Shades of Gray

     Some photos just look better in black and white. I don’t know what it is about black and white that can make a photo stand out, look classic, and homey all at the same time. I love it. When I did photography in middle school I always particularly liked how the black and white photos looked, especially since we developed the film and photos ourselves. The amateur developing lent a very raw quality to the photos. Something I wonder is whether there is a way to make negatives from digital photos, or do you have to go full on old-school shooting for that?

 

I swear

…I meant to post yesterday, but I got distracted… by The Walking Dead! I had to catch up on the first couple of episodes of the new show. And by the time I did that, it was late, and I’d completely forgotten about photoblogging. For shame, I know, but blame the zombies, not me! So here you go:

     Just down the road from my campus in the UK was this amazing, and huge, park. I went there a few times with flatmates and once on my own. I lovely morning (but my evening) walk with my Pentax. Nice, peaceful. I found this lovely sort of pathway/clearing with a beautiful veinwork of roots. When I took the photo it was with my MacBook’s desktop in mind. I wanted a nice, clean, simple kind of nature wall. As well as something warm, which I thought this did nicely. I used it for a bit, but not long. It was nice, but just didn’t suit my mood quite enough at the time. If I remember correctly I upped the color saturation a little bit, just to help bring out the warmth of the wood and ground more.

 

Bubbles, but not today

     I didn’t take any photos again today, but I will take a bunch this weekend. My niece is coming over and we are going to have a camp out… in the backyard. We have fun stuff planned. Also, in the morning we are going to watch her play in a soccer game, or football if you prefer. I plan on taking a bunch of pictures of that too. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from my time in the U.K. – what is it about bubbles that can make a group of twenty-somethings act like five year olds?

     Speaking of bubbles. They are extremely difficult to photo. You definitely can’t use auto focus, because the device can’t seem to focus in on the transparent bubble (and I know this is true for many cameras, not just mine). So manual is the way to go. Of course I also found it difficult to get that manual focus tuned just right as well. It doesn’t help that I really need a new pair of glasses, because I’ve been having difficulty discerning when things are in/out of focus. This makes for a frustrating shooting experience, especially when you only have a few moments to get that focus right – like trying to shoot bubbles. The fragility of the bubbles, plus the effects of winds (and unruly flatmates), makes those precious instances very very important. I can get the focus right when I have all the time in the world to be scrupulous, but when in comes to transitory happenings, having to waste time twiddling with the focus means fabulous pictures missed.

     I’m not sure I will be posting this weekend, seeing as how my niece will require most of my attention for entertainment purposes. But, if I don’t post this weekend, I might do some double posts next week. Anyway, time for sleep now, otherwise I might sleep through the football (soccer) game tomorrow!

 

The Eye

     Today is a blah day. So you get a photo I took this summer while I was still in London. The photo was originally over-exposed (still is of course). I readjusted my settings after this photo – which is difficult to get a good read on in bright daylight. I find that the brightness of the LCD display can be deceptive when I am trying to get a gauge on the exposure of my photos – too bright, I end up with under-exposed photos, too dim results in the opposite. I am not at the level yet where I have a good knowledge base of what my aperture/shutter speed should be without doing several tests. I have some general ranges, but nothing even close to fine tuned.

     So this is generally a photo I would have just trashed, but I liked the angle, and I thought the over-exposure actually had an interesting effect. While interesting, it didn’t really end up on my “keep” list until I messed around with the image in iPhoto. I switched it from a colored photo to sepia, which I rather like. I generally try not to mess around with my photos too much in post production, but I do think it is important to experiment. If I hadn’t experimented with this photo, I would not have kept it, and into the digital landfill it would have gone. What a sad thought.