On May 8th, 2010 Long Island Photo Gallery members and their guests will be taking a photography field trip to the Vanderbilt Estate Museum in Centerport, Long Island.

According to the VanderbiltMuseaum.org website, the mansion has 24 rooms and its original construction was designed by the same architectural firm that designed New York City’s Grand Central Station.  Later additions to the William K. Vanderbilt II mansion at his Eagle’s Nest estate were executed by architects that trained with the same architectural firm.  Feel free to take a tour of the mansion while we’re there.  Mansion tours last 50-60 minutes and are scheduled every twenty minutes.

The 43-acre museum complex counts among its collections not only the Gold Coast-era mansion [1910-1936], a marine museum, natural history habitats, curator’s cottage, seaplane hangar, boathouse and numerous other estate features [gardens, fountains, balustrades and pools], but also marine and natural history specimens, house furnishings and fine arts, photographs and archives, and an extensive collection of ethnographic objects that make up the former William K. Vanderbilt II estate. A portion of today’s museum – the Hall of Fish – was actually opened to the public during Vanderbilt’s lifetime. Then, as now, the museum seeks to preserve and interpret artifacts that represent his life, collecting interests and intellectual legacy.

The Vanderbilt Mansion is located at 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport, New York 11721-0605.  General admission is $7 per adult and $3 per child under 12.  The mansion tour is an additional $5.

Looking forward to seeing you on May 8th!

~ Joanne

Pink Tulip

Spring has officially sprung and with it flower beds around Long Island are beginning to show signs of color.  It’s early yet, but soon beautiful flowers will be in bloom everywhere.  Flowers make great subjects and are highly sought after as fine art.  Want to get that winning shot? Here’s how.

A Bug's Life

First thing you need to do is get your equipment together.  Gather the lenses that you want to use, your tripod and have your flash unit and diffuser nearby if fill light becomes necessary.  Most photographers tend to ditch the tripod, but if you are looking for that really sharp image you may want to adjust your thinking.  If your shooting anything less than a 125th of a second or you catch a breezy day you are going to get blur without a tripod.  A tripod can assure that at whatever speed or condition you are shooting, your image will be sharp as a tack!

How will you frame your subject?  Consider this question before you start shooting away.  Are you looking to fill the frame with the flower or will just part of the flower fill the frame?  What is the most interesting part of the flower?  The petals?  The stem?  An insect?  Choose your angle too.  It is much more interesting to photograph a flower from an angle that is unusual.  You might have to get down low or get up real high.  Either way, think outside the box when choosing your angle.  Consider your background and foreground.  Make sure you don’t have distracting or competing objects that will take away from the focal point of your subject.

Aperture.  This is critical in photographing flowers.  Understand that a wider aperture decreases the depth of field (the smaller the numbers, the wider the depth of field).

Most cameras have a macro setting which allows you to get a little closer to the flower while blurring out the foreground and background.

Macro Mode Icon

If you have a macro lens, this is the time to use it.  If a macro lens is one of your desires, shop through Long Island Photo Gallery photography equipment pages.

~ Joanne

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White Iris

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