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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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< 355 of 365 >
Jeremy > April 19, 2009; Day 352. For the Love of a Pug. Peter and I spent an hour at one of my favorite pedestrian bridges in Manchester in search of photography for our class. There’s never a photographic lull here. Sadly, the bridge is slowly being vandalized with graffitti and even some of the lamp posts are having rocks thrown at them. Nevertheless, many families use this bridge to walk, run, bike, and stroll with the dogs. While we were here a couple arrived with their 4 pugs, and they allowed us to photograph them. I noted that two of them were very much like Peter’s pugs Bruiser and Molly. This one that he’s being affectionate with looks more like Bruiser. This particular expression on Peter’s face is quite fitting; a combination of bemusement and remembrance and loss…Peter had to make the heartbreaking choice to put Bruiser to sleep last year, not long before this daily project began. Although I am not a dog person, I am humbled by the love and commitment that dog-lovers have for their pets. That's the Manchester city skyline in the background. The sun is behind us to the left; Peter is mostly in the shadow of the couple holding the dogs. Raw: Color Temperature: 7500K; Tint: 0 Raw: Recovery: 100 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 20, 2009; Day 353. The Old New. I was in Portsmouth this evening and had only minimal free time for photography. I spotted this building last year and kept it in my mind for a possible daily when the light was right. Sadly, the light is not right, not yet. I’m not even sure about this angle. But I liked that although there is only one customer inside, his load of laundry completely steamed the windows. I’ll do this again when the outside light is bluer. I’ll also try a few more angles. It would be nice to capture some action inside too. I appreciate Kashaaf’s comment on yesterday’s photo. My first thought when I saw the photo was “That should have been vertical.” My second thought was, “Too bad we can’t see the pug’s face too.” The vertical would have shown more of the pug, although getting its face would have required a different angle. I personally liked the soft railing and city but a shot like that doesn’t require a sense of place, at least not the way a Hawaiian sunset really benefits from a palm tree in there somewhere. Raw: Color Temperature: 5200K; Tint: 0 Raw: Recovery: 35 Raw: Blacks: 3 Raw: Brightness: +48; Contrast: +51 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 21, 2009; Day 354. Diagnostic Test. Just a quick, dull snap to take advantage of a still-clean house and get in a little practice with interior lighting. I have much to learn. There’s a big shadow on the floor (that's my desk) and I had to use a little Photoshop light bending to balance the light; the edges were bright and the center was dark. I may have been able to solve both problems by moving the light source at camera right to the edge of the desk. But then I'd need to be careful to avoid a bright ceiling... Those pillows don't look very happy either. Kashaaf makes me laugh and think. I also was aware of my eyes lingering in all the places he mentioned in yesterday’s photo. Is that a chair in the alley? Could the car be persuaded to reflect more? Do I want viewers thinking about any of these things? I hope there will come a day when I will know my mistakes simply by observing how easily my eyes are diverted from the main subject. Thank you again. Raw: Crop: 9.5MP Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: +2 Raw: Recovery: 100 Raw: Fill Light: 20 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves adjustment for additional contrast PS: Healing Brush to remove a spec of sensor dust PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 22, 2009; Day 355. Manna. I may be coming down with a cold. I certainly was stuffy and lethargic today. Thus it was with great relief that I pulled open the blinds on my bedroom window this morning and found this guy perched on the wire that feeds the electrical power to my house. He’s about 12 feet away from me. Remarkably, he was not overly startled by the blinds going up, so I immediately dashed for my camera and 300mm lens. He allowed me to take 17 shots before a passing car spooked him away. This was shot through a window and a screen on a foggy morning, so a lot of post-processing was needed to draw out the color and contrast. I was lucky to get this much sharpness. Although his face is not as sharp as I would like, this is a handheld shot with a shutter speed 4 1/3 stops below the minimum you’d want for this focal length (1/320s). Nikon’s VR on the exotics is pretty good. If I had a 600mm exotic and a 1.4 teleconverter I could have just gotten a frame-filling shot of the texture in those feathers. Or not…the minimum focus length on that beast is probably longer than what I’ve got here. Oh well, this would have been the very first shot in the past year where I'd actually want it. That means I won't be shelling out $10K for one any time soon. Raw: Crop: 7.8MP Raw: Color Temperature: 5750K; Tint: +17 Raw: Exposure: +1.1 Raw: Blacks: 21 Raw: Brightness: 0 Raw: Contrast: +50 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Healing Brush to remove a lone spectral highlight on the wire PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 23, 2009; Day 356. Rough Trade. Tonight was Week 2 in my for-real photography class. Tonight the instructor poured on the math. We got depth of field, focal length, distance to subject, aperture, shutter speed, and how all of these things relate. There was so much math that we only had time to get through two of the student’s Week 1 assignments. One of the students whose work we saw was this fellow. He’s good. The other was my friend Steve. He's also good. I like the challenge these guys implicitly present! While we were practicing depth of field with our telephoto lenses, I snapped this shot with my 300mm lens mounted on a tripod. The VR feature is turned off (no need on a tripod). On a tripod with this much focal length and this little distance to subject, I almost certainly could have shot this at f/8 and would have had both eyes in focus. A better portrait? Maybe. Also, I cannot decide whether it's a problem that he's looking out of the frame. Looking into the frame would mean a lot of negative space, ya? This guy was unkindly referred to as "sourpuss" in the Week 1 photo of the day. That's why I decided to give him such contrasty treatment here, to make up for it. I’m enjoying the class but I’m not sure that Peter is. I’m hoping that we delve more into composition next week. I will try to review the math with Peter this weekend. This was shot in the classroom’s fluorescent ambient light. Here’s the original JPEG from the camera with a bit of sharpening applied. I'm a bit amazed at the comparison. Raw: Color Temperature: 3050K; Tint: +5 Raw: Exposure: -0.6 Raw: Fill Light: +40 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Curves: Increase Contrast preset PS: Channel Mixer: Black & White with Blue Filter preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 24, 2009; Day 357. Don’t Go Into the Light, Carol Anne. They say that botulism is an argument for gun control that no conservative can refute. I daresay the delirium, fatigue, shivers, sweating, coughing, drooling, and possible fever of a runaway head cold is a close second. I hate being sick. I understand that it’s a good way for the body to get a fresh stock of antibodies, but it’s no fun. It’s also a good forced time-out from the things in life that give you stress. Sitting on the couch all day getting caught up on South Park and Nova was a nice change of pace. I did finally succumb and took some medicine which restored my mental state sufficiently to process another day’s worth of photos from the Vermont workshop, here. If I’m not well enough to do either of the planned activities I had lined up for tomorrow, I may be able to finish the set this weekend. I am relieved to notice that there isn't any gum stuck under the coffee table. Raw: Color Temperature: 4400K; Tint: -1 Raw: Recovery: 100 Raw: Fill Light: 10 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 25, 2009; Day 358. Down and Out, Day 2. Today was a better day than yesterday, but I was still mostly miserable. I was able to sit in the recliner rather than flat out on the couch, so I got to watch some sorely-missed Stargate: SG-1 episodes today. This may have sapped my creativity a bit. Nevertheless this box of tissue was my friend and is nearly depleted now. I did not enjoy having to cancel two invitations for today, one of which included the use of my video camera, which so rarely happens. Luckily that event is annual and maybe I’ll get lucky with my health next year. Kashaaf's comment from yesterday piqued my curiosity. I wondered if I know him. That couch was bought in 1990! It has been the bane of my existence yet in all this time, it hasn't hurt enough to make me get up and do something about it. Maybe it's time... Raw: Crop: 11.5MP Raw: Color Temperature: 4300K; Tint: -10 Raw: Recovery: 50 Raw: Fill Light: 15 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 26, 2009; Day 359. The Color Purple. I’m about 50 percent recovered from my weekend illness and was able to venture outside into the backyard with Peter to work on our photography class assignment. The black flies are alive and active and I could only enjoy crawling around in the grass and wildflowers for about 10 minutes. Luckily, I kept my eye to the viewfinder as I moved about. I had all of my extension tubes mounted onto my 70-210mm lens in order to focus closer, and found this scene as I was zooming. Snap snap. The lighting is mixed overcast in the shade. The camera is sitting on the ground; the lens barrel is propped by a little pine cone. That is indeed the Passion CD in yesterday’s shot, Kashaaf. A great soundtrack to a greater film. Track 15 is still best enjoyed really loud, though not so often in headphones anymore. I didn’t see “playing hooky” in yesterday’s shot. However, I did think that a “Chick flick afternoon on Lifetime” might have been really easy to pull off with a dramatic screen shot and a couple additional pairs of feet. Raw: Color Temperature: 5600K; Tint: -1 Raw: Exposure: +0.2 Raw: Blacks: 25 Raw: Brightness: 0 Raw: Contrast: +50 Raw: Saturation: +6 PS: Healing Brush to remove some sensor dust PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 27, 2009; Day 360. Don’t Try This at Home. My friend Dale saw my fisheye appliance photo series and liked it enough to write and encourage me to go further with appliance photography. He said, “Create the kind of photos you’d want customers to see on your website if you were in an appliance business.” I may be paraphrasing, but he was deliberately vague with the requirements. For now I’m looking at it as an assignment in creativity rather than a commission. Ostensibly, though, if the creativity matches anything he’s looking for, we could be in business. This is an attempt at appliance humor. “Leave the appliance repair to us!” “If you think you can do it yourself, you're brainwashed!” This is me modeling as a clueless but resourceful homeowner thinking that he can fix anything himself. With a quick change of clothes (something more like a uniform) and a generic logo on the toolbox, I could easily be the "you get what you pay for" low-bid appliance repair guy. And folks, if the closest part of your body to an ultra-wide lens is your butt, well, you asked for it. Raw: Color Temperature: 7250K; Tint: 0 Raw: Fill Light: 10 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
April 22, 2009; Day 355.

Manna.

I may be coming down with a cold. I certainly was stuffy and lethargic today. Thus it was with great relief that I pulled open the blinds on my bedroom window this morning and found this guy perched on the wire that feeds the electrical power to my house. He’s about 12 feet away from me. Remarkably, he was not overly startled by the blinds going up, so I immediately dashed for my camera and 300mm lens. He allowed me to take 17 shots before a passing car spooked him away. This was shot through a window and a screen on a foggy morning, so a lot of post-processing was needed to draw out the color and contrast.

I was lucky to get this much sharpness. Although his face is not as sharp as I would like, this is a handheld shot with a shutter speed 4 1/3 stops below the minimum you’d want for this focal length (1/320s). Nikon’s VR on the exotics is pretty good.

If I had a 600mm exotic and a 1.4 teleconverter I could have just gotten a frame-filling shot of the texture in those feathers. Or not…the minimum focus length on that beast is probably longer than what I’ve got here. Oh well, this would have been the very first shot in the past year where I'd actually want it. That means I won't be shelling out $10K for one any time soon.

Raw: Crop: 7.8MP
Raw: Color Temperature: 5750K; Tint: 17
Raw: Exposure: 1.1
Raw: Blacks: 21
Raw: Brightness: 0
Raw: Contrast: 50
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Healing Brush to remove a lone spectral highlight on the wire
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
> April 22, 2009; Day 355. Manna. I may be coming down with a cold. I certainly was stuffy and lethargic today. Thus it was with great relief that I pulled open the blinds on my bedroom window this morning and found this guy perched on the wire that feeds the electrical power to my house. He’s about 12 feet away from me. Remarkably, he was not overly startled by the blinds going up, so I immediately dashed for my camera and 300mm lens. He allowed me to take 17 shots before a passing car spooked him away. This was shot through a window and a screen on a foggy morning, so a lot of post-processing was needed to draw out the color and contrast. I was lucky to get this much sharpness. Although his face is not as sharp as I would like, this is a handheld shot with a shutter speed 4 1/3 stops below the minimum you’d want for this focal length (1/320s). Nikon’s VR on the exotics is pretty good. If I had a 600mm exotic and a 1.4 teleconverter I could have just gotten a frame-filling shot of the texture in those feathers. Or not…the minimum focus length on that beast is probably longer than what I’ve got here. Oh well, this would have been the very first shot in the past year where I'd actually want it. That means I won't be shelling out $10K for one any time soon. Raw: Crop: 7.8MP Raw: Color Temperature: 5750K; Tint: +17 Raw: Exposure: +1.1 Raw: Blacks: 21 Raw: Brightness: 0 Raw: Contrast: +50 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Healing Brush to remove a lone spectral highlight on the wire PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
April 22, 2009; Day 355.

Manna.

I may be coming down with a cold. I certainly was stuffy and lethargic today. Thus it was with great relief that I pulled open the blinds on my bedroom window this morning and found this guy perched on the wire that feeds the electrical power to my house. He’s about 12 feet away from me. Remarkably, he was not overly startled by the blinds going up, so I immediately dashed for my camera and 300mm lens. He allowed me to take 17 shots before a passing car spooked him away. This was shot through a window and a screen on a foggy morning, so a lot of post-processing was needed to draw out the color and contrast.

I was lucky to get this much sharpness. Although his face is not as sharp as I would like, this is a handheld shot with a shutter speed 4 1/3 stops below the minimum you’d want for this focal length (1/320s). Nikon’s VR on the exotics is pretty good.

If I had a 600mm exotic and a 1.4 teleconverter I could have just gotten a frame-filling shot of the texture in those feathers. Or not…the minimum focus length on that beast is probably longer than what I’ve got here. Oh well, this would have been the very first shot in the past year where I'd actually want it. That means I won't be shelling out $10K for one any time soon.

Raw: Crop: 7.8MP
Raw: Color Temperature: 5750K; Tint: 17
Raw: Exposure: 1.1
Raw: Blacks: 21
Raw: Brightness: 0
Raw: Contrast: 50
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Healing Brush to remove a lone spectral highlight on the wire
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D700) |
More details: exif |
Original size: 3423px x 2282px |
Current: 400px x 267px |
Other sizes: Small • M • L • O |
Share photo: links, forums, blogs |
Keywords: bird animal wildlife ambient handheld 300mm d700
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