Month: March 2012

I don’t know Webster’s definition for “chore,” but to me a chore is something you have to do, you don’t enjoy doing it, and you need to do it over and over and over with minimal, if any, payoff: you make the bed and you get back in and mess it up a few hours later; you vacuum that carpet, nobody notices, and you’ve got to do it again next week; you clean that birdcage and the mess is back within minutes. You may have guessed that today’s challenge topic is “chore.” As onerous as most repetitive musts are, there is one chore that sometimes HAS a big payoff: Hand weeding. I try to avoid using harsh chemicals in my daily life (except in the case of my ant invasion-please refer to My Nightmare Post from Day 65). I hate to use Roundup or other poisons to kill weeds, so for me, hand weeding is my only option if I want to make my yard presentable. Lately, however, my yard has been a neighborhood embarrassment. The weeds are taking over my lawn, my rose bed, my planters, and my pots. Since I eschew the use of chemical weed controls, I am left with a chore that I truly despise and one that I avoid. But, weeding does have a positive side in improving the appearance of my yard and allowing other plants to flourish without having to compete with the weeds for water, space, and nutrients.

Today I noticed a huge dandelion in the lawn so I decided to eradicate it on camera as my depiction of a chore. While I was out there, I also saw the first freesia, my favorite spring flower, blooming profusely despite my neglect. I cut a small bouquet and brought it inside so its heady fragrance would remind me that there is a big payoff to this hated chore. Perhaps that will help get me out there to get rid of the rest of the weeds now that I’ve got a start on it. Oh, but wait, rain is predicted all next week. Darn, I guess I’ll have to wait a while to really “dig” into this chore.

Focal Length 85mm
ISO 280
f/1.8
1/2000
SOOC

Focal Length 85mm
ISO 800
f/1.8
1/1250
SOOC

And, an edited version of the freesias, in keeping with my new approach of allowing myself to edit my photos without feeling that I screwed up the photo. The edits are simple, adjusting levels and cropping.

Today’s daily challenge theme is “vivid.” I tried shots of a few things but decided the stack of bright, vividly colored Post-Its met the challenge the best. I have decided that I need to do two things more consistently to improve my photography without feeling guilty about it: 1) I need to use higher ISO settings to improve my exposure and 2) I need to take advantage of my editing software. I did both in today’s photo.

Focal Length: 170mm
ISO 220
f/5.6
1/40
Levels, straighten, crop

Photographers call the hour or so just before sunset (and just after sunrise) “golden” because it reflects a lovely golden glow on subjects, resulting in beautiful lighting in the photographs taken during that time. To me, golden hour is any time the light is low enough that it shines through things, as well as on things, and produces what I consider the perfect lighting for certain subjects, especially flowers. I call it “flower hour.” For me, that happened this afternoon about 3 o’clock when a row of daffodils planted street side by a local nursery caught my eye. I took all of these shots facing the sun so that the light shined through the daffodils instead of on them. The first is my favorite because it not only captured the flower but a shadow of its corona on its petals.

Focal Length 200mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/500
SOOC

Focal Length 130mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/500
SOOC

Focal Length 65mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/800
Levels

Focal Length 200mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/125
SOOC

. . . horses? I started out in search of brown cows and found a small herd a few blocks away. I parked across the road and walked over. All the cows were near the fence. Perfect, I thought, for a close up of a brown cow. I didn’t have the 70-300 zoom attached so I thought I’d give my 18-200 zoom a little assist and I hopped down a grassy culvert closer to the fence. And all the cows turned and walked away. So much for my brown cows. So I went in search for some more.

I didn’t find any more brown cows but I did find this pair of brown horses in Lincoln on a road near where I work with the hawks. They were very curious about me as their fixed gazes show, and they posed for me for quite a while. I was not particularly happy with the results, though.

With regard to my exposure, I think I’m regressing. Or maybe I can blame it on auto ISO. The auto ISO lets me think that my exposure is more acceptable than it turns out to be and I’ve had auto ISO set for the past couple of days and have been less than thrilled with the results. In addition, I switched my metering from spot metering to matrix metering. I have been so used to spot metering that although the results are not always perfect, they seem to be better than with matrix metering for me, especially with the bright sun and high contrast. If I’d metered only on the horse on the right, I think the overall exposure would have been improved. I fiddled with post processing changes in Apeture but found that I couldn’t successfully remove the deep shadows. Instead of fiddling more, I decided to keep the original photo as it was, straight from the camera.

With regard to the numbering of my blog, for anyone who read it the past couple of days and wondered about my skipping a number, or why today is day 68 when my two posts yesterday were originally marked Day 68, it’s because I can’t figure out the Julian calendar in my head, past January 31. So, for 99¢, I now own a Julian calendar iPhone app for reference. I can only hope I will actually use it for reference on those days when I can’t figure out what day it is or can’t be bothered to look at the previous day’s post which presumably has the correct number assigned.

Focal Length 200mm
ISO 220
f/18
1/100
SOOC

Tonight is the full moon so I went out to take some photos. Here is the result. Two shots, same ISO (400), same focal length (300mm) but different apertures very different shutter speeds and oh, such different results! I cropped both (to different sizes so that’s not a fair comparison) but the reflection in the lens on the second shot is fascinating to me. The apertures were similar (f/16 on the first and f/18 on the second, but shutter speeds very different, 1/400 on the first and 5 seconds on the second.

Today, for my photo of the day, I was thinking I’d go in search of fences or horses and or maybe the golden eagle I saw a few days ago, but instead, because it’s been so windy the past few days, and the Sierras were clearly visible, I decided to go for a shot of the Sierras. I have been in search of Sierra views for a while now and occasionally get a glimpse but today, I had a virtually unobstructed view, and close to home at that. But, despite their welcome emergence from the haze that normally obscures them, they were tauntingly elusive to my lens. I’d see a spectacular view with no place to pull over; a place to pull over, but no view. When I finally found a place to pull over, the wind was so strong that I was almost blown over a few times. I should have used my tripod but I was afraid to set it up in the wind. My exposure settings were screwy but the meter registered a good exposure; but when I got home, my “beautiful” Sierra views weren’t as perfect as I thought they’d be. I had to adjust Levels to get rid of the haze and dullness. Then I decided to do an HDR version which I liked the best. My lens was covered with pollen or something from the wind which I had to remove and I had to excise one of my hairs which had blown around the side of the lens and was showing as a gray line in the sky. But, I got the Sierras, some fences, and although I did’t get a horse, I got a cow—but no eagle.

Focal Length 200mm
ISO 100
f/36
1/20
Lots of adjustments

As is probably apparent, today’s daily challenge theme is “Buttons.” I had planned to do something clever like photograph an elevator UP button but there aren’t too many elevators around here and I couldn’t see myself barging into the Employment Development Department building downtown where I used to work so I abandoned that idea. Because I used to sew most of my clothes for much of my adult life, until I no longer needed a “working wardrobe,” I have, over time, accumulated a huge supply of buttons. They now sit unused and unloved, if one could love a button. As I sifted through the button box, I remembered many of the clothes the buttons adorned and I chose some buttons made of shell that my mother attached to a dress she made for me in college. I thought of including a photograph of me wearing the dress with these buttons, but it was a photograph of me and my friend, fellow photoblogger, and former college roommate, Melinda, and while we’re both smiling in the photo, it is also apparent that we were, let me be frank here, falling down drunk. So I thought better of it and used, instead, a swatch of raw silk that I thought made a nice background. After I positioned the shell buttons and the silk fabric, it occurred to me that perhaps this is not a “politically correct” match up. I hope none of my blog followers is either a vegan or a member of PETA.

Focal Length 120
ISO 100
f/16
1/4
Levels

Today’s challenge theme is “Dream.” Since my entry yesterday was titled “Pipe Dreams” I think I did my “dream” shot for the week. I did try to photograph some white mums in a sort of ethereal fog but was not successful in achieving the look I sought so I decided depicting a nightmare would be best for me today. My recurring nightmare, although I don’t dream it, I relive it, is the ant invasion that began after I remodeled my house and continued for three years until they moved into my coffee maker along with their eggs at which point I bashed the stainless coffee maker against the granite countertop in an effort to dump the ants down the sink drain. Violence did not get their attention and the ants continued to invade my home…until I fought back. I hired a pest service. Along with remodeling my house, hiring the pest service is one of the best decisions I have ever made. To commemorate the invasion, my sister-in-law presented me with a huge rock and metal ant which I display prominently in my living room. Let me introduce you to my nightmare.

Focal Length 35mm
ISO 100
f/1.8
1/160
SOOC

This area has clay soil. High grade clay deposits, discovered in 1874, led to the founding of Gladding, McBean and Co. in Lincoln. They still make sewer pipe and while the company was long ago absorbed into another, the Gladding and McBean names remain everywhere, including on all the company buildings. Stacks of sewer pipes surround the buildings. The plant was closed today and is fenced off with chain link fencing but I shoved my camera lens through a large enough opening and got these photos without having to blur out the chain link, so, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Focal Length 42mm
ISO 100
f/11
1/160
SOOC

Today’s challenge theme is “classic.” My mother got Julia Child’s classic cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” when it came out in the late 1960’s, and, when Volume Two followed in 1970 she bought that one as well. Mom became a gourmet cook following Julia’s recipes. I acquired the books from her a few years ago and have used them a few times. However, I do not plan to embark on a year long culinary journey ala Julie Powell (“Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen”). My 365 (366) blog is enough daily focus (pun intended) for me!

After Melinda showed me about the custom white balance setting a couple of days ago, I decided to use that setting today and noticed a distinct difference between the photos with auto white balance and those using the custom setting. My custom setting was 3565 degrees Kelvin and it returned a warmer image (and closer to the original colors of the books) than the auto setting which was 3073K. Oddly, to me anyway, the Aperture meta data indicates both photos used auto white balance settings. And, although I fiddled with the WB settings, I forgot I had changed the ISO so it’s up a bit from my usual 100. It doesn’t seem to have any noise as a result of the higher ISO, so I guess I shouldn’t be so wary of changing the ISO to achieve good exposure. Maybe I’ll reset the camera to auto ISO.

Focal Length 35mm
ISO 320
f/9
2.5 seconds
WB Custom preset
SOOC

I thought I’d continue with a celestial color theme on the blog today and in a way, the moon, as the earth’s satellite, could quality for the “earth, wind, or fire” challenge if you stretch things just a bit. When I went off to get the mail, the sky was a brilliant blue and the moon was brilliant as well. I set up the tripod on the front lawn and used the remote trigger to prevent jiggling the long lens. I cropped the photo then added some curves and some levels to make the contrast more dramatic and to make the moon’s craters more prominent resulting in this very blue moon. I realize this really isn’t a “blue moon” because they only occur, well, once in a blue moon, and the current moon phase is waxing gibbous, 68%, not full. I’ll try to remember that the next real blue moon will occur this year on August 31 and feature it on the blog. The last blue moon was on December 31, 2009. Oh, a blue moon is when a second full moon occurs within the same calendar month.

Today I had plans to practice custom white balance settings that Melinda showed me yesterday, but before I had a chance to do it successfully, I noticed a pair of doves out in the yard. The daily challenge topic for today is “earth, wind, or fire” and since doves tend to blend into their surroundings because of their earth tones, I attached my 70-300 zoom and went out to see what I could capture. I managed to get a couple of in focus shots but they were poorly exposed so I waited to see if the hummingbird would pose for me. While I looked for the hummer, I noticed my fountain needed water so I stuck the hose in to fill it and idly took a few experimental shots using the on camera flash. The fountain is a sort of earth tone despite its being made of resin and not stone. When I turned off the flash and took a few more photos, I was stunned to see the images in my LCD screen. The photos were anything but earth tones. In fact, they could have come from Mars, the red planet. The next three photos of the fountain were magenta. I gasped, ran inside, downloaded the photos and am now awaiting a response from Nikon to see if this is something I need to worry about or if it was just a digital glitch that won’t happen again.

Here is one of the mars toned photos SOOC, and the earth toned dove whose exposure I tweaked using levels.

Today my friend Melinda came to town for a day of camera talk that included hours of laughter and reminiscing—we go back way before the camera thing. We spent the day sharing photo tips and practicing portrait photography before her husband, Lonnie, finished his work meetings and returned to take us out to dinner, where there was much more laughter and reminiscing. Melinda let me try out her SB-900 speed light. I was thrilled to be able to use it and I expect one will soon have its own place in my camera bag. Melinda also gave me lots of Photoshop tips (I let her do most of the editing of her own photo) and showed me how to set custom white balance on my camera. We definitely need to get together more often. She did learn one thing from me, so I contributed to the knowledge sharing today as well.

I used Melinda’s speed light on all the photos I took today. Although I took quite a few posed shots of Melinda, the best photographs were not posed at all and were the first couple of shots I took with the speed light. Over time, I have found that if I try to improve upon a photo that I like, I rarely get a better result. So, when at the end of the afternoon, I decided we needed a photo together, I liked the first shot and so that’s all I took.

So here is one of the first shots I took of my photo buddy Melinda today (she did most of the editing in Photoshop so I could watch an expert in action) and the one shot I took of Melinda and me (I edited this shot, cropping it a bit and changing it to sepia).