Sneak Peek & Light Matters

Ok. So, I can't really go into details here about this project because my husband reads this blog and this project may or may not be a gift for him. It's my own fault, really, since I gave him the gears for not subscribing to my craft blog through google reader. However, he has seen me working on it, he just doesn't know what it is (or he's supposed to pretend he doesn't know what it is, right honey?). But while I show you the sneak peek pictures, I thought I might demonstrate some differences in light and how important light is to taking a good picture.

I promise, I am by no means an expert on this, since I just got my lovely camera last year and I haven't taken a class or read a book. I just picked up bits and pieces by reading other people's blogs and taking pictures. I should note that I have a 50 mm lens, which was recommended to me by a friend whose pictures I always admired on Facebook. I could not be happier with this lens. As lenses go, this is one of the less expensive lenses and I've been so happy with the results. This lens lives on my camera. It lets lots of light in and allows me to take pictures all day and night without a flash. It also has a shallow depth of field which means that it focuses on the subject and blurs out the background. So, you see the kids playing, but the unfolded laundry in the background is blurry (perfect!).

Here are some pictures I took of my secret project last night while I was blocking it.

 This one was taken without the flash,

with some compact flourescent floor lamp lights pointed at it.

This one as taken with the flash.

The same lamps were on, but notice how you can't really tell?

This one was taken with the flash on, but with my hand in front of it.

I've experiemented with this technique before with a point and shoot camera and got better results.

This was also taken without the flash, with the same lamps as the first two shots.

These are the pictures I took this afternoon, about 1:30 pm. This is right by a west facing window, which gets lots of natural light all day. It's one of the things I love about our living room.

 

Makes a big difference doesn't it? The colour is just so much better.

Though, it is different. It's not actually 100% accurate.

The real colour is more brown and, at least on my computer, this looks pretty grey.

I'm pretty sure the reason the colour is a little washed out is because of all the light. I haven't played with my settings or anything to try to get a more accurate colour, but I prefer the natural light to the yellow-y colour I got in the photos last night.

A note about the pattern... this was a lot of work. It was interesting and I got a lot better at it as I went along, but it required a lot of my concentration. I'll give a reveal after it's complete and it is in its recipient's hands.

What I'm Working On

Well, hello dear readers. I was doing so well for the last week or so, wasn't I? And then I kind of fell off the wagon for a couple days.

I didn't post anything about actual Halloween here, though most of you are probably my friends on Facebook, so you saw the pictures I posted there of my kids in their costumes. I tried my best to make one of these as my costume.

It was on meekssandygirl's flickr stream. It wasn't a pattern or anything, so I just did my best by looking at it. It wasn't that complicated, but I didn't have a deeper shade of red or purple, so I just ended up going with one red. It looks ok, but not good enough to bother taking a picture of mine and posting it for you to compare with this lovely one, that probably (hopefully?) took a lot longer than mine. I wore it to our little Halloween get together until one of my friends noticed me constantly fussing with it (it was a little on the tight side) and told me to take it off.

I am also working on this project for S. It is going well, except that every round takes longer than the one before because the pattern increases every round. So, now that I am into the black road part, it is very slow going.

The loopy grass part was time-consuming, but fun to do because it was neat to see it come together.

I have also been trying to stay off the computer in the afternoons this week, trying to give more of myself to my children while they are awake and saving computer time for after they go to bed. I have been busy getting ready for a trip (ALONE!) this weekend, preparing the house, so that the laundry is done and the clutter is under control before I leave. I have thought of cleaning out my purse at least 5 times since thinking of preparing for the trip. I really need to do that since I know for a fact that there is a pumpkin carving kit in there that I'd like to keep and I'm sure won't make it through security.

I still can't decide whether I should try to knit or crochet on the plane. I've heard of people losing their supplies and I don't know if I want to make my husband park and wait for me to see if I get through security with my knitting needles or just send me off. It's not THAT long of a flight. I'm sure I can entertain myself with podcasts and books for an hour or so. If you have any experience with knitting or crocheting on a flight and getting successfully through security with your stuff, I'd love to hear what you did (bamboo needles/hooks?) just in case I change my mind.