Tim using his Manfrotto tripod to make a shot of downtown St. Petersburg during our third photography lesson.For our third of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons Tim brought his Manfrotto tripod along for a lesson based on slowing down one's photography and not taking so many shots that make the thought of going through them all rather daunting in the editing process. Using a tripod naturally slows you down as a photographer, thereby reducing the number of shots you take, while simultaneously improving the shots you take as each shot on a tripod needs to be carefully framed and crafted. Free of the weight of holding the camera, using a tripod allows you to really feel at ease when shooting. I know it is how I feel.
Long exposure shots are only possible with a tripod, and one of the best spots to make such shots are from The Pier, which is where Tim and I headed out to. Along the way we noted how completely gray and blah the sky was and that we would not be able to make any keepers tonight from an artistic standpoint, but learning the skill of making long exposure dusk & night shots would not be affected. I commented that is such conditions I just get in the mindset of knowing I will probably convert the images to black & white later.
Then all of a sudden a touch or orange reflected off the low clouds and soon thereafter the sky exploded with color and Tim was able to make some fantastic long exposure shots of the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront (see my shots here). We were very lucky in the end! For our next lesson, we will move on to flash portraits.
