This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums

Weekly Assignment

This week’s assignment was a little tricky. The topic was Ghetto Lighting which is essentially lighting that doesn’t come from the traditional strobes, but instead comes from some other source. Our winner this week was Nathan deGargoyle for That Harry Lime Moment. This picture was an excellent example of how to use ghetto lighting well in order to capture a specific look. In order to light this picture, Nathan used a lighter and the television. Our runners up were Bigcrustyape for his magnified eye, which was lit with a cheap desk lamp, and Jazbagz for her picture of her eye that was lit using a lamp pointed upwards.

This week’s assignment is Good Use of Depth of Field. In order to be eligible for the mini-contest, you need to have taken the picture between 9-22 January 2008, you must include “Assignment:Good Use of DOF” somewhere in your post, and the exif must be in tact. There’s not much to say about next week’s assignment, since it will be Minimalism. Good luck!

Weekly Poll

This week we asked forum members if they do DIY photography gear. The fact that so many of our members do DIY gear shows that you don’t need to buy all of the most expensive items from the store in order to get good photos. A few examples of items that people have DIY’ed were:

• Lightboxes
• Tripods
• Camera boxes
• Reflectors, and
• Diffusers.

Of course, if you’re looking to find more on DIY photography gear, don’t forget to check out the thread on just that subject in the forums.

This week’s poll is: What percentage of your shots do you consider to be “keepers”?

Hot Threads

You carry the camera, do you stop anywhere while driving?: One of those kind of self-explanatory threads, but what do you do if you spot the “perfect opportunity” while you’re on your daily commute? Do you stop your car so you can take a picture, or do you simply look, enjoy, and hope that another opportunity will come along when you can actually use your camera?

A Flakey Challenge: Well, depending on where you’re reading this weekend update from, maybe it’s snowing, maybe it’s sub-zero, or maybe you’re enjoying a warm summer day. But if it’s snowing, have you tried taking a photo of a single snowflake? This thread offers some suggestions on how you might be able to do just that.

Patterned Water Drop Shots: One of the How I took It shots, this thread explains how water droplets were frozen for a moment in time against a patterned background.

Auto, or Not?: Liz Caldwell asks what settings you use on your camera. Are you a full auto or full manual person? Or do you use something in the middle? An interesting discussion of the way that people shoot.

At What Point can you Properly Call Yourself a Photographer?: It’s not a simple, cut and dry question. In fact, it all gets a little bit philosophical in this thread, but the question is still there, and one that a lot of us are coming to terms with. When can you call yourself a photographer… and do you consider yourself a photographer?

Other Threads to Note

Our weekly post-processing thread moves along again this week, and we’re up to What Would You Do #34. The goal of the WWYD threads is to use the picture given at the start of the thread to edit it and show us all how you would post-process it. It’s as simple as that. We also have the Classic Rock Challenge. This week’s album is Steely Dans’ “Can’t Buy a Thrill”. The goal of the Classic Rock Challenge is to interpret either a song or the album title with a picture. The picture can be new or old, so as long as you can put it to a song on the album, come show us!