Month: December 2010

It occurs to me that my new constant companion in 2011 will be my Lowepro camera bag. It holds the camera, an extra lens, extra memory cards, the battery charger and even my Gorilla Pod. Fortunately, the back of the bag has a zipper (closed in this picture) that expands the bag to provide room for me to drop in my wallet and related essentials so I don’t have to carry my purse. Starting to use it all the time now will be good practice for me so when I go to Italy in September it won’t seem like a burden. So I will say goodbye for a year to my collection of cute handbags that is beginning to rival that of my shoes.

Lens: 35 mm
ISO: 1600
f/1.8
1/160

The only tweaking I did was to adjust the exposure to -1.0.

. . .before I start posting photographs to this blog.  I want to post photos that are significant in some way, not just random pictures to fulfill my obligation to post one new photo every day of the year.  I am not above posting random pictures and probably will do that from time to time.  However, since my reason for participating in this exercise is to improve my photographic skills, I will try to post pictures that exhibit the technical and artistic aspects of photography that I am trying to learn or improve upon; and  with each photo I post, I will identify the aspect of photography I am focusing on and trying to improve.

I am excited about starting this project.  January 1 is only three days away!

In yesterday’s post, I neglected to mention that I will be starting to take, and post, daily photos on January 1, 2011.

I have always loved to take photographs but have never really understood how to take a good picture.  I bought a Nikon D90 DSLR about six months ago and to help me understand photography, I am taking classes, both at local community colleges and on-line;  I am also reading blogs, books, and websites.  I am just starting to grasp the basic concepts of photography but I need to learn much more and  I need to practice.  So, I am starting this blog as a means to help me understand the basic concepts of photography and to improve my photographic skills.

To this end, I am committed to taking at least one photograph daily in the coming year and to posting those photographs to this blog. I realize this may not always be possible due to conflicting commitments, travel, and just plain laziness; however, I will do my best to fulfill my commitment.

I purposely named my blog “In Focus Daily” because I have discovered one of my biggest problems seems to be achieving proper focus of my subjects…even using auto focus lenses.  So, I will work diligently to learn and to improve my understanding of the relationship between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO as well as to improve my ability to focus on the subject at hand (pun intended) using both auto and manual focus settings.

I hope whomever joins me on my journey toward photographic nirvana will enjoy the photographs I produce and will see an improvement in my abilities over the year.