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.

365.369 ready for a new year

And this will be the last daily photo, for this round, anyway. I might, one day, do the 365 again, and, who knows, I might go crazy and just keep going (but I doubt it).

This got quite a bit more post processing than is my usual, all due to an attempt to “expose to the right” instead of my usual “let it fall where it may” (usually to the left).

I should’ve given it one more go, dropped the SB700 to 1/2 power, or stopped down, or something, but by this point (53 shots in; after finding the D7000 refused to focus on a timer, refused even to start the timer without anything in focus, so I had to fetch something roughly me-sized and prefocus on it, manually, as the D7000 refused to focus on it either; after finding the batteries mostly dead in the SB700; after cursing at my #&$*#(@ hair; etc.) my back was screaming at me, and I was screaming at the camera, flashes, and self, and so this is it.

I had to burn/polarize/intensify contrast on my face to get any sort of skin tone out of it, then erase all that out of my lips as they had turned the color of my hoodie, then darken up the brick and lighten up the firebox, and I don’t even know what else.

And then to find that it’s not quite in focus. Bah.

This is pretty much the story of my (first, maybe) 365, and so I suppose it’s a good way to end it.

At least I look peaceful, here.

And so this marks the end of 2012, the end of the 365 project, and very probably the end of my regular usage of Aperture, as 1) Lightroom is burning a hole in the Dock and 2) Aperture had to rebuild its library yesterday and I had to force quit it just now. I’m not sure Lightroom will be any better, but at least it will be new for a bit, and something different to curse at in the future…

Happy New Year, G+!

And thanks again to the fine curators of the 365 group! I wouldn’t have made it without your support and encouragement, and I definitely owe you all a beer or something.

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO200, 1/40th, f/4. Vivitar auto 200 flash, triggered by a Cactus V5 trigger and firing into the firebox; SB700, SU-4’d, at full power, firing into a half collapsed umbrella high camera left. About 5 minutes of post processing in Aperture.

365.368 last sunrise with the iPhone 4

Well, I went and did it… I didn’t intend to, but I ended up at the Apple store, and so I pulled the trigger on an iPhone 5. I didn’t really need a new phone, but I spent much of the morning fighting with technology of various types, and I did need a treat of some sort. Chocolate or a milkshake would’ve likely been better ideas, but neither were there in the Apple store with me, so…

I shot this gorgeous sunrise on the way to take the laundry out this morning. It was so pretty that I stopped and shot a few frames. I’m glad I did, too, because I have no will left to pull out the big camera and make a picture, or even to try one with the new phone.

Oh well. It’s almost dinner time, many of my tedious tech projects will end overnight tonight or early tomorrow, and I’ll hopefully be able to spend a couple of days actually relaxing on this end of year vacation.

Hopefully…

iPhone 4. Built-In camera app in HDR mode. Two shots combined and tweaked in TrueHDR, then had a B/W luminance layer added in Filterstorm, then went to Dynamic Light to blow up the color a bit, then back to Filterstorm for the crop I forgot to make earlier.

I’ll miss you, iPhone 4. You were my first smartphone, and you were the one that got me shooting seriously. Here’s hoping your cousin can be even half the camera you are.

365.367 Olive

Well, I shot a bunch earlier today—went by the old apartment to take loads of pictures of how nice and clean it is for when the former landlords try to charge me for cleaning it…—and kind of had to force myself to find something to shoot this afternoon.

Luckily, cats are always around. Unfortunately, this apartment is just as dark as the last one…

Fortunately, I’ve been wanting to try some impressionist photography, though I would prefer to do it consciously, rather than have it (or something like it) occur largely by chance…

But I like this picture anyway, and it’s loads more interesting and fun than all the ones I made this morning.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron, maybe), in Macro mode. ISO800, 1.6 seconds (AP mode), f/3.5. About 45 seconds of processing in Aperture.

365.366 pop quiz

1. Seven objects that were featured at various points in the 365 project appear in this image. Name all seven.

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

3. How many times was this object featured in the 365 (not including today)?

4. Two other objects made numerous appearances. Name one and how many times it appeared (not including today)? Bonus: Name both and count both.

5. What would you have liked to see more of?

6. What would you have liked to see less of?

Answers will be provided in the coming days.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron, maybe). ISO800, 1/40th, f/3.5. Minimal white balance correction and a very slight crop in Aperture.

lol