photography ideas at home for beginners

As a young boy in York, Nebraska, Stanford economist Robert Wilson and his friends would sometimes go watch the Saturday morning cattle auctions held near his childhood home and watch the farm animals be sold off, one by one.

Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom on the morning of Oct. 12, the day they received the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (Image credit: Andrew Brodhead)

“Us kids would just go over and sit in the bleachers. A cow would be pulled in and stand there while an oral, ascending auction of subsequent bids was conducted until the auctioneer declared the cow sold,” recalled Wilson, whose scholarship in auction theory and design earned him and his Stanford colleague and former graduate student Paul Milgrom the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Wilson didn’t know it then, but the types of auctions he witnessed as a child are what economists call an English auction. These are the kinds of auctions most of us are familiar with, as they’re used to sell everything from artwork and antiques to memorabilia, but they’re only one among many auction designs that Wilson and Milgrom studied.

Together, the pair have explored how different auction designs

Unlike solar eclipses, photographing the Earth’s shadow on the moon doesn’t require any special equipment. All an aspiring astral photographer needs is a camera (or camera-equipped smartphone), a steady hand and an app or two.

To get a good shot you will need some manual control over your camera settings and, ideally, a spot away from city lights. Then, depending on your equipment, decide if you want a close-up of the moon or a wide shot.

Note that shooting wide will make the moon appear small so compose your shot with something interesting in the foreground to give it more pop.

Because it can be difficult to focus in the dark, use your camera’s auto focus to lock in on a distant light source (not the stars or moon) before tilting the camera skyward and locking your tripod down.

This will keep the foreground you’ve carefully composed sharp without sacrificing moon clarity.

Alternatively, if you have a manual focus lens, dial it just back from infinity to achieve the same effect.

If you’re shooting a close-up with a telephoto lens or a point-and-shoot with a zoom, focus right on the moon.

Set the exposure

Typically, star shots are best with

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The bid picture: Nobel prize winners explain auction theory, collaboration

Some camera and iPhone tips for shooting a lunar eclipse

Set the exposure