Balancing Act.

Every morning and every evening, no matter the weather, no matter the season, there will be a short period of time when the light outside balances nicely with the light inside. This small window of opportunity opens about one hour before sunrise and about one hour after sunset.

If you get out there and set up 30 minutes or so after sunset and begin shooting shortly thereafter--a shot every couple of minutes--you will most certainly nail the shot. One of those images will have a complimentary balance of incandescent and evening, dusky light. Try it tonight. Check the paper (or the web) and find out the time for sunset. Turn on the lights in a  particular room with a view, set up your tripod and compose the shot. Be sure to include a good portion of the exterior of the building... and shoot away. Check your times and see which worked best for you.

Do it tonight! (Or tomorrow, or whenever... no hard and fast rules here!)

Cheers!

A Matter of Inches.

Patience is a virtue that many of us do not often possess. We see something and we want it. The line is long so we turn and leave.(OK, so this just might be me!) Anyway... this same lack-of-patience can show itself in our photography, too. Sometimes we see a scene, point the camera and shoot. Done. No problem. Well, not no problem. Actually there can be many problems in the way of unwanted elements in the frame. Elements that, had we taken 5 seconds, could have been easily avoided. A matter of inches in most cases, really.

Here's a backyard. Nice green grass, decent light, cool shed, canoe, etc. Fine. But it is kinda messy, isn't it? All that crap on the left. Do we need that? 

I don't think so. Shift to the right a little bit.

Better. But even those bits of blown highlights on the far left distract, don't they? So just a couple more inches and...

Gone! A much cleaner image with an actual point of interest now.

Taking those few extra seconds to really scan around the viewfinder and eliminate the unwanted bits before tripping the shutter will, more often than not, result in more pleasing images.

Have fun.