In black and white

While I’m hoping to find a Canon EOS 50D under the Christmas tree, I’m currently making use of my Digital Elph and my Rebel 2000 35mm cameras as best I can.  I started my black and white film photography course last night and, even though I’ve owned the camera for years, I learned for the first time how to set the f-stop and aperture.  Yes, all these years I’ve been pointing and shooting and not knowing what was actually going on.  I’d like to think I’ve been quite successful this way, but I’m sure my photography skills will improve dramatically once I know what I’m doing.  Or at least I hope so.

Today it’s been cloudy and rainy and not good for outdoor photography, so my homework assignment will have to wait for another day.  Instead I’ve been playing with the settings on my point-and-shoot Elph.  I didn’t have to work hard to find a willing subject for my experimenting.  Storm was more than happy to blink, flirt, stretch and roll around like a supermodel on the beach in Cannes.  Well, not EXACTLY like that, but close.  Cooper was a less willing participant; most of the pics I took of him were while he was asleep.  He tends to think the camera contains something tasty to lick, so that was just as well.

Most of the shots came out blurry, a common consequence of photographing furries, but I did get a few good black and whites.  I’ve also learned that slightly overexposing certain color shots gives a nice effect.  I’ll have to play more with this.  In the meantime, I’ll be hitting the books to get my reading assignment done, and hitting National Camera for all the film printing supplies I’ll need for class.

More to come…