149/365 - Jim - Color Spiral

( f/14 24mm 30 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Many thanks to Kyle for sending me a guest post! He sent me some very cool motion blur shots. In an attempt to somewhat match his theme, I got the only thing I could think of with LED lights in it... A Glade Plug-in Light Display air freshener. It has 3 different colored LED lights that alternate and blend. I set the camera on a tripod and set it to take pictures every minute for 30 seconds. Then like a goofball I spun that thing around like crazy and let it slowly wrap around my finger to become a tighter spiral. I'm going to have to try the ferris wheel shots, but I'll have to wait for the Big Butler Fair or the Farm Show...

034/365 - Jim - Golden Spiral

( f/2.8 200mm 1/640 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Since there isn't a theme today, I thought I would give a lesson. In photography there are some rules of composition. The most common method is the Rule of Thirds. This is where you divide the photo into thirds and end up with nine equal parts. Then you put the features of the subject at the intersecting points or on the lines. Another composition technique is the Golden Spiral. This photo is not an exact golden spiral, but is close enough to it. Flowers are a common subject for this technique. One other technique is Framing. This is where the main subject is surrounded by other elements of the photo. A common example is where foreground trees are used to box in the subject. These are called rules, but rules are meant to be broken and if you break the rules and end up with a nice picture, that is really all that counts.