This week my "History of Kansas City" class explored many of the buildings built during the 20's that illustrate art deco design. The City Hall of Kansas City is an excellent example of art deco construction. There is a large park connecting City Hall to the Federal Court House which is where I took this photograph. Other good examples of art deco construction are the Jackson County Court House and the Kansas City Police Station which are all in the same area. I took several photographs of each of these as well, but I was not happy with any of them.
We had a very strong, although brief, rainstorm on Saturday. As I finished mowing the raindrops started falling. After the storm I caught this shot of the rainwater on the leaves.
Sunday we went to Splash Cove for a birthday party. They have this huge bucket that fills up with water and then dumps it every 3 minutes or so. I got lots of shots of the water in various stages of dumping, which I found fascinating to watch. This also gave me a good opportunity to experiment with my longer zoom lens (the Canon 75-300). I stopped down the aperture to about f8 for most of these shots and kept the zoom to 200 or less. I think most of them turned out pretty good. Here is another one showing one of my daughters and her friend playing.
Using the longer zoom kept my camera safe from splashing water, but still allowed me to take several interesting shots. As I experiment more, I am figuring out how and when to use the different lenses. I definitely want to invest in a better zoom at some point, as I like the ability to reach out to 200mm. The difference between 200mm and 300mm did not seem like very much to me today, so I would be happy with a lens that only zoomed to 200mm as long as it did not get soft when zoomed all the way out. I may be better investing in another lens that goes to 300mm if it keeps the picture sharp at 200mm. Oh, well. All additional lens purchases are quite a ways off. An external flash is probably higher on the priority list.
I am reading another book about photography called John Hedgecoe's Complete Guide to Photography. Each chapter is very brief, yet still packs in a lot of information. It is also filled with excellent photographs that serve as illustrations for the topics discussed. There is SO much to learn, but I am hoping that just a few of the important concepts stick for right now.
For our class this week, we are going to historic downtown Parkville, Missouri. I hope to get some good photographs for my next entry.
Chris
2 comments:
I really like the shot of the dumping water. The colors are very vibrant. Good job!
Thanks, Blue. That is the polarized filter at work. I used the polarized filter for all these shots since the sun was so bright.
Chris
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