17-JAN-2009
Day 017 - Muted
Another one of those "I went out to shoot x but wound up shooting z". I'd meant to drive around the corner and shoot the old mill from a different angle. I couldn't find my snow boots before I left (I fear I left them at work), when I got the mill, the spot I wanted to take the photo from required boots, so I drove on. I drove on to the Hamilton House and wound up trudging through the snow. I would have been warmer and drier had I "ponied up" at the original spot and walked around there.
I've never actually been to the
Hamilton House. All my kids have, just not me. It is all of about a mile from the house. I think I will be out there a lot more in the warmer months. There is a beautiful view of the Salmon Falls river, just to the left of these trees actually.
Here's a shot that didn't make my PaD from a barn near the parking area.
16-JAN-2009
Day 016 - Cold Bridge
So it was a balmy -2 this morning on the Maine side of the Pisquataqua river. I say 'balmy' because it was -19 on the ride to daycare. They kids & I were watching the car's thermometer level off. It was so cold I really had no 'inkling' for stepping outside for photography. I strongly considered driving straight in and stepping out for a lunchtime shoot. Good thing I didn't.
I probably couldn't have gotten to the Route 1 Bypass bridge (I don't know it's official name) at a better time for this shot. OK, I lied, I'm sure an hour earlier with the sun much lower on the horizon would have been better, but it would have been harder to keep the shadow details. I had visions of a desaturated color version of this shot, but fell in love with this tritone. Believe me, I tried to get the color to work. After I'd tweaked out the tritone (in Lightroom 2), complete with a couple of gradient filters, copied all but the greyscale settings and pasted into the color version to get the tones. I desaturated the green a tad, but couldn't get the tritone out of my head.
This is a much brighter shot than I am used to. I normally go for darker photos (not sure why). There are no clipped highlights according to the histogram and very little shadow detail lost (very little, almost too little for me ;). I only wish the sky wasn't so blown out 'looking'. What I wouldn't give for a few angry storm clouds (but then the temps would have been much warmer and there would be no fog).
Here's a shot from this morning that didn't make the PaD (From under this bridge):
15-JAN-2009
Day 015 - Sato Printer
Very busy day, I had to rush in early for a customer call (and drop all the kids off at their respective drop off points) so there was no morning photo shoot. I was going to step out at lunch, brave the cold, and get a photo or two but had a project dropped on me. By the time evening rolled around, I wasn't feeling all that [photographically] creative AND I was having a love/hate relationship with this particular printer, so I opted for this particular composition.
For any "Connoisseurs du Barcode Printers" you are looking at a Sato m84 Pro, loaded with 4x6 die cut Direct Thermal stock (you can tell it is Direct Thermal because there is no ribbon), hooked up to the network, driven remotely via TCP/IP. My day job involves writing, maintaining, and all around cussing at the software that drives these kinds of things. This might be the first time that my day job and my photographic obsession have merged.
FYI: "day job" refers to career. I have mad programming skills and we all know that chicks really dig guys with mad programming skills (at least I think my wife does?)
14-JAN-2009
Day 014 - Cold Harbor
It was fricken cold this morning taking this shot. I had to walk a couple of hundred feet down to the river to get this particular shot (though I didn't realize this ship was still in port). The wind was whipping quite strong and it was already cold to start. Something froze on my face (some water from ice or something) it was that cold. I didn't expect much from the shots I took as I only had my monopod and could barely steady that with the wind. The distortion in this photo is actually the heat coming off the water, the water is quite a bit warmer than the air. It was a long shot of the river, the ship had to be a 1/2 mile+ away from me. I have to admit the buoy wasn't planned, I was so cold, I only wanted a picture of the ship to look at later. During Post Processing, I was drawn to this photo, plus there is a sort of "Badge of courage" for even getting the shot ;-)
I did get another photo on the way out of a window on an old barn that didn't make the PaD:
13-JAN-2009
Day 013 - [Dover] Steeple
I had to go back to the Dover pool to cancel my Teenager's Swim Lesson as she had a change of mind. On my way out, I saw this steeple (that I have seen a thousand times before) from a different angle. There's a new traffic pattern coming out the Dover pool, it takes you through some side streets, spilling you out beside a Real Estate building that is partially obstructing this steeple. I pulled over, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. I started with my 17-55, but switched to my 70-200 when it became apparent that I needed a tighter shot.
12-JAN-2009
Day 012 - Winter Bench
We had a blizzard in the morning and then it cleared up just after noon time so I struck out to find something wintery. I tried a place I'd never been too. It is a park that almost underneath the 95 overpass on the NH side of the Pisquataqua bridge connecting to Maine. As I was trudging through the snow, I saw a large ship passing by so I rushed through the snow to get closer to the shore. There is a fence that prevents anyone from going down a hill to the shore, it keeps us in the treeline, enough so to obstruct any kind of decent view. I could see the ship clearly, there were three tugs guiding it in, but there were too many branches in the way to get a clear shot. It is too bad because I wound up sinking into 3 feet of snow [drifts] in the process.
There were a few benches in the woods that looked a little out of place in the winter.
11-JAN-2009
Day 011 - South Berwick Free Baptist Church
We had a snowstorm that actually stopped around noon, clearing up enough in the afternoon for the sun to peek out a bit. I had to run to the grocery store for some last minute items [alone] so I grabbed my gear and set out for something to shoot on the way. I had to watch out as there was still some flakes falling even though the clouds had moved away. The flakes were coming off rooftops and tree limbs, but they were flakes. A lot of my shots into the clock face looked like bad sensor dust. I even had to touch up this shot. I lucked out with the church's white as a background, you can't see the flakes ;-)
10-JAN-2009
Day 010 - Dover Fire Escape
Walked around Dover [NH] today after waiting for an hour & half at the Dover pool for "Out of Town Signups" for swim lessons. For the first time ever, I was #1 and all my kids got in! I brought my current book and got through quite a few pages while waiting. Treated myself to a photo tour afterward. After I'd grabbed my gear and was walking away from my car I heard someone say "Nice Donkey" and it sounded like it was directed at me. He repeated it again and I turned around trying to figure out what the heck he was saying. He actually said "Nice Domke" regarding my J-3, I'd never heard anyone comment on my photo gear before. I have to look him up after uploading today's shots.
This particular shot is of a fire escape on the roof of the old mill building in the center of town. I shot it level, but caught an odd angle of a rooftop in front of the scene so I gave it a rotated crop. I didn't realize the Phallus that was sitting above the stairs, I don't even want to think about what it must have looked like blowing ashes out of it.
It was cold out, I left my gloves on for all but the time that I put my CPL on. I like that I can shoot the 40D with gloves on, something I couldn't do with the XT, though that was an eternity ago. . .
Here are a couple from today's Dover walk that didn't make my PaD (I posted a total of 5 shots from this walk today):
09-JAN-2009
Day 009 - Eerie
This is an odd building beside the hanger that I have been 'hanging' out at a lot this week. I think it was some kind of boiler building. It looks eerie in the summer, it looks more "desert eerie" in the winter.
08-JAN-2009
Day 008 - Ship [in the harbor]
I saw this ship in port yesterday on my way into work. I had a Dr's appointment this morning and had the perfect opportunity to pass by a great vantage point on the opposite side of the river (in Maine) for a chance at photographing this.
I'm not sure how to mark the location for this, I was in Maine taking the photo of the ship that was moored (I hope I got the terminology correct there) in NH.
An interesting phenomenon encountered just after shooting this. You can see it is sunny in this shot, I got on the Rte 1 Bypass bridge to cross the river which was about 150' from where I was taking this shot (if that), it was still sunny. I crossed the bridge and by the time I was driving on land, I was engulfed in a snowstorm, a well-lit snowstorm at that. We had on and off snow all day after that.
07-JAN-2009
Day 007 - An Attempt at Painting With Light
There might have been too much ambient light for this shot tonight. With the fresh snow & the street lights, it was much brighter outside this evening than I'd expected.
I saw a couple of great shots on a grander scale over the Holiday break here at PBase while flipping through the PaD galleries. I decided to give it a try. It is hard to even see the light from my flashlight, it was barely visible in any of my shots. I realized on the spot that I need to get closer with both the camera and the flashlight to make more of an impact. I was using a high power LED flashlight that I thought was pretty clever as it is very white. I thought it was very bright, but the batteries are not fresh, there was a lot of ambient light, and I was standing too far away. This is where doing a PaD can be beneficial, this shot isn't so hot, but it is an attempt and I can learn from it, especially since I think I know what I need to do now.
Oh yeah, it was also pretty cold, but I really can't fix that anytime soon.
06-JAN-2009
Day 006 - Side
This is not actually the "Interesting Architectural Feature" that I was referring to yesterday, but I really like how it turned out during Post Processing. After some cropping, rotating, and pushing of black levels (to 100), I actually had something sort of symmetrical & geometrically interesting. . .