Last year we got stuck making a bunch of those balloon animals. You know dogs, cats, monkeys, birds – well that was the idea anyway. I could only achieve a really poor balloon dog. Anyway, we had a ton of balloons left over and I wasn’t sure what to do with them.

A few days ago my daughter blew up a bunch of them and twisted them into these spider like clumps. By the time she was finished she had around five of these things sitting around the house. And this gave me an idea.

What if we took all of these “spider balloons” and put them in the backyard, and setup a bunch of shots depicting them taking over the house and attacking people. Sounds weird right? Well, if you keep up with me on this blog you know Im weird.

Watch the short video below to see how much fun we had.

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In this weeks post I wanted to share with you more creative ways to take pictures in your own backyard. This time its about long exposure.

A few days ago I decided to brave the cold weather we’ve been enjoying in the south and take some pictures. I like taking pictures in my yard, its a place I’m familiar with, never fill rushed to get through and leave and its (of course) close to home.

I’ve been very fortunate to live with a stream nearby, and I like to walk down to it to clear my thoughts or look for interesting photos. We’ve also been having a lot of rain lately which has widened the stream and increased the water flow. I walked down along the stream below some of the larger rocks and spied a great place to try.

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- scroll to the end for a video about this shoot -

I’m sure a lot of you aren’t going to have a creek or stream handy so you can also try out a local park. Here is one I visit all the time.

Because I’m photographing water, long exposure makes sense for this shot. If you don’t know what that is, you basically leave the shutter open longer which causes moving parts of the image to blur and become softer. This how you get that silky look in a lot of water-centric photographs.

Here is one picture from the shoot

Things you would like to have with you for that type of shot are:

• Tripod
• Shutter release or a camera with a timer
• Neutral density filter

Check out my latest Photobook – “Parts” – see preview >

You’re going to need the tripod to have a steady shot. This is because the shutter is going to stay open longer than you can hold the camera still. The shutter release/timer is to also help keep the camera steady. Believe it or not, just pressing the shutter release can shake the camera enough to blur the image. The last thing, the neutral density filter works a lot like a set of sunglasses for your camera. It lets you keep the shutter open longer for a more dramatic effect.

Creek at 3:00 PM

And this is an exposure around 5:00 PM. Notice there are fewer hotspots. Also, the water is more silky.

Creek at home 5:00 PM

I’d love to hear from you about your creative backyard ideas too! Leave a comment with your thoughts.

The shoot – videoblog

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