Amateur Yo-Yo Photography

Sho Nuff! ;D

Do the best with what you have is the name of the game! Like the old saying, ‘a good craftsman never blames his tools’. If you feel like doing photography just let that feeling guide you! You’ll learn. I’m self taught and have learned by just shooting a lot of photos along with the couple books I’ve picked through. That’s the great thing in the digital age, no processing cost just to view your results, so shoot away!
“Practice is the best of all instructions.” - Aristotle
“Students were taught by doing.” - Minor White

Ha ha ha. Don’t ever care what others think, caring about the outcome is a weight and stifles creativity. :wink: But if you wanted to impress me, ha ha ha, find the stillness and see pristine… “Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.” - “Vision without association - pristine vision.” - Minor White
Anyway, like Hitchens said, “It doesn’t matter what my friends think of me, it is far more important what I think of them!” ;D

Exactly! I’ve seen plenty of great shots from disposable camera’s. I think people still do pinhole photography too and it’s ultra basic. Found this pinhole article for the digi’s!

As to learning, there was definitely a learning curve for me. Learning to ‘see’ was the trick in my experience. By that, I mean learning to see like a camera and film (now a digital sensor). I could see ‘nice’ pictures with my eyes, but getting anything like that on film was another story!
“Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.” - Minor White

I’ve noticed a lot of the digi sensors these days in the point-n-shoots do well in low light. Seems to vary from camera to camera and even year to year, but they’ve gotten much better. Mine does well and its 10+ years old. You’ll just be getting more light from a longer exposure time so a tripod or a place to sit it (many make their own bean bag) will be needed to keep from blurring the photo.

A G3 sells for an avg. of $29 on ebay the last 7 days (searched ‘canon g3’). I would say it’s almost a 1 trick pony camera, but that would be selling it short. I really can’t capture ‘action shots’ with it at all and the other issues mentioned in reviews (digital zoom 5.8x to 14x makes picture quality awful, regular 4x zoom is great). It is limited to an f8 aperture and very outdated megapixel wise, but for ebay or yoyo’s or other light box items it does well due to canons sensor, features, and the all glass optics. But, for $50 you might could buy a new camera that would well outshine one this old?

Those are great! Both versions. The Cliff does seem to be the stand out! The watercolor effect works great on the splash design.

Awesome pic and colors! That green really pops.

Some other good quotes to meditate on if you like photography.

"“The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.” - Minor White

“…innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgment of the wonder; it also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child - with freshness and an even deeper sense of wonder.”

  • Minor White

OMG this is horribly long… so to paraphrase Twain and be done… “I’m sorry this post is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter.” ;D

1 Like

Great post, beherenow… read the whole thing without even wanting to skip ahead. :wink:

You’re so right about the tripod and long exposures. If you can get ANY sort of camera that allows manual settings (some “prosumer” cameras like the G-series, for example), all you have to do is set it for ISO 100 and however long it takes to expose the picture. The yoyo isn’t going anywhere!

1 Like

Yeah, just seeing that post today, it is a read!

An adjustable shutter speed is a must for long exposures. Manual is even better to goof off and have more options. If your camera only has the ‘setting’ modes like: auto, landscape, portrait, macro etc. you would be out of luck. In darkness with a manual shutter you can hold it open and just shine a flashlight, laser, swing x-mas lights, etc. around and get some neat shots I’ve found.

One thing that helps that ‘tack sharp’ focus if your using a book or bean bag and even a tripod is to use your timer (if your camera has one) or a remote shutter release. It makes sure the camera is stable from the beginning of the exposure. Many can move a camera just-a-bit by a shutter press which this avoids.

All these ‘attempts’ photographers make become worth it when you get that ‘ethereal’ shot like TotalArtist! The one you keep looking at over and over. “At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.” - Minor White
Maybe that’s why people look again and again? Something reached them?

Anyone who shoots photographs should call themselves photographers too! From the 1st picture! Like I read somewhere, “it’s not self deception, it’s self direction.” This type of mindset may help in any endeavor. I did it with yoyo’s, it seemed to help. ha ha ha. ;D

Here’s a long exposure scene I took last winter:

And here’s a long exposure of my son goofing around with Buzz Lightyear toy that had spinning LEDs on it. It was nighttime in the room with no lights on. The appearance of light is simply the long exposure along with the bit of light provided by the LEDs!

We actually make a game out of “light painting”, but I haven’t posted any of the other shots up to Flickr or anywhere else yet, I don’t think.

3 Likes

Yes, Beherenow…I’m calling myself a photographer these days…a starving artist type too haha. Wow GregP, those shots are great. I’m loving the bridge for sure. My latest addition to the family…I did a watercolor effect on this one too:

Watercolor:

6 Likes

Your pictures keep getting better and better! And that is such a cool DM2. Where did you get it?

Its a special edition only sold at YYE. I think they made 24.There are currently 17 available if you want to pick one up!

1 Like

Yes Mr.Squirrel, thank you, I got it from YYE. 16 left now, they are going fast. It is prettier in person too. I loved photographing that one…it’s gorgeous. I think that water color effect looks best on the DMII so far.

1 Like

Most of mine are taken on my phone and posted on my instagram (which can be found here: http://instagram.com/yuki_onitsura/). Also a few other random photos here and there.

Yuki

You guys inspired me to mess around with the camera tonight.

Took a bit of old wood from the fishtank and my TMBR Lovejoy. I wish my background were black, but it’s not too bad with the white.

3 Likes

the DMII is one of my absolute favorite yo-yos ever. i can’t decide whether to get that color or the toxic frog.

I signed up for instagram, finally after seeing your account. Nice pics Yuki, the food ones made me hungry. My favorite was the little plush monkey with the yo-yo haha. I thought it was cute.

1 Like

Nice photo. Good eyes, I see black in the background too. Also, that piece of wood faded in the background looks like it’s made to hold another yo-yo. Perhaps another yo-yo sitting there faded up in the distance, looking down on the other throw…awesome pic.

Thanks for the feedback! Need to get some of my photography out of my photo box and into some other creative environments.

It’s funny, while I was shooting this, I kept thinking of wildlife documentaries…

Here is a water color I made of Jason’s work. This was originally custom for mgiroux77:

Before:

After:

3 Likes

Cool! The funny thing is it looks similar to before. This is more a comment on the watercolor effect in the original ano rather than a comment on the filter work. :slight_smile:

I think if you tweaked the brightness and contrast of the first photo you could get pretty close.

Watercolor filter probably has more of a dramatic effect on crisp lines.

Nice night time exposure GregP! I’ll have to try some of those!
The ‘light dancing’ is fun for sure! Does your son think its crazy how he disappears?

Wow! Crazy cool DMII and pic’s… photographer! ;D Ha ha ha. *edit, no irony in text. :smiley:

Nice ones too Yuki! I liked the leviathan2 and of course, ‘fairy floss like a boss’! Ha ha ha! I used to have access once and while to a machine and several flavors to make all I wanted… and I did. :slight_smile:

Another cool one jasonwongzero! The white goes well, but, it also provides enough of an edge that if you have any picture software with an ‘extract’ or ‘edge find’ feature, you could probably swap in a black background after using it?

Wow x2. That watercolor effect really lends itself to yoyo’s and the splash!

Here’s a couple light dances and a flash light trace of some old climbing shoes of mine in the dark.

1 Like

Nice! Love the climbing shoes photo!

1 Like

@beherenow: Good stuff! The climbing shoes are awesome. My son strangely didn’t ask about his absence. I think he still just takes stuff like that for granted; he knows when we do “light painting” that he’s not going to be in the photo but I don’t think he knows why. :slight_smile:

Fantastic shot by Jason Wong as well. Looks like a sibling to my Baldwin!

@totalartist: The photo seems to be dimmer than your previous shots (hence the gray looking background), which is probably why the watercolour effect makes it pop so much! Between bumping the brightness (ideally with the light or exposure settings themselves!) and increasing contrast (per Jason’s comment) you should have a more colourful effect. For something that rich in colour, I would also be temped to “cheat reality” a little bit and boost saturation/vibrancy.

I need to help keep this thread on-topic by posting some new photographs later. Got a “Snow Drift” Smooth Move here that I think is asking to be photographed (along with aforementioned Baldwin).

Good eyes…I brightened it up and it’s better now (scroll up). I’m still playing with it…pretty throw for sure. Let’s see that Smooth Move now…can’t wait.