Day 3 [365]

 Today's theme was the evening sky, just before sunset. I went out in search for the lone cactus I had found on a run the other day, but couldn't find it--will have to look for it again. But, I was lucky enough to have enough clouds in the sky to try out some evening shots. I was surprised at how fast of a shutter speed was required to not over expose the image, 1200+, this image was taken at 1/8000, even though I needed sub 125 to expose anything else, plants, kids, etc, in the same dim lights (makes sense, but still it was a learning experience). I chose this image because of the red flare that was captured. I wish I was more serious about trying to get a bit of the blue sky as well, next time.

Day 2 [365]

Alright, so the goal is to take at least one photo a day, I took the photo (it is ready), but I have not had time to post yet. Will post tomorrow--both day 2 and day 3.





Okay, I'm sure this one doesn't make any sense so I'll explain a bit. I've seen a lot of images taken of dancers or other performers who move from one position to another and the image shows a blur ending in a focused image of the dancer. So I wanted to play around with motion a bit.

If you don't have kids of a certain age, then you probabily don't recognize what this thing is, for those that are curious, it is a Bakugan. These spherical plastic toys open up to reveal a creature when placed on a metal surface, they have a spring loaded magnet that triggers the transformation. So I suspended one on a piece of paper between two bar stools and placed a metal card below the toy as the camera took an picture. I wanted to see how to time the exposure and the motion to get the desired effect.

I played with shutter times varying from 1 to 5 seconds and varied how long the toy would be in sphere mode versus transformed mode. What I found is that these toys transform a little too fast. If I got an image where the transformed shape was well exposed, then the shutter was open for too long and the motion stages were lost. So, this image was the 'best' I got, you can see the original sphere shape along with the transformed, but the transformed is not fully exposed yet (ghostly). I did learn a lot about photographing motion and how to balance long exposure times with aperture settings.

Day 1 [365]

Well, so far so good, I didn't slack off on the first day. This photo is not what I had in mind last night when I first planned out my shooting for the day. But I went in and helped out at my son's class today and in art they made fire flies. Stuck to the rear-end of the paper beetle is a green Christmas light (the small pointy ones), when you hold both ends of the wire antennae to a AA it lights up. Well, I drug him into our pantry, with my camera on a monopod, I cranked open the aperture, stopped down the ISO, and set the shutter speed to 5 seconds and told him to go crazy with the bug.

I was quite surprised at the image, it isn't anything spectacular, but to see the red shift as he changed the speed of the darting bug and its distance from the lens. All the colors came from a little green Christmas light being whipped around by a kid wondering where his dad had lost his marbles this time. 


The nice thing about changing my plans for today is that at least I know what I'm going to do tomorrow.

365 Kick off--Announcement Really

Okay, I know that I'm really only talking to myself, but in hope that someday others may peruse these archives, I'll continue to address my feigned audiance.

Since my aquaintience with photography began only a short 7 months ago there is one thing that I am absolutely certain of, I need experience. So, to continue to give life and use to this fledgling of a blog and to help me become a better photog, startig tomorrow I will begin a 365 goal--I will take, at least one photo each day, and post my favorite.

Goals for this goal:

1. Gain more empirical experience composing, exposing, etc. the world around me.
2. Enhance my sense of creativity, look at the world from many new vantages.
3. Have fun
4. Don't annoy, pester, or otherwise negatively affect the hummer of those I hold dear.

Here we go!!!

My first post. I'm very excited about this new blog, I just got done matching it with my smugmug site, so now I'm ready to get started.