Category: Photography

Every once in a while, I get a little hint that my photography skills have moved forward, even if it’s just a bit. The success of this photo is one of those hints.

You see, I’ve tried photographing this piece of glass candy before, and it’s never worked out. I haven’t been able to capture the light properly, to get the texture of the wrapper ends. Or manually focus well enough that the pattern on the candy appears sharp. Or find an angle that that presents the candy in a way that I’m happy with.

This time, though, everything just seemed to click (no pun intended), and I wound up with a picture I’m really quite happy with. I love the way the light glides smoothly from the piece of candy down to the end of the wrapper.

Sure, it may not be perfect yet–it didn’t fill the frame in quite the way I wanted it to–but it still turned out better than I expected. And that’s really all I could have asked for.

Every once in a while, I feel like I’m relying on the auto-focus in my camera a little too much. I don’t like that feeling.

Do you know what I like to do to fix it? I pick out a white–or mostly white–object and practice shooting it in manual focus mode. I find monotone objects, white in particular, challenging to focus on. Once I get the hang of focusing on that object, I’m more likely to do it with my other photo subjects again, too.

Maybe that’s the same thing other photographers do, or maybe it’s the complete opposite. I’m honestly not sure. I just know it’s something that works for me.

Admittedly, this chubby little unicorn isn’t quite as in focus as I’d like him to be. I still need to practice on him, and maybe some other objects, more over the next little while. But I’ll get there again.