Kicking back, feet up

One of the more popular things on Flickr is to do a “365″ – a project that forces you to get out and take at least one photo each day.  I’ve never been big on these types of projects, personally.  Forcing myself to take a picture gets… pretty miserable results, actually.  So I’ve never done one.  Quality would be lacking, to say the least.

So in regards to the last post: this is not a 365 project.  I will myself to post no more than I want, and only when inspired.

I would also like to point out: there is a link to the Stream of Consciousness to the right, just above the link to my Flickr stream.

See me kicking back with my feet up?  That’s my approach to that site.

If you’ve never followed them, here’s why I liked them: they had timely photos, in large sizes that made an excellent addendum to the news.

This is similar to The Big Picture, who remains on my lists. The WSJ covers many subjects each day.  The Big Picture focuses on a single subject, but in depth.  They normally worked very well together, supplementing each other’s content. Dare I say: there was synergy, having them both in the same blogroll.

So now out goes the WSJ. Is there a replacement that won’t irritate me to the point of vulgarity?  If so, I haven’t found it yet.

Note: I know, the LA Times has tried to follow the WSJ’s lead with their Framework site.  Somehow they have managed to make it even more frustrating than the WSJ’s site.

Dragonfly after the rain

Embracing and extending an idea from another photographer, I decided to setup a tumblr blog for lower-quality photos.

In this case, I noticed on a recent post about social CRM that he had a link to his profile, and on his profile I found a separate flickr stream dedicated to just iPhone pics. This struck me as a great idea: his quality work is separated from his snapshots, so friends (who are likely to care about the snapshots & will forgive the poorer quality) view that, as doubtlessly do a few stalker fans. I enjoyed the beard hat, for what is was worth!

Now, I have a different set of circumstances.  I don’t (yet) have an online gallery; I really only have this blog, a flickr stream, and a personal blog (yes, unlinked).  The focus of this blog is learning – there are writings, meandering thoughts, wordy paragraphs, and occasional photos.  Occasionally I’ll put in a daily snapshot, but it’s rare – those pics aren’t appropriate for the subject here.

Besides, who cares?

I do like the idea of putting out more of my pics, though.  It’s a way to share, and a great way to get feedback.  So in that vein, I started a tumblr feed – check it out, if you so wish. Since Tumblr is a bit easier for those quick, on-the-fly snapshots and observations, that’s what I’m using.

So, for now: the Downhill Stream of Consciousness blog is pretty much a visual record of memorable images that pierce the consciousness enough to stimulate me into posting here. Which is a nice way to say “it’s a repository for my cellphone snaps.”

Take the photo associated with this post, for example: on a completely non-photographic errand, I stumbled across this guy.  Despite it being warm& mid-day, and this guy moving his legs around, he refused to fly off.  The closes camera to me? My cell phone.  What you see here is straight out of that camera, unedited.

So commencing a short while ago: the graphic journal of my awareness commences at Tumblr.

Critique away.

The moon sets

Technical details: shot through the bedroom window as a 7-frame HDR on a monopod.  The monopod and the window account for the blurriness – not a single frame was sharp.  The colors came out nicely, though.

Rainbow, the other side

This is my preferred version between the two…

Rainbow, behind the house

Click the image for a better view.

Update: the other side of the rainbow is here.

Sweet Tooth, detail

The pic above is one of many moderately successful photos that I made very recently.  The entire concept really came together pretty well, mostly courtesy of my wife. See, the original thought was to embed the tooth in a cupcake.  

We have no cupcakes.

My wife was the one who pointed out that our daughter likes chocolate, and it should be in a pile of chocolate.  So chocolate it was, and embedded the tooth became.  This is the concept that was brought to the table (literally and figuratively).

So the first step was to get the candy (yay!), and a small cup.  But against what background?  For me, there was only one choice: red, and solid.  Red, for the pain (and blood) of the lost tooth.  Solid, for the emotional impact.

The background turned out to be the lining of a carton that had originally belonged to some doll, now long lost. It was enhanced with a red-gelled flash.  The lighting itself was courtesy of a soft-box-wrapped flash, reflected off of a book (look closely & you’ll see lettering in the reflections – I left them, ’cause I thought they were kinda cool, in an easter-eggy sorta way).

People who know me, know how much I miss the islands – the water, the sun, the laid-back approach.  Now I’m jealous – to have but a short opportunity to photograph with real mermaids.

Not gonna happen anytime soon, I’m afraid.

Birch Tree, Detail

Look closely and you’ll see a long-legged creepy-crawly guy.  Just a detail from a bike ride on Saturday.

Spiderweb in the Golden Hour

Yesterday I posted the spiderweb in the image to the right to Flickr. This particular photo is, perhaps, my favorite (self-made) spiderweb shot to date. I said that at the time, now I’ll give a bit of an explanation.

Typically I tend to *not* like spiderweb photos: they’re all the same.  Particularly the ones that I take – I see something & try to bring out that detail.  But I never quite… catch the beauty of what I see.

A week or so before going on this vacation, however, I re-read the first couple of chapters from Photography and the Art of Seeing. The author (Freeman Patterson) devotes one of the first chapters to “thinking sideways,” and specifically uses the example of a spiderweb:

Webs are so beautiful in their own right that they had kept me from examining them carefully, and especially from photographing them in a personal way…

…When you think sideways you will find new ways to see your subject matter, and you will stumble upon discoveries and happy accidents.  Abandon your normal premises , and go on a search for new ones.

This was in my mind when I first saw the spiderweb. But it was just a web at mid-day.  Nothing special, kinda dingy.  Later that afternoon, the light began to yellow, and the dinginess turned golden.  At this point I noticed it again, pulled out my camera, and started to circle the web. Looking up, down, climbing on a chair, squatting under it.  On a monopod, off the monopod, against the light, with the light…

… at some point, I found that there was an entire side that brought out the gold in the light.  It wasn’t the typical angle I’d normally look for, but I found the view more pleasing.  I kept working up & down, within the same basic area of light (and quickly, the light fades fast), playing with different depths of field.  I was finding the background to be better than the web.

The end result is what you see; the focus on this one wasn’t the spiderweb itself.  Rather, it was creating an abstract in the background, and then using the spiderweb to break up that pattern.