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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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< 47 of 365 >
Jeremy > June 17, 2008; Day 46. I was struck tonight by how my car looked during the last few minutes of dusk. It stood out sharply against the much darker foliage behind it. So I dashed into the house for the camera and fired away. It also gave me some practice photographing cars, which is a tricky business. What angle? What height? What background? What lens? What's in the reflection? Etc. The un-doctored photos came out okay. Just for fun, while I had this image in the raw converter, I grabbed the temperature slider and went all the way to the left (2000K). This is the result, plus sharpening (20-30-0 unsharp mask in Photoshop). Ironically, when I moved the same slider all the way to the right (50,000K), I got an image remarkably close to what I saw originally (bright, sharp car in front of dark foliage). Makes sense considering how blue the light really was.
Jeremy > June 18, 2008; Day 47. I spent another pleasant evening with a friend tonight, tweaking his computer and helping him get the most out of it. Although he’s in the uncropped version of this photo, he’s in the left "distortion wing" of the image…not so flattering. I know the evening was successful because he let me add a bookmark to my daily page. :~) The main source of light is coming from the wireless flash to my left, angled up towards the wall. The flash is in the manual mode at 1/4 power. I was pleased with the “large light source” effect this provided. Another shot with the flash pointed directly at me wasn’t so great. PS: Crop ~30 percent PS: Unsharp mask: 10-30-0
Jeremy > June 19, 2008; Day 48. I received this scarf as a gift from a woman I adore. I met her when I lived in Syracuse, NY, from 1990-1994. While I lived there she would grind up fresh parmesan cheese and deliver it to me in Mason jars. Yum! She turned 90 last November and I was delighted to be able to attend the celebration. I wanted to include a photo of it in my thank-you note; this is the one I will send. This is lit by my wireless flash held about 2 feet above the subject. I put the flash near the wall to keep the chair from casting shadows. This brought out a lot of texture from just about everything: scarf, chair, wall. I haven’t decided whether including the corner was a good idea. I was glad that I managed to keep most of the abundant white trim in the room out of the frame. PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > June 20, 2008; Day 49. Today was the Summer Solstice, stage 2: Longest Day. Here in New Hampshire we’re getting more than 15 hours of daylight. What kind of subject would you pick to represent that? Beats me, although probably not a photo that shows the actual separation of church and state! This is Concord's capitol and a church who's name and denomination I forgot to pay attention to. The grounds at this church are pretty and filled with birds…I’ll have to come back. For this shot, I wish that bench in the distance was a lot closer. This is an HDR composed from 3 exposures. The camera is resting on a concrete post. The aperture is f/11 and the shutter speeds are 1/6s, 1/25s, and 1/200s. If it wasn’t past midnight already I would piddle more with the Photomatix sliders to smooth out the light better. Post-Photomatix processing: Unsharp Mask (20-30-0) and crop (~10 percent).
Jeremy > June 21, 2008; Day 50. Today I drove 2 hours to Portland, Maine to march in a pride parade on a picture-perfect day. This scene is in the heart of downtown, portraying the character and charm of most New England cities. Portland is the largest city in Maine and yet has only about 75,000 residents. Still, a nice crowd gathered to watch us go by. Along the route I practiced a lot of street photography and afterwards I attended a festival where I got to practice dealing with the battle between shade and sun. Before heading to Portland I practiced taking food preparation photos for a possible cookbook assignment later this year. The subject was my beloved rhubarb pie…delicious! No post processing; JPEG from camera.
Jeremy > June 22, 2008; Day 51. Today was the deadline for my Art of Composition class at the Perfect Picture School of Photography. The final assignment was called “The Power of Expression.” You guessed it: conceptual photography. We received a new list of words, and I turned in “Sadness” and “Disgust” for my assignment. The scene here was originally conceived for “Acceptance” (Disgust was an 11th hour replacement) but as I was shooting it, it occurred to me that this must be one of the most overshot concepts ever; the lone lime slice mixed in with all the lemons. So I scrapped it. But I also noticed that the scene was strikingly different each time I moved the flash a little. Here, I am pointing the flash directly at aluminum foil which is at upper left. I have no reflector at lower right so the light rapidly falls off to the right. In the thumbnail, I liked how the rinds were so well lit next to the darker circles. I also like how the fruit appears to be lit from below, even though it isn’t. Raw: Recovery: +15 Raw: Fill Light: +30 Raw: Saturation: +20 PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > June 23, 2008; Day 52. Another Monday, another evening with friends in Portsmouth. It was rainy with thunderstorms expected...perfect for several rounds of Uno. Uno combines the best of poker and Survivor…you win mostly by luck but also by cunning—getting your neighbors to thrash someone else with their crummy cards while accepting that you have no choice but to occasionally thrash them. I came in last place tonight; I blame luck. This is not my hand; my cards are in the pile at left. I'm somewhat wedged into place to take this shot and didn't notice how off my horizon was. I didn’t feel the need to fix this; the slanting horizon seems to fit this crowd nicely. The diffuse lighting is mostly coming from my external flash, attached on the hot shoe and pointed at the ceiling, angled slightly behind me. I needed a color balance adjustment to remove some of the green coming from the florescent bulbs. Raw: Exposure: +1.0 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Color Balance: -10 Magenta to Green; +5 Yellow to Blue PS: Saturation: +10 PS: Unsharp Mask: 10-30-0
Jeremy > June 24, 2008; Day 53. The decision to buy an Audi TT back in 2001 boiled down to two factors: it was comfortable and sexy. It’s a dated design now, but it’s still comfortable. I shot it in blue last week (blue from a playful white balance adjustment). So why am I shooting it again? Well, this isn’t my car. If that wasn’t immediately obvious to you, then this image succeeded. If not, the night is still young... :) To see how I set this up, click here. The scene was an attempt to duplicate a very similar shot I saw on the Strobist blog. There’s so much to learn about light. Here I’m combining a large light source to illuminate the car and a small light source to provide a gradient background. Raw: Exposure: +0.7 Raw: Color Temperature: 3450K PS: Healing Brush: Remove sensor dust PS: Crop: ~25% PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
Jeremy > June 25, 2008; Day 54. Brian Dustin is playing with his new flash and many of you are giving him good advice. I thought I’d try out a few of your suggestions on this indestructible fern growing in my backyard. I seem to have forgotten that I have a macro lens; I took this with my walk-around zoom and a 12mm extension tube. The wireless flash is behind this scene (outside of flare range) and is wearing a diffuser. PS: Crop ~40% PS: Unsharp Mask: 20-30-0
June 18, 2008; Day 47.

I spent another pleasant evening with a friend tonight, tweaking his computer and helping him get the most out of it. Although he’s in the uncropped version of this photo, he’s in the left "distortion wing" of the image…not so flattering. I know the evening was successful because he let me add a bookmark to my daily page. :~)

The main source of light is coming from the wireless flash to my left, angled up towards the wall. The flash is in the manual mode at 1/4 power. I was pleased with the “large light source” effect this provided. Another shot with the flash pointed directly at me wasn’t so great.

PS: Crop ~30 percent
PS: Unsharp mask: 10-30-0
> June 18, 2008; Day 47. I spent another pleasant evening with a friend tonight, tweaking his computer and helping him get the most out of it. Although he’s in the uncropped version of this photo, he’s in the left "distortion wing" of the image…not so flattering. I know the evening was successful because he let me add a bookmark to my daily page. :~) The main source of light is coming from the wireless flash to my left, angled up towards the wall. The flash is in the manual mode at 1/4 power. I was pleased with the “large light source” effect this provided. Another shot with the flash pointed directly at me wasn’t so great. PS: Crop ~30 percent PS: Unsharp mask: 10-30-0
June 18, 2008; Day 47.

I spent another pleasant evening with a friend tonight, tweaking his computer and helping him get the most out of it. Although he’s in the uncropped version of this photo, he’s in the left "distortion wing" of the image…not so flattering. I know the evening was successful because he let me add a bookmark to my daily page. :~)

The main source of light is coming from the wireless flash to my left, angled up towards the wall. The flash is in the manual mode at 1/4 power. I was pleased with the “large light source” effect this provided. Another shot with the flash pointed directly at me wasn’t so great.

PS: Crop ~30 percent
PS: Unsharp mask: 10-30-0
Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D80) |
More details: exif |
Original size: 2592px x 2208px |
Current: 352px x 300px |
Other sizes: Small • M • L • O |
Share photo: links, forums, blogs |
Keywords: self portrait 10 to 20mm commander mode pc service
Gallery pages:  <<  <  3  4  5  6  7  8  >  >>
< 47 of 365 >

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