This past week was a thrilling time at Angelo State University. For me personally, there was a lot of work. Four months of work all rolled into one week where we would be hosting alumni from across the states. There were plenty of campus activities going on too, including them wrapping the ram in blue and gold paper. This is a shot I’ve been wanting to try for a while, so the paper treatment on the ram statue really gave me a great opportunity.
The real challenge, was making sure the paper, which was gold, didn’t look orange. As you can see on the bottom the way the light glows from the ambient light, it gives an orange glow. This is what I was trying to avoid for the paper on the ram. The best way I did this, was on my white balance, I used the kelvin settings. White balance has a lot of great settings, but when you really cannot get what you like, think about adding blue or reds in by using the kelvin setting. In this case, I added a lot of blue and lowered the kelvin settings almost as low as you could go. This gave me a natural yellow gold color on the ram, and still allowed the ambient orange light to shine through.
Of course, I wasn’t able to attend all the events going on during the week. For the most part, I just enjoyed them, and didn’t always bring my camera. On the left is one I took at our Ram Jam, a tailgate party before the game.
It was a nice look at people preparing some tailgate food. There were more than just those few tailgating. In total, there were about 2,300 people at the tailgate party. Many of them arrived early and left late.
The clouds were giving me some great diffusion, and here the tent gave me enough diffusion to shoot at a shutter speed of 160. I alternated my shutter speed from 160 with tents and out in the open, I shot at 320 to 400. The clouds helped a lot and I didn’t have to raise it more than that for this Saturday event.
Of course Ram Jam had a lot of other things going on. Here is a picture of the San Angelo Nature Center showing off one of their many reptiles. They showed off two different snakes to the students and community and were able to touch the snakes.
Earlier on the Friday before Ram Jam, I shot a few test shots and was able to come up with this gem of a picture. I used a tripod for this one, allowing me to have a natural glow that the flash would not have been able to recreate.
The decorations gave a good contrast with the blue wine glasses and the surrounding background gave everything an orange hue for that more homey field.
I left the exposure open for about 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds. The aperture was set to f8 to give a more sharp look instead of possibly having a bokeh effect on the back wine glasses. This also allowed the front wine glass to be pretty clear. A little sharpening in Photoshop cleaned up the little bit of blur I had from pressing the button as I set the camera to take a long-exposure shot.
There were some interesting shots this week, and many were different. I tried to use different skills I had this week, and I think I succeeded.
I finally have time for some personal photo projects, so look for new posts in the next few weeks.
Added Photo: The photo below is a new photo I added. Went back to see what else I had from Ram Jam. Had an excellent picture from the Angelettes, the Angelo State dance team that performs with the ASU Band. I love the colors from this picture. The sun coming towards me always gives me a problem. At this point, it’s about location. You don’t want lens flare unless you like those. If you’re not a fan of them, just position yourself to where you know from any angle the sun will be blocked by something and no lens flare. It was just a good crisp picture of the many events that go on during Ram Jam.
A J Lopez III 