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Jeremy > April 29, 2009; Day 362. Domain. To shoot for this week’s photography class, I shifted my living room lights around. After I took the shots for the class, I noticed that the light was falling on these little pups in a pleasing way. Good thing; the shots for the class were shots of the front of my house which has been a daily subject many times. I returned to the gym tonight for a light workout. It was the first since I became ill last week. Normally exercise suppresses my cough but tonight it was actually worse instead. Not sure why. But it was nice to do something. Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 0 Raw: Recovery: 40 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 25, 2009; Day 327. Pastry Bridge. Week 3 of my close-up photography class is going to be a doozy. The first photo we are to submit is a kitchen abstract. You find one or more items from your kitchen and make an abstract image out of that. Bryan’s example photo was a cheese grater with a lot of colorful light reflecting from wrapping paper. Easy, right? I guess I’m forgetting the word “abstract” in this first attempt. Here I’m trying to turn a pastry blender into the steel girders of a bridge. I’m using a sheet of light blue paper for the river and some potted yellow geraniums as a field of flowers in the background. I’ve gelled my external flash with Roscoe color #27 (Medium Red) which is sitting just to the right of the frame. I won’t be submitting this to the class. Even if the assignment wasn’t for an abstract, the blue paper isn’t a convincing water, the red flash is spilling into the flowers, there’s a lot of blown out highlights, and that lavender “abutment” just looks silly. Also the flowers are so full of holes that I needed a lot of healing brush to repair the background. This was fun even if not very satisfying. I only spent an hour on it so I’m happy I got this much to show for it. Tomorrow I will try other things. I wonder if I have challenged myself too much by selecting such a porous kitchen implement. At least Bryan’s cheese grater always fills the frame. I shot this with my 50mm prime lens wearing a 20mm extension tube. I manually focused until the highlight areas on the arches were in focus. I don’t yet know who “Princess” is. There are many suspects. I hope he/she continues to comment! Raw: Color Temperature: 2650K; Tint: 0 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Healing Brush to cope with dark spots PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 14, 2009; Day 316. Skyward. Today I ran around with all of my extension tubes attached to my 50mm “normal” lens. Since I have no flowers yet, I settled again on the leaf buds that are growing on my rhododendrons. The extension tubes make this lens behave more like a macro lens by allowing you to get closer to your subject. As with macro lenses, a smaller aperture is needed to maintain depth of field. But the bokeh remains nice because you’re so close to the subject. Although I approached this subject from several angles, this was the best. This will be submitted to my close-up photography class. I didn’t do much else today except to continue to chip away at a mountain of unprocessed photos. After finishing a big set today, I treated myself to a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 which is still good in season 8. Raw: Color Temperature: 4000K; Tint: +15 Raw: Exposure: +1.5 Raw: Recovery: +100 Raw: Fill Light: +20 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > February 7, 2009; Day 281. Full Moon Hike. Peter and I joined seven of our friends in Amherst for an (almost) full moon hike. Hikes are scheduled a little ahead of the true full moon night to take advantage of the earlier moon rise time. The moon was mostly obscured by clouds tonight, which meant considerably less light was available. To further complicate things, I brought neither my tripod nor my flash, as I was trying to minimize what I needed to carry (and avoid annoying fellow hikers). But several hikers had flashlights and I had wisely selected my lightest lens which provided another advantage: f/1.8. Since I needed fast shutter speed to mitigate camera shake, I selected ISOs well above 1600. Despite all of the above, the hardest part when photographing at night is finding enough light to get autofocus to work. Manual focus is not really an option, due to the wide aperture and subsequent razor-thin focal plane. Luckily, the flashlights saved the day, and I actually obtained a few keepers, even though they are dark. I had hoped to be able to bring up the exposure of this shot in post processing, but I found that it amplified the noise…a lot. It was a very enjoyable hike, particularly because the temps were in the 30s with no wind. After so many near-zero nights, it felt balmy. In this shot, the hike leader is helping us identify the tracks in the snow. PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > November 20, 2008; Day 202. Don’t Wait for Black Friday. Tonight I embarked on a quest for photogenic holiday décor. I don’t see many Christmas lights up yet in the neighborhoods, but I thought that this display at Cobblestone’s Design Company in Concord would make a good starting point. They have really dressed up their front yard nicely, although you can still see bits of ugly building behind the goodies. I hope that December sees some snowfall here; that will undoubtedly improve my shots. This front yard is fenced off and locked after they close, so I couldn't get any closer than this. Too bad; I'd love to get close to that spun thicket wreath (upper left) with my wide angle lens (and the price tag hidden). Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K Raw: Exposure: +0.3 Raw: Saturation: +30 PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > November 11, 2008; Day 193. A Lifetime of Service. Alan has been my boss, mentor, and friend for the past 13 years. He will retire at the end of this year. Our customers are visiting this week for important business, but we took them to dinner tonight to celebrate what is looking to be a successful delivery of the product we build. After dinner, they presented Alan with some parting gifts, since this may be their last chance to see him. Our customers are Japanese citizens, so their gifts were unique. For me, the parting could be traumatic as I will be taking over his position starting in January. I look forward to these final weeks learning as much as I can from him. I risked producing another soft shot, choosing my 50mm lens once again. Luckily tonight it didn’t have any trouble focusing. I really need to learn to carry my CTO filter to match the ambient light when such light is incandescent. Raw: Color Temperature: 3900K Raw: Exposure: +0.8 Raw: Saturation: +20 PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > November 10, 2008; Day 192. Thanking a Veteran. It’s Monday and I once again spent the evening in Portsmouth with friends. Tonight we enjoyed a passionate discussion of post-election politics. I did not join in the discussion much, spending most of the time composing this image in my mind. Before the meeting started, I noticed that my friend Larry was wearing his Disabled American Veterans cap. I knew he would be my subject today, even though I'm a day early (I won't see him tomorrow.) That gave me an hour to find the right background, lighting, and lens. By the time the meeting was wrapping up, my camera and tripod were ready to go. You’d think with all this mental preparation, I’d have pulled off a great shot. Dang! Soft focus really ruins your shot! The D80 and this lens made a lot of bad autofocus decisions tonight, but I should know better than to trust that little beep that says focus has been achieved. Also, the placement of the light is not as flattering as it could be. And I should have asked the people milling in front of my nice background to get out of the way. Someday, all these things will come naturally I hope. I am almost certainly going to get the new 50mm f/1.4 AF-S lens. I love soft indoor lighting, I just need more practice. Raw: Exposure: +1.0 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > August 27, 2008; Day 117. In my photography classes, they talk about the “Five Majors”: line, texture, pattern, shape, and color. I always thought that the cage of my fan would provide ample opportunities to compose with line. This shot is my first attempt. I was happy with the way the angle of the flash highlights the texture of the logo. Unfortunately, this fan is as clean as I can get it without disassembling the cage. I may come back to this when I have more time and I will give it a good scrub then. As I was photographing this, I noticed that the red “ready” light reflected off the cage nicely. That little red light isn't very bright, so that was a long exposure. Tonight’s training ride was nearly a duplicate of yesterday’s ride, except that I downshifted less, riding most of the journey in the highest possible gear. I also found a little side road that runs parallel to the main road and re-joins it later. I took this road to see if I could get closer to some potential daily subjects, and much to my delight, there are apple trees along the way that are ripening. On Saturday, if I’m out of water and a little parched, I can take this minor excursion and get a sweet treat with 4 miles to go to the finish. Raw: Exposure: +1 Raw: Saturation: +20 PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > July 10, 2008; Day 69. Continuing with practice of light and motion. It occurred to me today that a spinning coin might kick up a thin film of water very nicely. This quarter is spinning on one of my nonstick baking sheets. (I used nonstick so the water remained pooled in a clump rather than rush off the sides; it also makes cleanup between shots a breeze.) A single strobe is off to the left side looking somewhat towards the camera; this back-lights the water droplets. To prevent flare, I used a sheet of black foamcore as a gobo. I’m holding a 12-inch gold reflector across from the flash at camera right. How did I spin a quarter, trip the shutter, and hold the reflector? I had to balance the reflector on my chin until I released the quarter. I also found that motion could be implied with waves in the water. I particularly liked the way the light shows the texture of the quarter. To decide which of these images was to be my daily, I had to, um, flip a coin. Raw: Exposure: +1.5 Raw: Saturation: +30 PS: Crop: ~50% PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
April 29, 2009; Day 362.

Domain.

To shoot for this week’s photography class, I shifted my living room lights around. After I took the shots for the class, I noticed that the light was falling on these little pups in a pleasing way. Good thing; the shots for the class were shots of the front of my house which has been a daily subject many times.

I returned to the gym tonight for a light workout. It was the first since I became ill last week. Normally exercise suppresses my cough but tonight it was actually worse instead. Not sure why. But it was nice to do something.

Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 0
Raw: Recovery: 40
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 29, 2009; Day 362. Domain. To shoot for this week’s photography class, I shifted my living room lights around. After I took the shots for the class, I noticed that the light was falling on these little pups in a pleasing way. Good thing; the shots for the class were shots of the front of my house which has been a daily subject many times. I returned to the gym tonight for a light workout. It was the first since I became ill last week. Normally exercise suppresses my cough but tonight it was actually worse instead. Not sure why. But it was nice to do something. Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 0 Raw: Recovery: 40 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
April 29, 2009; Day 362.

Domain.

To shoot for this week’s photography class, I shifted my living room lights around. After I took the shots for the class, I noticed that the light was falling on these little pups in a pleasing way. Good thing; the shots for the class were shots of the front of my house which has been a daily subject many times.

I returned to the gym tonight for a light workout. It was the first since I became ill last week. Normally exercise suppresses my cough but tonight it was actually worse instead. Not sure why. But it was nice to do something.

Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 0
Raw: Recovery: 40
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
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