16-JAN-2010
Day 16 - Ford
(747/365)
This old Ford truck is actually part of a farmer's roadside stand around the corner from our house. I've been wanting to pull over and capture the stand, today I tried the stand, but decided I liked the truck much better. Rather, I liked part of the truck much better. Temps got into the high 40's today, everything is melting and the roadside area was a big huge mudfest. I was able to sink my tripod on a snowbank and keep it somewhat presentable.
15-JAN-2010
Day 15 - Good Morning
(746/365)
Scene this morning in the harbor in Kittery, Maine. I am parked down by Warrens Restaurant looking towards the Shipyard. I had a mixture of wider shots with all the cranes and the whole lobster boat in the foreground, but like this tighter shot better. There is a little bit of blur on the lobster boat due to the 1/40 shutter and the tide. I had the camera on the tripod, so it wasn't me. In the series of shots I took over a span of about a minute, that lobster boat moved across my field of view. In fact, this is the third or fourth shot in this series, I'd originally framed the bow and the antenna only, the boat moved that much to get most of it into frame (knocking it out of focus a tad since I focused Manually on the registration numbers). It was a little spooky doing my pixel peeping, in the full-res version there is a guy smoking a cigarette on the landing on the large crane. He is looking my way, most likely trying to figure out what the crazy guy across the way was doing with the tripod, camera, white lens, and mad bomber hat.
14-JAN-2010
Day 14 - Struggle
(745/365)
I returned to the area beneath the Route 1 Bypass bridge this morning to shoot the rails. The track has been abandoned (as far as I know). It runs (ran) beneath the bridge from Portsmouth to Kittery (I'm on the Kittery Side). There is a section closer to the Kittery side that is opened right now for boating traffic to pass through. There are gates at either end of the bridge preventing access to the track. I've never seen a train on this track, I'd like to though, it would make for a great photo. Anyway, I intended to do a more traditional shot of the rail, sweeping off to the right. While taking a few shots, I saw this little weed in the distance. I set the tripod up without extending the legs for this shot. I like this composition over my initial attempt with only one rail in frame. You need two rails to give it a sort of context. If I could do this over, I'd have set up a little Off Camera Flash to make the weed pop a little more.
13-JAN-2010
Day 13 - Harmen Oldendorff
(744/365)
I originally shot this scene from across the river, beside the Route 1 Bypass bridge that you can kind of see behind this ship (not the big huge arching bridge way back, that is I-95). The sun was already up and causing Dynamic Range Hell (DRH) as the reflections were killing me. The car thermoneter read 6 degrees F, off the river with the wind, it was about 10 below.
Anyway, I jumped back in the car and hit the Route 1 Bypass bridge. On the bridge, I realized that I could get a much better angle on this scene from Downtown Portsmouth, on the docks of one of the restaurants. In the winter, before 9am, this is something that is very possible (and parking is free too). It was equally cold from this particular vantage point, in fact, my fingers froze and took about 15 minutes to thaw. It was the first time I experienced incredible joint pain during this thaw process.
So this was a death-defying mission to capture this photo. I think it was worth it. From this angle, the sun was to my back (behind the buildings), lighting this just right.
12-JAN-2010
Day 12 - Any Tree
(743/365)
I seem to take a photo of this place every year right about this time. Last year there was enough snow for me to walk up to the roof of the shed in the background (OK, perhaps it was the year before last). Anyway, I've wanted to stop to get this sign before it comes down (it's just cardboard). They actually sold out of Xmas trees before Xmas this year. I'm wondering if I could pay them $35 for their spruce or their maple trees in the background. This might be my last year photographing this stand, when I pulled up in the car today, I noticed a "For Sale" sign on the fence out of frame beside the shed. I can't believe I actually used the crappy built in flash for fill in this shot. I was too lazy to go grab the 580EX-2, honestly, I'm not convinced the big guy would have done a better job. It was a little too bright, so I did a little spot burn in Lightroom.
11-JAN-2010
Day 11- High ISO
(742/365)
I've been reading so much about the 7D and it's excellent High ISO performance that I had that on the mind this evening when leaving work. I also realized that I didn't take my photo on the way into work (I had a conference call to get onto), nor did I step out at lunch like I kidded myself into thinking this morning. This was more of a test shot at ISO 3200, cleaned up only a little in Lightroom. The other shots I took this evening just didn't come out right. You can see the flare that drives me crazy with this lens (17-55 f/2.8 IS), it looks like flames coming off the flag pole.
10-JAN-2010
Day 10 - Air Jacob
(741/365)
Jacob catching some air at Powder House Hill this afternoon. This was taken before a failed jump attempt on a different sled. He slammed his right knee into the ice and was in enough pain to warrant a trip to the Emergency Room in Wells. Nothing broken, but enough to end our Powder House trips for th day (We'd actually intended to have one more trip back a little later in the afternoon).
09-JAN-2010
Day 9 - Improving
(740/765)
Saturday morning skateboarding is fast becoming a ritual. The photo ops are pretty cool too. For this one, I broke out my Tokina and set the camera down on the ground. He spent the entire time on this ramp, starting from the other side, rolling back, then back up towards me, then he worked on his turns. 1/2 way through the morning, he was nailing the turns and finishing off in the half-pipe. He was consistent enough for me to risk having my camera about 6" from his board as he was coming up the ramp.
08-JAN-2010
Day 8 - Lights Out
(739/365)
I've been here before though to take a much wider shot:
I couldn't get over the amount of growth by the brush and prickly vines. It took me a little while to navigate the obstacles and to even clear a little place to stand, then set up the tripod and camera. It was a pretty cool morning trek. I am now back in the mode of "PaD photo in the AM" on my drive home tonight, I couldn't remember what I shot in the morning. It took me a few miles to remember.
07-JAN-2010
Day 7 - Tug Tendering
(738/365)
This was an interesting find this morning. I took the Route 1 Bypass this morning to actually get to the Route 1 Memorial Bridge, intending to get some kind of nautical theme. This particular route takes me close to the river to give me a view of the oil dock in Portsmouth. When I saw the tug, I knew what my shot would be. There is something about this particular red, my Canon 40D, and Lightroom. The processed image wants to look like this real cheesy overprocessed cherry color. It took a lot of tweaking to get it to this point. I think it is due to excessive luminanse from the early morning sun (though that is just a guess). It was cold and windy this morning but not as cold and windy as it is supposed to get this weekend.
06-JAN-2010
Day 6- Shapes
(737/365)
A little study in shapes. This is the old supply warehouse on the Tradeport (used to be Base Supply when it was the Air Base). I'm guessing this section is vacant.
05-JAN-2010
Day 5- Get Good Seats
(736/365)
Through the viewfinder, this shot looked so-so. After I got home and looked at it in Lightroom and applied a few adjustments, it was much closer to the theme I originally intended to shoot when I trecked through the snow (again without the boots) to capture something. I wanted enough of the field in frame to let you know it is a baseball field, along with enough snow to give it the "Off Season" feel. It's definately off season around here now.