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Jeremy  > Photo Diary > My 40th Year
This gallery is a complete chronicle of my 40th year, starting on my birthday in 2008. I posted one photo each day for a year. The photo-a-day project continues in this gallery here.
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< 316 of 365 >
Jeremy > March 14, 2009; Day 316. Skyward. Today I ran around with all of my extension tubes attached to my 50mm “normal” lens. Since I have no flowers yet, I settled again on the leaf buds that are growing on my rhododendrons. The extension tubes make this lens behave more like a macro lens by allowing you to get closer to your subject. As with macro lenses, a smaller aperture is needed to maintain depth of field. But the bokeh remains nice because you’re so close to the subject. Although I approached this subject from several angles, this was the best. This will be submitted to my close-up photography class. I didn’t do much else today except to continue to chip away at a mountain of unprocessed photos. After finishing a big set today, I treated myself to a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 which is still good in season 8. Raw: Color Temperature: 4000K; Tint: +15 Raw: Exposure: +1.5 Raw: Recovery: +100 Raw: Fill Light: +20 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 15, 2009; Day 317. "I bet we'll fit one more." Today Peter and I joined my friends in a trip to the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord. I have lived in this city since 1995 and never made the time to come here before. This is doubly sad because I really enjoy astronomy and I remember everything about the day the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. That was 9 years before I arrived; I can only imagine what it was like to have been a resident here in those joyous months before this happened when the teacher from Concord High School was selected to go. But I cannot imagine the grief that must have gripped this place afterwards. It’s possible that Concord has never fully healed. Remarkably little is revealed about the Challenger in these halls. Oh, I've seen the documentaries as most people have. But I was looking for the Concord portion that isn’t revealed in the documentaries. Someday that story will be told. I just hope I’m alive to see it. Anyway, these are my friends piling into an actual Space Shuttle tire, not as big as you would imagine. I’m hoping that the sign doesn’t say “Please don’t play in the tire.” One of these days, this group is going to get us thrown out of a museum! PS: Crop: 10.5MP PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 16, 2009; Day 318. Dust Storm. Tonight was game night in Portsmouth. I resisted the strong urge to play Uno with the boys because I was late with one of my week 1 submissions in my closeup photography class. The church basement has a playroom; in it I found a collection small plastic animals. I got to work. The challenge tonight was coping with an even mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting. I shielded most of the green light but didn’t get it all. The rich black background is a big stuffed gorilla; this also did most of the shielding. The macro lens is nearly at 1:1. No cropping was done. The aperture is small for greater depth of field on the giraffe; this also allows you to ascertain the presence of a second animal in the background, which is still nicely out of focus. Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: +9 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Increase Contrast preset PS: Saturation: -15 (master) PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 17, 2009; Day 319. Working Man’s Game. Tonight I joined my friends in our monthly game of tenpin bowling. This is probably my fourth or fifth daily taken from inside this building. This time I decided not to haul all my gear; just the D700, 300mm f/2.8 lens, and tripod. Turns out, the lens has exceptional VR and the tripod was only useful to store the camera when it was my turn to bowl. The choice of this lens was twofold. First, I paid a lot for it and yet so rarely use it. Second, I wonder whether it will come up as a “closeup lens” in my macro class. It hasn’t yet, but I thought I’d have fun and try a few closeups with it anyway. One problem with the lens is that it will not focus closer than 7.2 feet, so a small subject will not look very close. Luckily humans are big. My friend Marty here is about 10 or so feet away. Tonight Peter joined us and won with a score of 140. I maxed at 131 tonight, but I’m trying to learn how to put a spin on a 16 pound ball. Perhaps a YouTube video will come to my rescue? Raw: Color Temperature: 3800K; Tint: +19 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves adjustment for additional contrast PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 18, 2009; Day 320. Closer, Mr. DeMille. Tonight I delivered to my friend Scott the photos of his loft I took two weeks ago. He liked them and now thinks that it might be fun to collaborate more, him making artistic suggestions and me creating the subsequent images. I look forward to this. I am in search of wide angle close-ups this week, so I was delighted that he let me run around chasing his cat with the 14-24mm lens. Luckily Rocky has no problem with the camera in his face. It’s just another toy to him, which means I’ll be cleaning the lens tonight. I don’t know if I’m going to submit any of these shots for my class. I might. This one is a bit underexposed but I’m not correcting for it because there’s noise lurking in those shadows. I must admit, I really like the warmth of incandescent light. I didn’t seem to need any correcting. A brighter variation of this shot was submitted to my closeup photography class. PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 19, 2009; Day 321. Ring Flash Christmas. Tonight I captured another 1:1 macro shot for my closeup photography class. Searching for a subject, I noticed that the Christmas cactus is still flowering. I knew that I already had a prior daily of this flower, but that one was shot with ambient light and a long shutter speed. A tripod was required, as is usually true with macro shots. The class recommended getting the $90 Phoenix RF46N ring flash. This flash attaches to the end of the lens in order to illuminate the ostensibly very close subject. One nice thing is that the lens itself is never in the way casting shadows on the subject. Since the light source is so close, very fast shutter speeds can be used even though the aperture is small. I handheld this shot. Unfortunately, the camera was still set at ISO 3200 from yesterday’s shot. This explains why the flash didn’t produce much light and recharged so quickly! A black and white variation of this flower was submitted to the class. Raw: Color Temperature: 5750K; Tint: -16 Raw: Recovery: +100 Raw: Exposure: -0.2 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 20, 2009; Day 322. The Rust Mountains. Today I finished the Week 1 assignment in my closeup photography class. Week 1 included a requirement to include a closeup of an industrial shot (no nature). I have had my eye on this rusty wheelbarrow for some time thinking that it might yield some nice color and texture. Today, finally, I was able to free it from the frozen earth where it had been sitting since last autumn. Also, I benefited from clear skies which provided bright sunlight to both thaw the ground and provide hard light for texture. Hard light is good for texture because it casts shadows so easily. Position the wheelbarrow just right and the rust leaps off the otherwise smooth-looking side. The fact that the wheelbarrow will hold 6 cubic feet of volume is printed just below the "a" and the "c" in Jackson, as you can see from the alternate photo. This is a miniscule amount of the wheelbarrow in the frame. The world of macro is a very big place. This photo was submitted to the class. Raw: Color Temperature: 3400K; Tint: 0 Raw: Recovery: +4 Raw: Blacks: +4 Raw: Brightness: +18 Raw: Contrast: +51 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Curves adjustment to give the effect of developing E4 slide film in C41 chemicals PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 21, 2009; Day 323. Jewell Grande. I joined my friends Mike, Glenn, and Brian for lunch today. We decided to dine at Jewell and the Beanstalk, a superb little restaurant in Manchester with some of the best ambiance and possibly the friendliest attitude in town. And the food's not bad either. Peter and I had previously been here a few times for breakfast. This is Brian posing with his sandwich without my even asking. This was obviously taken with a fisheye lens. It's the last assignment for Week 2 in my close-up photography class. The fisheye is actually great for closeups, but not so great for portraits. I’m using the D80 because my fisheye lens is for DX only. Someday I will get the 16mm FX fisheye but not before I get the 70-200mm f/2.8. The light is ambient. This might have been a good place for a little fill flash bounced off the ceiling, but I didn’t have my flash with me, and you have to be quick to catch Brian in a pose. So I used Photoshop to extract some fill light instead, and decided that the blown-out windows actually make the scene less busy. Glenn (whose hand you can see at far right) strong-armed me into revealing to the staff at this place that one of my long-time fantasies is to have a photo of mine hanging on their wall. Their reply: “Bring it to us. We’ll hang it for a month.” Sweet! Now I have to get busy. Thank you Glenn. I will submit this to the class if I don’t get a better fisheye shot tomorrow. Raw: Color Temperature: 4450K; Tint: -6 Raw: Recovery: +100 Raw: Fill Light: +25 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Crop: 7.5MP PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Curves adjustment for additional contrast PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > March 22, 2009; Day 324. Fisheye Supper. Today Peter and I made a homemade turkey soup that was way better than the first one we made a few months ago. This time we refrigerated the broth overnight so that we could render the fat. Also, we cooked the noodles separately and controlled how much pasta was added. As you can imagine, that first soup was a greasy pasta dish. Tonight's was fresh turkey soup. What a difference. To accompany the soup I bought a pound of ground bison and we made burgers. Bison should not be overcooked and sadly, this burger is. Luckily I had seasoned the meat before cooking and that’s a slab of Vermont cheddar on top so it still was tasty. This was taken with the fisheye lens in an attempt to better my shot from yesterday. Didn’t happen, so I’ll be submitting that one to the class. Still this is a fun lens. That's Peter way over there in the distortion wing. Raw: Color Temperature: 2950K; Tint: +3 Raw: Fill Light: +22 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
March 14, 2009; Day 316.

Skyward.

Today I ran around with all of my extension tubes attached to my 50mm “normal” lens. Since I have no flowers yet, I settled again on the leaf buds that are growing on my rhododendrons. The extension tubes make this lens behave more like a macro lens by allowing you to get closer to your subject. As with macro lenses, a smaller aperture is needed to maintain depth of field. But the bokeh remains nice because you’re so close to the subject.

Although I approached this subject from several angles, this was the best. This will be submitted to my close-up photography class.

I didn’t do much else today except to continue to chip away at a mountain of unprocessed photos. After finishing a big set today, I treated myself to a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 which is still good in season 8.

Raw: Color Temperature: 4000K; Tint: 15
Raw: Exposure: 1.5
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 20
Raw: Saturation: 6
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
> March 14, 2009; Day 316. Skyward. Today I ran around with all of my extension tubes attached to my 50mm “normal” lens. Since I have no flowers yet, I settled again on the leaf buds that are growing on my rhododendrons. The extension tubes make this lens behave more like a macro lens by allowing you to get closer to your subject. As with macro lenses, a smaller aperture is needed to maintain depth of field. But the bokeh remains nice because you’re so close to the subject. Although I approached this subject from several angles, this was the best. This will be submitted to my close-up photography class. I didn’t do much else today except to continue to chip away at a mountain of unprocessed photos. After finishing a big set today, I treated myself to a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 which is still good in season 8. Raw: Color Temperature: 4000K; Tint: +15 Raw: Exposure: +1.5 Raw: Recovery: +100 Raw: Fill Light: +20 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
March 14, 2009; Day 316.

Skyward.

Today I ran around with all of my extension tubes attached to my 50mm “normal” lens. Since I have no flowers yet, I settled again on the leaf buds that are growing on my rhododendrons. The extension tubes make this lens behave more like a macro lens by allowing you to get closer to your subject. As with macro lenses, a smaller aperture is needed to maintain depth of field. But the bokeh remains nice because you’re so close to the subject.

Although I approached this subject from several angles, this was the best. This will be submitted to my close-up photography class.

I didn’t do much else today except to continue to chip away at a mountain of unprocessed photos. After finishing a big set today, I treated myself to a few episodes of Stargate SG-1 which is still good in season 8.

Raw: Color Temperature: 4000K; Tint: 15
Raw: Exposure: 1.5
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 20
Raw: Saturation: 6
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D700) |
More details: exif |
Original size: 2832px x 4256px |
Current: 200px x 300px |
Other sizes: Small • M • L • O |
Share photo: links, forums, blogs |
Keywords: flora ambient tripod rhododendrons 50mm d700
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