Learning to Shoot

Mostly posting to Flickr

2007-04-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

I will only be posting here when I want to tell a story with a series of pics. Otherwise will be updating Flickr site with new photos.

Phantom Windmill

2007-03-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

Played with postproc brightness to ghost the windmill in Hull.

Golden-eyed gull

2007-03-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

Via Kronk.

A Chivalric Tale of Swordplay and Flagpoles

2007-03-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

While waiting to pick up the Freckled One, I took these pics from too far away through a hazy car window of a kid who epitomized joy. He had a plastic sword and shield and was patrolling the area hacking evil bushes and other foul objects to pieces.

"What, ho? Do I sight another beast to slay?"

"I proceed apace to carve and slice and rend asunder!"

"Die, foul oak, die!"

"Think you immune, flagpole?"

Ten seconds after a loud ponging noise announces the collision of plastic blade and flagpole, our fair knight searches the ground for something . . ..

*clutching shattered sword hilt to his chest* "Oh, who hath witnessed the sundering of The Shining Blade?
"Hrm. Perhaps the blade might yet be made whole."

The minions must be informed.

"Hail fairest Mother, I bring tidings of darkness and woe! This sword which might appear to you unblemished is but a sad illusion . . . "

"Behold! The evil that flagpole hath wrought!"

Little hand, big hand

2007-03-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Candid shot taken on the fly at the zoo from about thirty feet away.

Red dog, green leash

2007-03-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

Shelter dog nobly surveying the field. Breathe deeply. Anything is possible in this moment.

Back in his cage. Betrayed. Casting a baleful eye.

Love the eyelashes

2007-03-15T03:43:00.001-07:00

From a day at the zoo with the kiddies.

Shelter dog staring through fence

2006-11-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Stalking the feeder

2006-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

Look at the guilty expression on this cat who was stalking the birds at the feeder.

Squirrel mafia shots

2006-11-16T08:22:00.000-08:00

Carbs good

2006-11-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

The seedier side of birding: blue jay armpits

2006-11-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

Sparrows

2006-11-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

Here is my favorite shot from today. I like the colors, the four birds blurred/moving/out of frame surrounding the bird in the middle.

72H Challenge: Texture

2006-11-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

On the Tips from the Top forum, they posted a 72H challenge: texture. So far the photos contributed focus on a single texture, but I was thinking about contrasting textures. In my garden there are some golden grass stalks growing through a decaying wood bench, but it was too rainy today to try to capture those.

Indoors I thought to contrast the battered metal exterior of an old cat lantern with a velour blanket.

My favorite shot so far (below are 90% compressed for page load speed) is the one where the red blanket is in-focus through the lantern eye, with a vertical shadow suggesting the iris and the lower right of the eye is darkened by the backside of the lantern, suggesting the nictating membrane of a cat eye. However, I am not sure the facial structure of the cat is stark/severe enough to survive the dof blurring. Maybe a tighter crop would help or would it cause the viewer to lose a sense of the overall cat-ness?

My other favorites are where again the red and black through the eyes seems to color in the lantern eyeholes, though this coloration is more like an animated cat than an actual one. This one also seems to show the fabric the best, with the least distracting patterns in the folds.

And this one where I like the head angle of the cat.

Blue jays

2006-11-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

Today I tried to take advantage of the golden morning light to photograph some birds at my feeder.

Challenges: busy urban background, ugly feeder poles, birds moving superfast, difficult to capture when zoomed out to the max, distance vs. bird comfort level, and the camera doesn't seem to want to do continuous shooting.

Shots like these are among my favorites because they make me laugh every time I look at them:

Though what kind of idiot shoots through a backlit double-paned glass window?

Clarity is definitely my challenge here -- compare my blue jay shots with Jaki's. I probably need to break down and get a tripod and maybe figure out a way to disguise myself in the window so the shyer birds don't startle.

The expression on the blue jay below reminds me a little of Michael Smith's life-changing "Mad Bluebird" shot.

A little bit of drama, but too far away and focus is off.

Capturing Drama

2006-11-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across the blog/podcast/website "Tips from the Top Floor." When I get Photoshop, I am sure this site will be even more useful to me, but I decided to try their latest assignment for a picture: drama.

While wandering around Boston and Cambridge in a photoframing daydream state, I began to think about what feels dramatic.

First, any pictures with high emotional impact due to the subject or setting/color. Like a picture of a firefighter cradling a rescued child or a shot from a cliff edge capturing a hawk sailing the thermals or a bright pink flower against storm-grey sky.

Seccond, what kept occurring to me was drama created through juxtaposition, and this is where I kept failing. The shot below was an attempt to contrast a beautiful older building against the skyscraper being erected across the street (this is next door to the Museum of Science in Boston). This is just one shot of three, but none of them frame the two buildings correctly -- a change in position would have helped, but in such an urban area, it brings in a lot more busyness to the photo.

I had a third thought on drama, but it slipped my pea brain. Perhaps I shall remember it later.

Here I tried to frame a bridge shot through leaves, but it fails for a number of reasons: the blowing leaves to the right take up half the picture instead of a nicer third-ish, even worse, all other compositional elements went missing: the bark showing to the right is a dark blob, the leaves/branch in upper left do nothing for the framing, there is no ROT at work here, there is grass, a fence, the water, the bridge, then sky, all with equal weight. The boat adds nothing, in fact detracts from the arch of the bridge, and the building in the background clutters up the shot. Even in the shot where the boat is missing, the darkness of the foliage beyond the arch lessens its impact.

A related attempt was around trying to shoot interesting architectural elements through a lattice. Ho hum.

Then I tried to do something with the fun shadow cast by an eagle statue near Government Center. My options for angle were limited by the streets/cars and my 12X zoom. I struggled to figure out how to frame the photo in light of the windows and other interesting architectural details. I think the second shot works better, but the little face to the left is more in focus and therefore detracts a little.

And of course I couldn't resist a shot trying to contrast the carved Viking ship versus the Boston Duck boat. I am slightly drunk on the saturation feature of the Canon photo editing software. I hope to be a lot less ham-handed when I can mask and layer in Photoshop.

Recording what I learn

2006-11-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

This blog is to chronicle my adventures with my first nonCVS point-and-shoot camera. I am starting with a Canon PowerShot S3IS.

I like the concept of "a photo a day" to show progress, but in practice it will probably be more like almost every day. Or once a week. Or every day for the first month, then decreasing after that. We Geminis are like that.