Impatient

An ongoing problem for me is that I'm not very patient. I don't usually take the time I need to properly compose my pictures. I focus on my subject, and generally forget about the background, and that always ends up disappointing me. Maybe someday I'll learn!

Totem poles are quite large, so to capture any detail, you have to do it in parts. That's fine. I liked the detail on this totem then and I do now. It's striking. What I don't like is my oversight with regards to the background. This mural would make a wonderful background... if I had positioned myself so that the left wing covered that window. I should also have take this a little brighter and a little darker, for comparison. Brighter might have completely washed out the bird's throat and the mural, and darker might have overly dulled the lower figure, but it would be nice to see.

It's not really a bad picture, but I'm adding the "bad-pic" tag anyway, since it seems to be the one I've adopted to mean "I can learn something specific from this picture" - which would be way too long for a tag.


Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, ISO 800, aperture 4.0 and 1/250 exposure length.

Christmas boat

1) Yeah, yeah, holidays are over, blah blah. Too bad, you get another picture anyway! :-)
2) My boyfriend roundly chastised me for leaving the tripod in the vehicle. I apologize in advance for that fact, because it did have a negative impact on the picture, although I believe I took this one propped on some kind of pillar or post.

The moment I saw this boat, I loved it! They did such a great job with the lights. What I was trying to capture here: The boat's lights as well as the reflection. I don't believe the reflection would ever be perfect, as this is on the ocean, so the water is never perfectly still. And it takes so very little movement for light to "smear". As much as I like the lights though, my favourite part of this image is actually the boat just in front of it, to the right in the image. It's reflection on the water is quite crisp. I did slightly crop this picture, to cut out a distracting boat to one side, but that was the extent of post-processing.

So, how to get this picture better? A tripod is a given, but because it was on moving water, a long exposure isn't the solution for a sharp picture. I would still need a faster shutter speed. A high ISO and large aperture would be in order, I think. Sadly, I was too tired to try playing with the settings that evening, I just wanted to enjoy the view and the nice smells, so I let the camera do it's thing and I will simply try to learn from what it did.


Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, ISO 400, aperture 3.2 and 0.8 second exposure length.

Black and White photo webinar

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Black & White: Craft & Vision, presented by Harold Davis and hosted by O'Reilly publishers.
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 10am Pacific time, 1pm Eastern.
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I'll be there! Will you?

Rain drops

Okay, I admit it, I didn't take this one for the purpose I ended up liking it for.

My reason for taking this picture was because I liked the little things growing on top of this support. That part of the picture is less than spectacular, even aside from the fact that the colours are too dull. What I find wonderful about this picture is all the little splashes where the rain was hitting the water in the bay. 

Now if only there was something with some colour to liven up the picture.

Tree in a... tree?

My favourite thing about taking my camera everywhere and looking at everything as a potential photograph, is that it has made me more aware of my surroundings.

This is, in fact, a tree growing inside a tree stump. The current living tree is fairly large (you can just see a bit of it's root snaking out the bottom left of the old stump), so that should give you some sense of how large the old stump is. At a guess, I would say it was at least 2 feet tall. Clearly, as it decomposed it made for a rich environment for the new sapling to flourish in. I can't be certain, but I'm going to guess that the younger tree is not of the same type as the older stump. TOO COOL!

As for the picture itself, I intentionally didn't try to capture the whole tree. To get far enough back to see it all would have meant losing all the brilliant detail that was my focus. I love the bits of pale green moss or lichen that are growing on the outside of the stump, and the contrast in the colours between the new tree and old stump. I also like the contrasts on the ground, between the rich green leaves (IN JANUARY!!!) and the brown needles and leaves carpeting the ground.

MacGyver of photography

Wimp.com called this guy the MacGyver of photography, and I'm inclined to agree! The picture at the end is fabulous! (Just ignore the bad hair.)

http://wimp.com/macgyverphotography/

Shoe planters

The picture itself is... okay, not spectacular, but the circumstances make it great.

First of all, this was taken on Dec 27, and I just don't usually get to see living greenery outside at that time of year! Lovely! I love the splash of red against the otherwise grey-brown surroundings - in fact, it was a drizzly, rainy day, so everything was rather grey, and then there were these bright red shoes! I love that they are a matched pair, but are on the wrong sides of each other for putting them on.

What's your most creative recycling of an item?

Famous Photo

A couple of months ago, a new world-record was set for the highest price paid for a photograph at auction. (As an aside, this sale pales in comparison to the $140 million paid for a Pollock Jackson painting, in 2006.) The following photograph was sold for $4.33 million.

http://www.thisweekinphoto.com/2011/the-worlds-most-expensive-photograph/

What do you think? Is it worth $4.33 million? To my tastes, no. It's a nice enough picture, but I don't find there to be anything spectacular about it. Regardless, the article linked to above is quite interesting and not very long. The author also gives an example of a photograph that he thinks would be worth more - and it's a very stunning image!

Read on!

Almost a stereotype

It's a very wet, drizzly day. The people I'm with are heading back to our vehicle fairly quickly, but I keep falling behind to grab this shot or that, and then having to run to catch up. This is one shot that I had to run for, but I'm really glad I stopped to take it!

I didn't alter any of the settings for this picture. Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, aperture 4.0 and 1/60 exposure length. I did crop out the top left of the picture in order to remove some noise and focus in on what I really like about this picture. And while in a hurry, cold and getting wet, I still managed to get the exact shot I wanted - The water drops on the branch are in focus, while the building roof in behind makes a wonderful, fuzzy red background. With more time (and a tripod) I think I could have made the drops even sharper, but overall, I'm pleased with this picture.

First of the new year!

There's nothing outrageously special about this picture, but I love it.

Yes, he's centered, I made no attempt at rule of thirds or whatever else. I like the context he is given by the paddock in front and the fence and trees in behind. It was quite bright out for his pale body, so I did change the exposure bias (as Flickr calls it, I'm sure it has many different names) to a -1. It makes the rest of the picture maybe a tad dark, but I think it really brings out the variations in his coat. I like that he's just looking slightly towards the camera, but otherwise it's a full side view, so you get a good look at him. Lovely!

My plan for the blog for 2012... I'm thrilled I managed to get a post in for every single day of December, even though I was traveling which sometimes made it quite difficult - and quite late! (The one for Dec 31 wasn't quite as late in the day as it seems, since I'm currently in an earlier time zone, but didn't change the time for the blog.) My rough goal for this year is to continue to post daily, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I miss a day here or there. I hope to post about 5 pictures per week, with the other two days consisting of tips, links to other websites or tutorials or things like the 30 Day Challenge. If you ever have any suggestions or ideas for things you'd like to see, let me know in the comments on any post!