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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.
Gallery pages:  <  1  2  3  4  5  6  >  >>
< 45 of 365 >
Jeremy > June 8, 2008; Day 37. Peter came over to push me into the gym so that I continue to burn away some of my winter fat. It was a brutally hot day in New Hampshire (96 degrees) so afterwards, we arranged the chairs so that my sole window A/C could wash over us. Peter thought he'd read the paper but decided to doze instead. It is a really comfy chair.

Yeah, that's a hot window. The graduated ND filter would not have helped, and an HDR would have revealed a lot of diffused light coming through blinds. Sometimes you have to live with life's compositional hurdles.

No post processing...JPEG from camera.
Jeremy > June 9, 2008; Day 38. Tonight my friends decided to wander through Prescott Park, a very nice place in Portsmouth. There are several gardens and fountains, and the park lines the Piscataqua River, which separates Maine from New Hampshire.  This river may have the fastest tidal current in North America.

From the park you can easily observe Memorial Bridge taking U.S. Rte 1 traffic from NH to Maine and back.  This bridge is well-lit at night so expect a nighttime shot once the days get shorter.

The middle section is periodically raised to allow tall boats to pass through.  You can see the M.V. Thomas Laighton approaching the bridge.

Raw: Crop ~5%
Raw: Vibrance: +100 (just having fun)
PS: Color Balance: +10 Yellow to Blue
PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > June 10, 2008; Day 39. Is this a dolphin captured during the last ice age? Or is it a sweaty tumbler with a slice of lime?

Hint: The temperature climbed above 100 degrees today. This was refreshing.

PS: Crop: ~40%
PS: Color Balance: -100 Cyan to Red; +23 Magenta to Green; +100 Yellow to Blue
PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > June 11, 2008; Day 40.

Friends from my first online class at the Perfect Picture School of Photography gave me some ideas of fun places I could take my fisheye lens.  The stainless steel walls of my dishwasher reflect a lot of light but don’t disperse it much, so my flash is wearing a diffuser and is pointed at the “ceiling.”

If not for my third online class at the PPSOP (The Art of Food), I wouldn’t have any color in my dishware.  Still, it can't hurt to check out local yard sales and augment my collection with some more colorful pieces.

Raw: White Balance: 4600K
Raw: Exposure: +0.3
Raw: Fill Light: +5
Raw: Saturation: +40
PS: Color Balance: +8 Yellow to Blue
PS: Unsharp Mask: 10-30-0
Jeremy > June 12, 2008; Day 41.

I’m scouting for just the right place to put my camera when I start the “Four Holidays” project, which hopefully will be ready to go on July 4.  I must think ahead for this, as each holiday will have separate lighting requirements as well as ideal placement of subjects that identify the holiday.  In this spot, I have a lot of flexibility for a subject dancing around with a sparkler.  But if I want to see kids in costumes standing at the door next to the Jack o’lantern at Halloween, I might need to get a little closer.

This is an HDR image taken from 6 exposures and assembled with Photomatix.  The aperture is a fixed f/8 throughout; the shutter speeds were 25s, 13s, 6s, 3s, 1.6s, and 1/1.3s.  Within Photomatix, I increased the white point and saturation but decreased the smoothing (more “glow” near the top of the house) and luminosity (less noise). Bet you wonder how I got this shot with a 1000mm lens! (Actually, the EXIF is wrong, the Sigma was at the full 10mm for this.)

PS: Used healing brush to remove power lines.
PS: Unsharp Mask: 10-30-0
Jeremy > June 13, 2008; Day 42.

I took a stroll through the grounds of the local Unitarian Universalist church today. The trees in these woods are quite tall.

I knew that the sky would be hot, particularly as the late-day sun is in the frame, so I took a bracketed sequence. The resulting HDR composite produced some nice colors, but it also burned some leaves, so this softer original will have to do.

No post processing; JPEG from camera.
Jeremy > June 14, 2008; Day 43.

Did you know that the Summer Solstice is a 3-stage event?  I didn’t either until I started studying the Skygazer’s Almanac.  Today marked stage 1: Earliest Sunrise.  In Manchester, sunrise was 5:06 a.m.  I had planned in advance to capture it today as my daily. To do this, I set my alarm for 3:55 and made my first shot at 4:47 a.m.  At that hour, unfortunately, I’m not thinking clearly and forgot to check whether auto focus was on.

Next, I should have scouted for better location.  I picked a nice, high spot from which the downtown skyline is easily visible.  But the sun is rising too far from downtown to allow it and the skyline to co-mingle in the frame.  Plus there’s the 10-foot chain link fence along this stretch, without a hole in it anywhere.

The sky was great for a sunrise, though. Too bad the foreground is a ho-hum roof access tower. It is possible that this will be a great spot to mark the Latest Sunrise next January, but I'll check first.

After the sunrise disappointment, I proceeded to the location you see above, which is Sewall’s Falls bridge in Concord. This Pratt thru-truss bridge was built in 1915 and is in pretty rough shape. Its still being used, and its steel-grate deck reverberates with each car that passes over it.  HDR was necessary to bring the sky down and the underbelly of the approach up.  The low still-golden sunlight really brings out the rust.  This shot was created from 7 exposures, all at f/11.  The focal length is 14mm.

Note to self...time to clean the sensor!
Jeremy > June 15, 2008; Day 44.

Today we treated Peter’s parents to brunch for Father’s Day in Tilton. This is the Tilton town hall building, next door to the restaurant. Lots of wide angle distortion here. I wish I had also shot this with the base of the door perfectly horizontal for comparison. It might have looked more "natural."

It was a good day for photography. Here I am catching the brunch party while pretending to photograph just a flower. (The shutter speed is so long that I didn’t bother to focus on them.) Afterwards we visited a marina. And with a lovely layer of dew that lasted all day, I got to crawl around in the yard too.

Raw: Exposure: +0.3
Raw: Saturation: +10
PS: Color Balance: +10 Yellow to Blue
PS: Saturation: +10
Jeremy > June 16, 2008; Day 45.

Baby pine cones? I'm not sure; most plants instinctively know that mine is not a very green thumb.

This was taken on the grounds of this church in Portsmouth where I am each Monday evening. I enjoyed overcast lighting and pulled out my macro lens for this shot. I have figured out that breezes only blow through your subject when the shot is actually ready to be taken!

PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0.
June 16, 2008; Day 45.

Baby pine cones? I'm not sure; most plants instinctively know that mine is not a very green thumb.

This was taken on the grounds of this church in Portsmouth where I am each Monday evening. I enjoyed overcast lighting and pulled out my macro lens for this shot. I have figured out that breezes only blow through your subject when the shot is actually ready to be taken!

PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0.
 > June 16, 2008; Day 45.

Baby pine cones? I'm not sure; most plants instinctively know that mine is not a very green thumb.

This was taken on the grounds of this church in Portsmouth where I am each Monday evening. I enjoyed overcast lighting and pulled out my macro lens for this shot. I have figured out that breezes only blow through your subject when the shot is actually ready to be taken!

PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0.
June 16, 2008; Day 45.

Baby pine cones? I'm not sure; most plants instinctively know that mine is not a very green thumb.

This was taken on the grounds of this church in Portsmouth where I am each Monday evening. I enjoyed overcast lighting and pulled out my macro lens for this shot. I have figured out that breezes only blow through your subject when the shot is actually ready to be taken!

PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0.
Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D80) |
More details: exif |
Original size: 3872px x 2592px |
Current: 400px x 268px |
Other sizes: Small • M • L • O |
Share photo: links, forums, blogs |
Keywords: pine portsmouth flora 90mm
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< 45 of 365 >

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