Last week I went to the Japanese Friendship Garden (JFG) in Phoenix, and it was glorious. I enjoy going to JFG during the day or when they have special events (if you get a chance, you have to see the Japanese drummers they tend to feature). Besides being my future wedding venue (ha!), you can always feed the coy and their ambitious duck friends or people watch.
This has been my first choice in a while to go play with how aperture and shutter speed can capture movement or freeze time. I have read about how to photograph the type of movement you wanted, but I needed more practical experience. I needed to know whether my shutter speed and aperture settings would work when I finally got out and about. Like other projects that have failed (apparently I need a prime lens, or a “nifty fifty”, to really play around with depth of field), I decided to venture forth once again to try my hand at my new hobby.
And with this adventure I learned something new as well: JFG demands you pay them a $150 fee for the use of a tripod. So, bring a small one you can fit in your case! Sara and I saw someone with a small tripod and assumed that he had not paid the fee. But you know what they say about assuming…
Above: I took this photo using an aperture setting of f/22 with a shutter speed of 1/13s. I wanted to force the camera to use a slower shutter speed to maintain perfect exposure with the smaller opening of the lens. I set my focus on the waterfall so that everything else would become gentle foreground, and the viewer’s eye would be drawn by the waterfall (I love the way the sun falls on the greenery). In order to reduce the “camera shake” (I have shaky hands; this is why I am not a doctor! Well, that and an inability to handle blood), I set my camera on a rock. Not the best method, but it was more sturdy than my hands!
Above: Aperture F/5.6 and shutter speed of 1/100s. Here I wanted the waterfall to freeze in time and not have such a gentle appeal to it. I was once more entranced by the shadows and how they added depth to the photo as well.
Above: 1/3s and f/22 settings. This one is my favorite out of the bunch because I love how soft the water looks and that the foam and swirls of the water melt together to create this interesting image. I wanted to place the focus on that lone branch sticking from behind the rock to give some depth of perception to the image. Again, I placed my camera on a rock (with my hands nearby in case something happened) to accommodate the slow shutter speed.
Above: 1/15s and f/22
Above: The coy were such a great part of the garden, and I couldn’t help but crop one of my photos to show off their little faces. Whenever I saw one peeping out of the water with its mouth open I could just imagine it yelling at me: “feed me!!” Or perhaps they tried to say “get away!” to the fish and ducks that were trying to get their food. Here I used 1/250s and f/5 so that I could get their faces before they moved again. They are such fast subjects that I knew I had to have a fast shutter speed. It was also quite bright outside with that heinous reflection off the water, so I needed to compensate through the aperture as well. Now that I have zoomed in on them, I am excited about the way the water is caught frozen in a gentle wave around their bodies.
Above (eh, what the hell, they are all above the description!): 1/500s and f/4.5. The birds are equally as ferocious in the dash for food at the JFG, and so I still wanted to use a fast shutter speed. Luckily, they are still incredibly fast, and I got to capture this amazing shot of the bird swooping in for its meal. Although pigeons are not the best birds around (they hang out on my roof, and the consequences are not so pleasant), but the light shining on its neck brings out their eclectic feathers and coloring.
And of course I couldn’t leave out their duck friends. I have said all I needed to in the previous photos to let you know why I like this picture as well.
ecschmit87 