The McKinney Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday morning, I met up with some fellow members of the North Texas Photography Explorers MeetUp Group for a Scavenger Hunt around downtown McKinney, Tx.

The light was abysmal, foggy, lacking any sort of punch, and I used the old Nikon 36-72mm E-Series, which is one of the least contrasty or saturated lenses in my arsenal, so these took quite a bit of massaging in Lightroom.

The Scavenger Hunt list was as follows:
1) Macro/closeup
2) Street Portrait
3) Vibrant
4) Decay
5) Magical
6) Scale
7) Faux animal
8) Strength
9) Curve, i.e circle, arch, prefer not an s-curve but…
10) The letter “P”

I’m missing one, and I’m not going to tell you which was which, but have a guess if you like.

D7000. Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 E Series. ISOs varied between 100 and 1600, focal lengths varied between 36 and 72mm (54-108 on the crop sensor), and I shot in Aperture Priority mode, mostly at f/3.5, but with some f/8s and f/11s tossed in for good measure. Much of this may or may not be in the exif.

And apologies for the lack of sharp focus on many of these. The 36-72 is full manual, I wear glasses, and I did a bunch of focus-and-recompose, after which I moved the focus ring inadvertently… I really should invest in a decent walkaround autofocus zoom lens one of these days.

7/52-04 a week with Incredibooth

Last Sunday, I heard the birds chirping outside, and ran out with the camera to try my hand at some birding. I got a few decent shots, but most of it was mediocre. All of my long lenses are fully manual, and while the Vivitar 70-210 is diamond-slicing sharp, my ability to focus in on fluttering and twittering birds is sadly lacking.

I planned to try some more, and maybe work on the capturing the various Fauna around the new digs for this week’s 7/52.

But then I read an article over on LifeInLoFi about alternate uses for the Incredibooth app, and decided to give the app another try.

Incredibooth was one of the first apps I bought when I got an iPhone, and I played around with it some, but didn’t really give it much thought. After this week, I think I’ve rectified that, and while Incredibooth likely won’t make it out of a folder, it’ll probably stay on the phone for awhile.

One problem I ran into was the lag between tripping the shutter and the app beginning its firing sequence. As the app is modelled after a coin-operated photo booth, there is a 5 second delay between tripping the shutter and the firing sequence. The delay was most noticeable in walking sequences, but close examination—which you won’t be able to do unless I upload full-res images somewhere—reveals gaps in driving sequences as well.

All in all, though, this was a fun experiment, and you may see more of these from me at some point. (As an aside, I have a crazy idea to create some sort of photomontage from sets of these. I’m not quite sure how I’d do it, yet, as the logistical planning seems rather complex, but with the right planning, it might be fun.)

iPhone 5, Incredibooth app. 4 images per strip, 6-36 strips per finished image, combined in Photoshop CS6.

7/52-03 Looking Up

The full title of this week’s 7/52 is “(Things are) Looking Up (I hope).” Of course, given my rather melancholic disposition, I fully expect it all to come crashing down at any moment (whatever I mean by ‘Things’ and ‘all’), despite and because of the fact that things have been on a rather steady upward trend—despite numerous hiccoughs, potholes, detours, and complete changes of direction—for roughly 10 years now, and despite not yet being the person I want to be (and never expecting, really, to become that person anyway, since the description changes regularly such that if I went back and met the James from 5 or 10 or even 2 years ago, he would likely be rather pleased with the person he’s become, though the James from 5 minutes ago would chortle and say “still? Jeez, me, grow up” or somesuch: I expect many of us humans are like this…), and despite the fact that I’ve been sick all week and so only really got out to shoot 3 days—though I did whip the phone out a few times and even included one of those shots here, as a sort of bonus (guess which one without looking at the exif)—I managed to make not just 7, but 8 pictures that I’m rather happy with.

Does that make sense? I like run-on-type sentences, filled with non-sequiturs and digressions, but understand that they can be difficult to follow.

If it’s unclear, try reading it again, slowly, outloud if possible, or just take a gander at the pictures, below, and go on your merry way.

The pictures, by the way, were all take—with the exception of one, shot with the iPhone 5 built-in camera in HDR mode and processed in the phone with Filterstorm, then tweaked very slightly and cropped to match its relatives in Lightroom—the D7000 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G, at ISOs from 100-800, in Aperture Priority mode at Apertures from 1.8-4, and processed with a variety of techniques in Lightroom. The entire process of uploading, culling and processing took a grand total of 95 minutes, including two round-trips to Photoshop for some quick and simple HDRing of two images, and trips to the restroom, coffee breaks, and some playing with the cats.

By the way, I’m really enjoying this 7/52, and feel I’m learning a great deal more with this project than I did with the 365. I’m able to focus more on composition in camera, recognizing and correcting errors quickly, deleting mis-fires and trying again immediately, and the weekly theme helps concentrate my focus and eye throughout the week.

7/52-02 the Castillian’s Flora

I intended to shoot the fora and fauna around the new apartment (the Castillian is the name of these apartments), but managed to be outside without a suitable camera (read: not a phone) all three times that I saw the opossum, and the numerous times I saw squirrels, birds, and various other critters.

So it’s just the flora instead.

I must admit that this is a rather weak showing. I’m not sure what happened. I shot every day; I had a theme before I even started & so knew what I was looking for; I was careful with my framing and composition. I just didn’t capture much that I really like. (One exception being the featured image here, which I like quite a bit.)

Part of the problem: I started the theme intending to shoot from within the confines of the apartment, through the windows, or from my half of the shared front/rear porches. Alas, I quickly ran out of stuff to shoot from those vantages: the rear porch looks out onto the parking lot (and the fence in shots 2-4); the front windows and porch overlook a small yard with few plants and bad light most of the time. So I had to whip out the Zomb-E and go down by the pool, where there is a bit more of interest.

I wonder also if there isn’t a flaw in the conception of the 7/52, or perhaps I’m not taking it seriously enough. This will require some thought.

I’ll try to do better this week, as soon as I get over this slight sickness I have: the first in several years, probably owing to the vast swings in temperature over the last few days (Thursday morning: mid 50s, rain; Thursday afternoon, mid 60s; Friday morning: upper 30s; Friday afternoon over 70; Saturday morning: mid 60s; Saturday afternoon: low 40s, heavy rain; this morning: upper 30s), but diet and lingering moving stresses likely contributed. I should get over it in a day or so, thanks to a return to my usual diet and (hopefully) some relaxation. Fingers crossed.

These were made with the Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron, maybe) (first 4) and the Nikon 75-150 f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. Everything was in Aperture priority, at ISOs from 100-800. Processing took place in Lightroom 4, with a couple of trips into Photoshop CS6 to remove some perspective distortion, and took roughly 2 hours, including time to select the 7, fetch coffee, play with cats, etc.

7/52-1 exploring light in the new apartment

So today begins my 7/52 project.

What is a 7/52 project? It’s sorta like a cross between a 365 project (one picture every day for a year) and a 52 project (one picture per week for a year).

The goal for the 7/52 is to produce 7 pictures per week (defined as the period beginning at 12:00am Sunday and ending 11:59:59.9pm Saturday), preferably on some sort of theme, edited and posted no later than the following Sunday.

The goals with this project are myriad. In no particular order:

  • continue to make pictures on a regular basis, but without the strict mandate to make, edit, and share a picture every single day
  • improve self-curation skills
  • develop, pursue, and work on specific projects, rather than scramble to find something, anything to shoot
  • avoid the huge number of throw-aways I produced during the 365

I intend to avoid using a set of images from a photowalk or some other single event, and will make every attempt to use no more than 2-3 pictures from a single day.

One thing I’ll miss out on is the 365 project community over on Google+. Perhaps I’ll start a group there, if there’s any interest.

So this week’s theme: exploring the ways in which natural and man-made lights infiltrate the new apartment:

Since the subject is light (and, therefore, shadow), the bulk of these are in black & white. I was tempted to throw out the one color image in favor of another pure light picture, but none measured up, to my eye.

For this week, I took a total of about 150 pictures, deleted 100 in-camera, imported ~40 (and deleted 14 of those), for a total of 26 pictures in this week’s Lightroom collection.* Compare that to single days with over 200 shots (and whittled down to 20-30 over many months) during my 365 project.

These were made with the D7000 and either the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 or the Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron, maybe). Most were made in Aperture Priority mode, but at least two were made with manual settings. Full info for each image should be in the exif data, assuming it was retained during upload and is accessible to you now.

*Starting January 1, 2013, I switched from Aperture to Lightroom 4. I’m liking it so far, especially the built-in lens calibration and somewhat smarter spot-healing brush, but I have yet to scratch the surface of what Lightroom can do, and I look forward to learning more as the weeks go on.

Chinese Lantern Festival Photowalk

Friday the 4th marked the first photowalk of the year with the Dallas Photo Walk MeetUp Group (and my first photowalk of the year, period). The lanterns, all built on site over a 3 month stint—were pretty, to be sure, and the dragon—made from an unknown number of plates, bowls, tea bowls, and tiny little saucers—was impressive, but to be honest, I was rather underwhelmed, especially since it cost me $34 ($19 to get it; $15 to park), plus $3 for a cup of hot chocolate.

But I had a good time wandering around with my friend Judy, who has become a favored photowalk companion over the past year or so.

I ended up being largely unimpressed with my efforts, but my night-shooting skills are largely nonexistent, so I suppose that’s something I’ll have to work on in the future.

Everything was shot with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 at ISO800 and in Aperture Priority mode.

Pop Quiz Answers

So a few days ago, I posted a pop quiz for those of you who followed my 365 project. Unsurprisingly, no one came up with any answers, though some promised to look again on a bigger screen, or with glasses, or somesuch.

So here are the answers:

1. Seven objects that were featured at various points in the 365 project appear in this image. Name all seven.
The kaleidoscope; the little chrome thingy from a mens urinal; whatever it’s called; the Maneki Neko; the lamp base; the melted lighter; the handle of my beloved (and now destroyed) 1970 VW Beetle; and the pin screen.

2. Of the 7 objects, one appeared far more than any of the others. Which one?
The kaleidoscope appeared the most, by far.

3. How many times was this object featured in the 365 (not including today)?
The kaleidoscope appeared 20 times, on days 118, 121, 124-132 (inclusive), 144-148 (inclusive), 150, 153, and 175. Nothing else even came close.

4. Two other objects made numerous appearances. Name one and how many times it appeared (not including today)? Bonus: Name both and count both.
The VW handle appeared 7 times, on days 46-52 (inclusive).
The Pin Screen appeared 8 times, on days 61-65 (inclusive), 123, 178, and 179.

The other two questions were subjective short answers, that really required no response, I suppose.

Thanks to everyone for their support throughout the 365 project, especially the curators of the Google+ 365 project, as well as all those who commented, +1’d on various social media sites or even wished me well subconsciously! It was a great and difficult project: I’m glad I did it and glad it’s over, though I’m finding it difficult to leave the camera on the shelf today, and thinking I should get started on a alternate version of the 365 immediately… Oh well. Such is the nature of habits, I suppose.