Elle's Photos

Life has just become very exciting.
I did up my website yesterday - Elle Schroder Photography and sent it to some friends to review. I also asked if they could let me know if they had any events or whatever where I could practice my photography and gain some more experience.
In less than 24 hours, I have the following events scheduled:
- 26th August – photo shoot at Auckland Uni – group shot followed by individual ‘employees at work’ shots
- 27th August – children’s fashion show and church social
- 11th September – junior rugby tournament
- 20th November – wedding

I also have another wedding (which was a previous booking) that I need to confirm the date of (think it’s 30th October, but they've changed it from the original August date so need to confirm) and a potential orchestral/wind quintet photo shoot that may eventuate.
How cool is that?? Will continue to put my name out there and see what I can get.
I figure by the end of the year, I’ll have my qualification, some experience and then might be able to start charging enough to pay for things like some more equipment, maybe a better website, that sort of thing. Sort of like a hobby that pays for itself. All shoots are currently free on a ‘no charge, no expectations’ basis. Lol I have agreed to provide digital copies of any decent photos in return for the opportunity to practice and gain experience.

This is so exciting for me. I love it. I keep thinking about it when I should be doing work. Lol Back to work, Elle!

I saw some very smartly dressed Asian naval officers walking up Queen Street this evening as I was headed home, so I went down to the waterfront to see if there were any photo opportunities for me. Here’s what I got:



( More photos under here.... )

Interesting. :)

I went for a wander down around the viaduct in my lunch hour today to have a play with my camera and get a feel for the settings and everything. I was just mucking around, but if you’re curious, these are the photos I took. For non-locals, this is all within a ten minute walk of my work.




( More photos under here... )

I got 70%. Yes!

( Here's what my tutor had to say... )

This was Steve, mucking around today pretending to be a male model for me:

Ha ha ha.

I think it's time to submit this assignment, even though I'm not 100% happy with the photos that I've got. It's too hard to get the right combination of time, decent weather and co-operative models. So I shall work with what I've got. But at least I finally attempted the techniques, which is what I wanted to do before submitting this one.

( Here are the photos that I submitted, along with my written content... )

But I'm not really sure how, because my tutor seemed to dislike two of my three photos. Oh well, I passed, that's the main thing.

( For those who are interested, these were my tutor's comments and the photos I submitted... )

NIKON D40
Exposure Time = 1/80 sec [0.013]
F Number = 7/2 [3.500]
ISO Speed Ratings = 200
Shutter Speed Value = 790241/125000 [6.322]
Aperture Value = 361471/100000 [3.615]
Focal Length = 18 mm

NIKON D40
Exposure Time = 1/1250 sec [0.001]
F Number = 5
ISO Speed Ratings = 200
Shutter Speed Value = 321491/31250 [10.288]
Aperture Value = 290241/62500 [4.644]
Max. Aperture Value = 45/10
Focal Length = 38 mm

OMG, I got 90% on my 4th photography assignment! YAY! :D I'm delighted with that.

( For those of you who are curious about his comments... )

I've submitted my fourth photography assignment. I'm quite nervous. I think I've done reasonably well, but my scores have been getting progressively lower with each assignment (80%, 70%, 60%) so I'm hoping this will get a good score.
I've been learning heaps. Some of it is quite hard to put in to practice because you don't generally like to spend ages fiddling with all the settings on your camera - you want to be able to take photos quickly before the people move or the opportunity goes away or whatever. But yeah, learning heaps. I've already been showing Mum some stuff. I've also been learning more about editing in Photoshop as well - understanding some of the info that Photoshop is giving me, more than anything.
I have felt though that they really should warn you that you need to know how to use Photoshop to do this course. If Mum was doing this course, she'd be having some issues because they expect you to be able to do things in Photoshop without telling you how to. I know they do focus on Photoshop in one module, but I haven't got to that yet and I've been using it already. So yeah, that seems a little unfair on those who aren't familiar with Photoshop already.
I wonder when I'll get my score for my assignment. Any bets on how often I check the site today to see if he's marked it? lol