365.138 Smear Campaign 2012

Insofar as I’m feeling wildly uninspired today, I decided to shoot one of the tiny little painting things I made in late 2011, in an attempt to relax and kickstart my creative juices after months/years of neglect. I wasn’t ever satisfied with the paintings much, but it was more an exercise than anything else.

Anyway, I think this one makes a better photograph than it does a painting.

The paintings I made were a variation on a technique I developed as an undergrad, and pretty much stole (poorly) from Gerhard Richter (his Abstraktes Bild paintings, specifically). I smeared acrylic paint onto any smooth surface I could find, and ultimately settled on dry-erase marker board. I named this series of paintings “Smear Campaign” and you can view here if you like, though I wouldn’t really suggest it…

Again, this picture was made in a sort of feeble giving-in, and only out of necessity to keep up the 365 project. Hopefully I’ll be able to do something more  soon.

D7000. Tokina 35-200mm f/3.5-4.5 AT-X, in close focus mode at about 4:1, according to the markings on the barrel of the Tokina. ISO800, 1/25th (AP mode), f/3.5. Some color correction and enhancement in Aperture.

365.137 a bad capture of some brilliant light

If you pay attention, there’s a great light show going on somewhere nearby at virtually any time of the day or night.

Realizing this fact and coming to appreciate light of all types is, on my view, one of the keys to improving skill as a photographer.

Sometimes it’s easy to capture the amazing light that’s all around all the time. At other times, not so much.

I see this sight most weekends (I leave too early in the morning to see it during the week), and I’ve tried to capture it multiple times, but I can’t seem to get it just right.

First, I’m usually on my way to go do something when I notice this light. It’s right outside my front door, and all I have to do is open the blinds and look out, but I usually don’t open the blinds until after 8 or 9 am, if at all. And so I only ever see it when I’m headed out somewhere, and I don’t take the time adjust settings manually or even play with exposure compensation or exposure locking, if I even bother to pull out the camera at all.

Second, I have yet to find a spot where everything lines up just right. (It doesn’t help that this apartment complex is 50+ years old, and a bit out of square… and the big black fountain in the center of the courtyard doesn’t help much either.)

Third, it would help if I had taken the time to check the focus… I thought I had it, but I didn’t really.

So there are two lessons I need to learn from this (at least): 1) Take Your Time, James! Check your settings, adjust your focus, and don’t be in such a hurry! and 2) move around more! If it looks good from here, it probably looks pretty good from over there too!

Actually, I’m usually pretty good about the second, but only when I attend to the first.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8. ISO100, 1/30 (AP Mode), f/5.6, -1EV, very minor adjustments in Aperture.

365.136 Scavenger Hunt Photowalk

The Dallas Photowalk MeetUp Group met up today for a scavenger hunt. I didn’t get much rest last night, and so I sort of mumbled my way through it, but I did manage to capture 8 out of 12 things in one picture (the 365 shot for today, above), another 4 in this one…
365.136 Scavenger Hunt Photowalk
and the final two here:

365.136 Scavenger Hunt Photowalk

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8. ISO100, 1.6 seconds (AP mode), f/22, -1EV, minimal processing in Aperture.

If you’re curious, here’s the full list:

  • Red
  • Big
  • Soft
  • Money
  • Water
  • Reflection
  • Triangle
  • Parallel
  • Place to sit
  • Arch
  • A cover
  • The letter “R”

As you may have noticed, some of my finds were a bit more conceptual than others…

365.135 Apparition

So I got up at my usual (ungodly) hour, let the cats out of bed, made coffee, took out cat droppings, laid out my clothes, took a shower, brushed teeth, dried off, and was absentmindedly pulling on my trousers when I saw it.

I didn’t know whether to scream like a little girl or fall on the ground and praise [insert deity here], so I ran into the living room and grabbed the camera…

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 ai. ISO1600, 1/10th (AP mode), f/2.8.

365.134 Why Hello, Kitty

New graffiti popped up on the old building I pass on the way home almost every day… And it’s pretty nice, too.

Or, rather, some street art-type-stuff popped up on the groovy building I pass every day. Unlike the usual tags and throw-ups I see there, this little stencil is sweet and friendly and (mostly) nonthreatening… This is not to say that the usual tags and throw-ups are threatening, at least not to me anyway.

I’ve had fantasies of buying this building and turning it into an art gallery (downstairs) and residence (upstairs). I know it would be a total money pit, but I really like this old fellow, and hope someone finds a way to do something with it.

iPhone 4. Built-in camera app. Shot from across the street, from the car window, with traffic streaming by, and straightened in Photoshop. If I make the time this evening, I’ll go shoot it properly, though I’m largely fine with this as it is.

365.133 ‘plunge’ is not this picture’s title…

But I couldn’t come up with a better one, and I only decided to abandon it after I’d already uploaded and titled it in Picasa, and it’s too much trouble to delete and start again, so I’m kinda stuck.

Oh well.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8, reversed. ISO400, 1/50th, f/2.8. Adujstments in Aperture were so slight as to not be worth mentioning.

365.132 I always wondered…

…what folding space looked like.

Well, maybe not always, but for quite some time. And I’m sure it looks nothing like that strange-honking scene in that awful Dune movie…

Or maybe this is a Base Ship in orbit above Caprica…

Or it could be something else, something of the actual world, which wouldn’t surprise me much, as this place is fantastic and wondrous as often as not.

Anyway. Enough hypothesizing. It’s really a test to see how the LensBaby performs when stacked on 100mm worth of extension tubes… As expected, it’s not sharp, has no depth of field to speak of, and produces the usual dreamy, blurry stuff for which this model is known.

Good times.

D7000. LensBaby Muse (plastic), stacked on 100mm extension. ISO100, 1.3 seconds (APmode), f/2.0. Quite a bit of adjustment in Aperture to bring out various details.