By Jodi Dolbel

Here is my  yarn..

 I’ve been dying to get out and work my camera. I recently purchased the Canon 70D and bought a new lens a Canon 50mm. I’ve been working on  getting some night time photos and was reading the reviews on this lens and the reviews talked about what a great all purpose lens it is. So today I thought I would go for a drive to get familiar with my new gear.

 I am an amateur photographer, but I love it! I’ve been using Canon SLR cameras since about Year 7 in High School. Unfortunately, I never really understood all those numbers. Although I did always shoot on Manual, it was more guess work that educated.

I am doing an online course at the moment and I am really starting to understand it all, so it was also with my new found knowledge we took a drive around the region.

I took my husband Stu with me, as he is the one with the road knowledge and we headed out on Wandabah Road thinking we could get some photos of crops. I mean, we live in Gunnedah. we really dont have much to choose from for photo fodder.  We first stopped about 35 kms down the Wandabah Road when I came across a picked cotton crop.  I liked how all the bails were lined up and then the rain mist was in the background. So I got a couple of shots there experimenting with ISO trying to get the right amount of light and contrast in my photo. I did find a random sunflower among the cotton and I couldn’t help but think about the conversation I had just had with Stu about “fitting in” with different groups at school. We were both very individual and went against the flow and this little sunflower represented us perfectly! So I took a photo of him too!

We continued down the Wandabah Road and turned off into Pine Cliff Road. I came across a random rusty fridge that was a properties mail box!  I stopped to get some shots and this time I experimented with f stop. I wanted to make the focus the fridge and then have the background blurry. In theory to do this you use a low aperture meaning the focus is just the focal point. I tried from f1.8 and up but maybe this wasn’t the right thing to use for this photo as the background isn’t blurry in any of the photos! I think the fridge is too big to do that with. But this is what my little adventure was about today. Just finding different things and playing with my settings.

 We turned off onto Basin Plain Road and come across Mullaley Mountain (The pointy hill) with the crops in the foreground, I thought this might make a fun shot. It also had some lovely fluffy clouds behind it, so lots of interest.  I took a few shots experimenting with ISO again and I turned around to go back to the car and across the road all the cows in the paddock were looking at me! They were so cute! The rain was coming in behind them and there was also another rebellious Sunflower plant too. So I tried to get some photos of them as well, but it was starting to rain and I just couldn’t get a clear shot of the cow. So frustrating! The next thing I want to learn about is getting the subject clear in the photo when there is so much natural light! With a portrait or something we could use a flash, but Im a bit lost this.  That will be the subject for my next drive around I think.

 So from Basin Plains Road onto the Mallaley Road and came home. It took about 2 hours to drive that loop. There was a little bit of dirt but it was a fun way to spend an overcast afternoon.