Day 127 (July 16) - I Should Buy A Lab Coat

Taking a page out of yesterday's book. This is not as dramatic a photo, nor as dramatic a change, but I still turned an image I would have thrown away into one that I'll keep, for now.

Here's the original (I'm still cringing, showing it). I took this seconds after the other one. I thought I wanted a narrow depth of field, but now I'm not so sure. I think maybe I would like more of the water to be in focus. What do you think?

Day 126 (July 15) - Experiment

So far, I've kept my use of Lightroom to what I thought would make the images look more like the reality I saw. I edited, sure, but I kept it restrained. Well, today on Scott Kelby's blog there was a post from David Nightingale, also known as Chromasia, and his story went kind of like this (he told it much better): in processing bad images he learned how to create better ones.

And this is a kind of learning I've been doing too; processing my images makes me think about what I could have changed at the time of capture and I truly believe it has made me a better photographer. But a lot of images (the really bad ones, and the just sort of 'meh' ones) I just don't process. I ignore them, I delete them, and then I forget them.

But. Today. I decided to rescue one. Not a full rescue, mind you. And maybe not a successful one. I don't absolutely love it, and I'm sure there are some terrible mistakes I made in the processing, but I think it was a good exercise. And one I'll try to repeat in the future.

Okay, and now here's the before picture. I almost don't want to show it, because it's so blah, and why did I take it in the first place? But brutal honesty is good for the soul, right? Please bear in mind this is a raw file with no processing: no sharpening, no color adjustment, nada. All the stuff my camera could have done for me to make it better, I said "No thanks. I'll do it myself."


If you're curious, this was taken during a rainstorm at school yesterday.

Day 125 (July 14) - Fan

Inspired by my now no longer auto focusing lens, I decided to experiment with a little blur. This is our blue fan. I rotated the lens during the exposure.

f/1.8, 0.6 seconds, ISO 100.

Day 123 (July 12) - Some Photo News

I didn't take any photos today, but I did get a lot of things done. I finally finished editing and processing all the (decent) photos from Myanmar, so expect a long overdue post about our trip there on the other blog soon. I also think I'm going to try to make them into a book, and maybe an ebook as well, although I'll have to learn some new software to do it. So, we'll see. Still in the thinking stages for all of that.

The photo above I took at Inle Lake, on our day trip there.

I have also set up a new account at Red Bubble, a sort of online art shop, so if any of you are dying for some prints, you can grab one there. I'm still uploading photos, so if you know of one you want that you don't see there, just send me an email or leave a comment here. Here's the link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/quotidianphoto.

Day 122 (July 11) - Our Puppet

Did you know we have a puppet? Well, we do. We spent all of 15 dollars on him in Myanmar, which for us seemed like a fortune at the time, given that we had brought only a finite amount of cash into the country. He's pretty scary, don't you agree?

In other news, I think the autofocus on my 50mm f/1.8 Canon lens is broken. I'm not sure where to go to get it fixed, but I love that lens. I need my 1.8! It was working just fine in Chiang Mai, but today, no bananas. It gets close to focus, then just keeps searching. I'm pretty sure it's under warantee, but figuring that out is going to be a big headache.

Anyway, the manual focus still works fine, so that's what I used for this picture. But I'm lazy, and I like my autofocus!

Day 119 (July 8) - Panning

Any photographer will tell you, panning is no easy trick. Basically you make sure your shutter speed is relatively slow, and then you move your camera with a moving subject. If you're lucky (and talented, too :)), your subject will be (relatively) in focus and the background will be blurry. This is a great way to show movement, because a shorter shutter speed often makes the subject look like they are standing still.

Anyway, Evan went to the go-kart track our last day in Chiang Mai, so I practiced my panning skills. I had nothing else to do! I don't know if you've ever been to a track, but it can get kind of repetitive, the round and roundness of it all.

Out of some probably 50 pan attempts I took, only a handful were decent. But I did notice that I got better over time. At least it's now another trick in my arsenal. Check out our other blog for a couple more pan shots that turned out ok.

I apologize for the noonday sun and harsh lighting. Sometimes that's when the pictures happen, though.