures is a pan, which is what you commonly see in race car pictures when the back ground is a blur and the car is in focus.  

            This is when being a photographer comes into play because I saw people there who had nice cameras, but took horrible pictures. Don't get me wrong, of course shooting on auto is great under certain circumstances, but knowing how to correct what auto can't is much better than trying to take the same picture over and over again while getting the same result. That is the definition of insanity. 

            There are all kinds of other rules to photography, but as in life sometimes breaking the rules and thinking outside the box is when creativity becomes an exception to the rule. So consider the depth of field, the rule of thirds, leading lines and cropping, which is more important in photojournalism than in just shooting a scenic shot.

Dustin tests his lego car on the test track at Legoland. 

            So you see, anyone can own a pretty camera, but photographers who know how to use their cameras effectively in any situation can create pretty pictures almost every time.