365.351 missed it by that much

Best laid plans… I was wrapping up the last bit of work today when I got a simple question from the boss.

While I was typing up a simple reply to the simple question, I received a request for some metrics from my team.

I sent of the simple reply to the simple question and opened the metric spreadsheet to add my data.

Sadly, the metric spreadsheet was out of date by at least two weeks, and it too, me about 40 minutes to sort everything out and send back my numbers.

I looked at the clock. It indicated that I had reached and breached the 9.5 hour mark for the day.

So I didn’t finish the little bit that I had left; I shut everything down and left, as I had plans to go shoot the (soon-to-be) new apartment.

I went and shot the (soon-to-be) new apartment. I took measurements of all the rooms, the doors and windows and portals to other spaces, and noted the locations of power and phone and cable lines. I talked to a couple of (soon-to-be) new neighbors. I drove home.

Oh my, were the texting-while-driving drivers out in force today!

I spotted this while stopped at a stop light that I wouldn’t have had to stop at had the jerk three cars ahead not been busy with something other than driving his/her car. I grabbed the camera and shot two quick shots before the light changed and I could finally come home (where Aperture decided that its Library was corrupted and in need of repair, again: two days in a row! GoGo!).

Had I been maybe five feet closer to the intersection, this would’ve been lined up perfectly dead center, but had the jerk not been too busy to drive, I would’ve missed it all together and I’d be fumbling around trying to find something to shoot instead of writing this too-long rant, so GoGo, I guess.

Also, had there been a goofy dog-walker or some men in suits/hats or a couple necking or some kids running by or a leggy blonde strutting somewhere or some other non-exploitative human subject in the frame, this would be a mediocre street shot instead of… whatever this is.

Again: I’m tired. (<– also two days in a row…)

D7000. Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G at 18mm. ISO100, 1/400th, f/10, in Program mode (where my special, double secret real estate shooting user settings are based). About 2 minutes of slider play in Aperture.

365.350 afternoon snack

After 350, you’d think I’d remember to reset the camera after I get done shooting for the day.

Alas.

After shooting the HDR of the crumpled paper yesterday, I left the camera in bracket mode and at ISO400.

For the first 8 shots of a picture-making session that should’ve taken maybe 3, maybe, I finally realized that the wild, incomprehensible variations in exposure were neither particularly wild nor particularly incomprehensible: the D7000 was still in bracket mode.

And then the last two bites of banana fell onto the floor, leaving me the option of coming up with another subject or torturing one of the under- or over-exposed shots from the silly, face-palmy error into submission.

And then Aperture crashed the mac twice, and I had to rebuild the library (after determining that Aperture was the culprit). This left me more determined than ever to switch to Lightroom in 2013.

I’m tired.

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO400, 1/400th (Bracketed AP mode: should’ve been ~1/100th), f/1.4, -2 EV (Bracket mode, again). 50 minutes of torturous, computer-crashing slider and brush play in Aperture including perhaps 2 or 3 minutes of actual image processing.

365.349 packing paper

And another day of just not feeling it… There was frost on the car this morning, and I shot it, but with rather poor results, and by the time I figured it out, I had about 40 minutes left to shoot, edit, and share before dinner, and you know how I just _have_ to finish up the 365 before dinner. (Why, exactly, I don’t know.)

So I looked around at the shambles my apartment has become of late, what with a growing pile of packed boxes and packing supplies piled up in the living area.

I don’t know about you, but clutter drains me, and my place is currently very cluttered. I guess that’s what I get for deciding to move, and so the last 2-3 weeks of this project will likely be the most difficult (inspiration-wise) of them all. Oh well.

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO400; 1/100th, 1/25th, 1/6th; f/1.4; -1EV. Shot a three-shot bracket, imported almost directly to Photoshop CS6 and HDR’d (for no good reason), and sent to Aperture, where it received ~3 minutes of slider play, a b/w conversion, and my usual addition of a very slight Sepia tone to make the b/w go a bit silver.

365.348 ugly bokeh, an attempt

Simon Davis-Oakley—one of the curators of the 365 project and community over on G+—created this assignment (sort of) on the G+ 365 Community pages.

The assignment, should we choose to accept, was to shoot a 365 pic with foreground and background bokeh, and it followed a brief question and longer explanation of ‘Bokeh’ that took place over the preceeding days.

I don’t know why, but in pondering what to shoot today, I decided to produce some ugly bokeh.

I pulled out the second Most-Unlikely-To-Produce-Decent-Bokeh lens (the Nikon 36-72 f/3.5 E-Series), and started shooting.

I shot one of these at 36, but as far as ugly bokeh goes, this one (at 72) was better.

Note the line of gumdrops running across the center of the frame. Pleasant bokeh would likely feature a smooth wash of color through here.

Note also, the doughnut (or, in Ken Rockwell’s language, “rolled condom”) bokeh balls, and the colored fringing on the highlights in the background. The fringing is due to a bit of CA this lens produces, and the doughnut is due to this being a consumer-grade walkaround lens from Nikon’s cheapo line.

Despite these, I didn’t get the maddeningly ugly bokeh I was hoping for. Note the rather pleasant soft-focus on the pile of leaves to the left, and the way the foreground bokeh works to push the into the leaves.

So I might have to try again with the Most-Unlikely-To-Produce-Decent-Bokeh lens, the Nikkor 10-24mm…

D7000. Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 E-Series, at 72mm. ISO100, 1/25th (AP mode), f/3.5, -1EV. About 15 minutes of slider play and brushings in Aperture. (If you think this is ugly, you should see the original…)

365.347 the case

I’m feeling woefully out of it today.

I woke up at 2:30am, looked at the clock, and said “Nope. It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”

I went back to sleep.

I woke up at 2:37am, looked at the clock, and said “Nope. It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”

I went back to sleep.

I woke up at 2:44am, looked at the clock, and said “Nope. It’s too early. Go back to sleep.”

I failed to go back to sleep, and was making coffee before 3. I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to nap, three times, and I haven’t eaten much of anything all day. So it’s no wonder that I’m totally out of it today.

I managed to make some beans, and I managed to given the kitchen a half-arsed cleaning afterwords, but I didn’t manage to nap or do much beyond wishing I could nap.

But I did manage to make this picture, while lounging on the sofa with the cats and watching the newest Batman movie, (I bit my nails all the way through, and cried at the end), and I think it (the picture) may fit into the mystery story I’ve been working on, off and on, more off than on, for several months: it has a very noir-ish quality that I like quite a bit.

iPhone 4. Hipstamatic. John S Lens, US1776 Film. A very minor bit of cleanup of a couple of distracting bright spots in the lower right via the clone stamp in Aperuture.

365.346 a schizophrenic spiderweb (oooohh uh spiderwebs… leave a message and I’ll call you back)

…a likely story but leave a message and I’ll call you back…

And two days in a row now I’ve spent half my shooting time wondering what to shoot.

…and it’s all your fault

Given that I spent most of the day packing and arranging for a truck and conning buddies into agreeing to help me move in a couple of weeks (not to mention grocery shopping, naps, and randomly surfing the intewebs), this lack of inspiration is either understandable or completely mystifying. After all, I had all manner of potential subjects at the upscale-ish big box store, the pet supply mart, and the low-rent grocery, plus I was up early enough to have shot the sunrise or the random assortment of light sources around the apartments, but I passed them all by with narry a second thought. (I did pull the phone out and grab a couple of snapshots, but none worthy of a 365.)

I screen my phone calls

Even worse, I now have No Doubt stuck in my head… shudders

no matter matter matter matter who calls, I gotta screen my phone calls

D7000. Vivitar 50mm f/1.8 (Cosina), reversed, on 40mm extension. ISO400, 1/125th (AP mode), f/8, -1EV. About 10 minutes of fiddling in Aperture to get back to pretty much what the jpeg preview looked like…

Also: any idea why Aperture would be failing to grab the exif data on the first picture on a card? This is the second time it’s done this to me. I caught it this time, and was able to re-upload a version with the data intact, but I’d really like to figure out what’s up so I can fix it.

no matter who calls, no matter who calls
I’m walking in the spiderwebs
leave a message and I’ll call you back
I’m walking in the spiderwebs
leave a message and I’ll call you back
It’s all your fault
no matter who calls
I gotta screen my phone calls
it’s all your fault
leave a message and I’ll call you back

365.345 bubblicious

I was totally drawing a blank on what to shoot today, so I went to the kitchen and poured a nice glass of iced tea. Quite coincidentally, it was the last glassful in the pitcher, and—also coincidentally—the pitcher was filthy with accumulated tea stains dating back an unknown quantity of months.

I started to just leave the stains to accumulate and make another pot, as I was feeling rushed to find a subject for today’s picture, but since I didn’t have a clue, I decided to go ahead and give the tea pitcher a good scrubbing.

So I washed it: multiple stains remained.

I washed it again, and again stains remained.

So I decided to give it a good soak.

I started the pitcher filling with nice warm water, added a small quantity of soap, and soon the pitcher was overflowing with foamy soap suds.

!

I fetched the camera, bolted on the Vivtar 50mm f/1.8 in reverse, and went to town, with disappointing results.

I set the camera down to go back to scrubbing, and noticed that I had forgotten to wash the lid to the tea pitcher.

So I screwed the lid down, swished it around a good bit, and gave it a scrub.

When it was nice and clean, I noticed that the pile of bland-looking suds in the pitcher had reduced to a skim of rainbow bubbles on the surface of the water.

Again with the camera and the macro rig, and this time: success!

D7000. Vivitar 50mm f/1.8 (Cosina), reversed on 40mm extension. ISO800, 1/60th (AP mode), f/1.8, -1EV. About 4 minutes of slider play in Aperture to bring out the color in the cloud and bring up the shadows in the field.