Week 3 - Composition - Olympus C-700

What a week! I solved a mystery, risked my life for this class, and have a question.

The Mystery

I was up bright and early and heard strange sounds coming from my back yard. (chomp! chomp!) What on earth was that? Could it be the elusive Western Treeclimbing Beaver? I looked up in the tree and could see a large animal of some sort, but there was no way to tell what it was. What to do?

Aha! Got out my trusty Uzi - the Oly C-700 UltraZoom- with its 10X zoom.

(snap, snap, snap)Took some shots and was able to finally identify the largest squirrel I've ever seen! This guy was easily twice the size or more of any of the other squirrels. No wonder I don't see more of them. This giant probably has scared the others away.

I'd correct the chromatic aberration here. I do like this shot, even though it the animal is partially hidden. You can see what he was chewing on - a pine cone. The small branches of the tree point to him and the larger ones frame him. Plus, he's entering the scene.

The Confrontation

Getting the paper this morning in my driveway, I noticed what should be a great shot - a horse silhouetted against the morning fog, with the trees on the far side of the valley just becoming visible. I was engrossed in taking the photos, when a car screeched up the steep hill going backwards at about 40 mph and stopped right by me. The man inside was furious. "JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TAKING PICTURES OF PEOPLE LIKE THAT?" he yelled.

"Erm..." I stammered. "I'm shooting the horse for my photography class. See how nice he looks against the fog?" Sooo, I got to meet a new neighbor! He was quite nice once he realized I wasn't taking his picture. ( grin) Mountain folks can be so touchy.

Unfortunately, the confrontation ended this session, as the horse moved on. I decided that this was the best shot of the ones I'd taken composition wise, despite its flaws of being out of focus a bit as well as being dark. I could rationalize that the power lines add more interesting angles, but I'll edit them out in PSP later (grin). The normal solution of moving to a spot where they're not in the picture, doesn't work for me, as I'm disabled and can't navigate easily. So what's right? I used the foliage to partially frame the shot. I like the different lines that the fog, the ground, and the trees give. Even the soft focus works a bit with the fog, giving the photo a bit of a dreamy look. The rule of thirds works here.

Nothing too special about this one, except for the angle. I took it from directly on top of my golden. Rule of thirds.

The Question

The flash setting for red eye doesn't work the way I expected it to on this camera. On my old one, it worked well.

I have to admit that there's no red eye in this shot. However, I'm looking for a solution other than closed eyes. (grin)The camera fires off several bursts of light before the photo is taken,but it ALWAYS makes everyone close their eyes. With red eye flash correction off, I get ...erm... red eyes? Any ideas - other than editing in PSP?

a class from LVSOnline.com