Feature photography and training with 'dummies'

Instructor James W. Kwasniak DDS scrutinizes student Linda Vaughn's infant CPR technique. (Photos by PHO245/Jen Hannum)

Desirae McDonald gives compressions to simulated choking infant.

   Capturing moments that occur as people go about their routine activities is known as feature photography. 

   For me, this semester means capturing slices of everyday life in the Center for Emergency Preparedness at Owens Community College. I covered  the Healthcare Provider CPR class lead by Peggy Wammes and James w. Kwasniak DDS. The students watched informative videos and then performed the demonstrated techniques on life -size infant dummies. As the students worked with their babies, they simulated the entire process of what they would do if they encountered an unresponsive or choking infant. 

   I learned a few interesting things sitting in on this class. Did you know it's common for babies to choke while eating at a table, and that the rescuer should remember to back away from the table before administering the Heimlich maneuver. This prevents the baby's head from slamming on the table due to the rescuer's blows. Also, it’s more common to encounter an infant not breathing than one whose heart has stopped. 

   Feature photography, although a bit of a challenge in stepping out of my personal comfort zone, is really an exciting type of photography.

Peggy Wammes helps Amanda Skomer with infant CPR as fellow students Margaret Ingram and Kelly Abbott observe.

Kelly Abbott administers compressions to infant "dummy".

Reciprocity is a lesson in camera control

Take note of  the blurry background in this image of a moving vehicle. This effect is achieved by using a slow shutter speed and panning my camera with movement of the vehicle.  (PHO245/Jen Hannum)

The shallow background was achieved by opening my aperture to f/2.8,

which makes the flower the focal point. (PHO245/Jen Hannum)

    I learned a lot about cameras and how they work while studying camera operations in my photojournalism class this week

   Did you know that a fixed lens isn’t defined by whether the lens zooms in or out? It is actually a lens that stays at its minimum aperture (preferably 2.8 or wider) no matter the focal length.

Dividing an image in thirds horizontally and vertically and putting center

of interest at an intersecting point is Rule of Thirds. (PHO245/Jen Hannum)

   We also touched on basic compositional elements, as well as a reminder of how to control our shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to achieve creative control of our images.  Those three controls used together to manipulate light is called reciprocity,which is the process of setting all of the controls on my camera to capture an image with my desired creative outcome, which should be determined in my head before I even put that camera to my face.

   Camera operation is really all about knowing my camera and how to achieve the look I desire in my images not letting the camera decide for me.