Day 9

Today we went to the dressing rooms to try, yet again, to get a contact trigger photo. We have no photos today. The flash was acting strange and having a delay. We couldn't figure out how to change the intensity/brightness of the picture either. Today's photos were all white and it was very frustrating. We brought the flash to Mr. Peterson and asked how we could adjust the intensity. He informed us that there is a book on it in the box with all of our things. Oops! We will be reading that on Monday... As for today, we didn't get any pictures; very unsuccessful.

Day 8

Today we tried dropping light bulbs onto our contact trigger. We tested it out by using a hair-gel container. We adjusted the location of the flash to the side so that the picture wasn't over exposed. Moving the flash to a different angle seemed to solve that issue.

Then we added a cover. We took a green sheet and put it over the trigger. It worked and took a picture, but the sheet had bumps in it that showed because of the flash. It didn't look very pretty. So we took away the sheet and moved on to the light bulbs.

First we tried to drop the light bulb from arms length out. The bulb did not break! So next we stood up on a stool and dropped it.. still didn't break. Our next idea was to slam the bulb a little harder. We did that, and it broke! But... it broke on the floor because we missed the trigger. So we didn't get a picture of that. So we tried again... and the bulb landed in the trigger and broke! YAY is what we thought until we looked at the picture. The flash went JUST before the bulb broke. Hopefully next time we can figure out how to make the flash delay maybe for .1 seconds. Also, this picture that we got was over exposed. So we need to figure out how to change that. Maybe by moving the flash at a different angle, or moving the camera back further away from the flash. We will experiment more with this tomorrow. 

Day 7

Today we figured out how to make a contact trigger. Mr. Peterson emailed us the link: http://www.hiviz.com/tools/triggers/triggers1.htm, which gave us directions. First we took a piece of wood for our base. Then we put foil on that wood. We cut out a "spacer" from cardboard and then placed foil on top of that by stapling it. We are going to use a tarp, or a piece of paper, or something that will catch a mess for the "cover." We did not have time to go down to the scene shop and take pictures, but we did make sure it worked by connecting wires to the two pieces of foil and pressing down to make the foils touch. This made the flash go off! We can't wait to try it out for real on Wednesday!

Day 6

Well... sad to say that today was ALSO a fail. We tried more to get the salt water to be conductive and make the flash work. We used a thing that tested if it was conductive or not, and the salt water was definitely conductive. Although, whenever we tried to make the flash work, it never flashed. We tried the other flash, thinking that maybe the flash we were using wasn't working. Well, neither one of them got the job done for us. So we are going to move on from this and try a contact trigger next week.

Day 5

One word for today: fail. We took balloons and put salt into them, then we filled them up with water. We messed around with the trigger flash and tried to use pins to pop the balloon and make the flash go off at that time. Well.... I think there wasn't enough salt because the flash didn't go off when we popped the balloon. We didn't have enough time to add more salt and fill up more balloons, so that is all we got done today! Bummer :(

Day 4

Today we went to the scene shop to continue working on our strobe photos. The first strobe photo we took was of a slinky going down stairs. It took some time to figure out how much time we needed to keep the camera open, but eventually we got a good picture. 

The second photo was of Mackenzie walking down the stairs. This one was tricky to light because the strobe doesn't light up a huge area, so we had to hold the strobe and follow Mackenzie down in order to light her up completely in the photo. 

Then Emily tried a cartwheel again. This time we figured out that holding the strobe and following her will light her up in the picture. We also figured out that making the strobe flash at a slower speed will make it easier to see her movement. 

We also tried to wave a feather boa in front of the camera to make a cool "wave" type picture, but it didn't turn out so well. 

But all in all, today was a very successful day! 

Day 3

Today Mackenzie, Emily, and I went to the scene shop to take strobe photos. The first one we tried was a cartwheel picture, but Emily was faded in the pictures and you could see the background. We tried to fix this issue, but we haven't figured it out yet. Then we tried taking a picture of me writing my name on the white board. The glare of the strobe light was on the white board on the first try. So then we moved the strobe light and it worked a little better, but you couldn't see my hand movement very well. Then we took a picture of Emily popping out of the washing machine. We figured out the right timing and strobe position to get a great picture of her.

Day 2

Today Mr. Peterson showed me, Emily, and Mackenzie the scene shop. He showed us how we can take a picture in the dark with a laser and draw your name. Then he also showed us the strobe light. Mr. Peterson then explained how to make an easy trigger and how to make a flash go off with metal touching. Next week I will start taking strobe pictures.

Day 1

Today I created this blog. I edited it and made the settings how I wanted them to be. I also am trying to set up a flickr account but.... the internet is not working very well. So now I'm trying to find an idea of what to take pictures of. I am looking through photography pictures on google and searching high speed photography. I've seen many pictures of balloons popping, eggs breaking, people moving, soccer balls flying through the air. I also watched the video in class of water drops falling and things like that. I need to specify what things I want to take pictures of. I will work more on this tomorrow.