Category Archives: 365 Project

Day 126 – Scars II

As I mentioned in the comments in Day 70 – Scars, I have a much larger heart surgery* scar than the one shown in that post. I’ve been wanting to photograph it for quite some time and tried to do so in my Intro to Digital Photography class last semester. At the time I had no clue on how to light it so to show it effectively. I’ve learned a bit since then, and so this morning I gave it another go.  My goal was to show my entire scar, and these two photos pretty much do so. And I wanted the shots to be artistic, not clinical.

At some point, I’d like to do a series of photos of scars (mine and others). I’m fascinated by them, and the stories they tell.

Lighting was my two soft boxes on either side of me. The one on camera left faced completely right.  I place the light at camera right slightly forward of the other and faced it slightly back. ISO 100, f/8, 1/50s.  I would have liked the photos to have a bit more contrast but for a first try, I’m okay with these.

* For those of you new to the blog since Day 70, if you are interested in my congenital heart defect history, I’ve covered it at my other blog. You can find all posts HERE, but the main explanation of my defect  is HERE).

Day 125 – Quickie

I didn’t realize my Friday was going to turn out so full but I had no opportunity to shoot “for myself” until late this evening.    I actually did quite a bit of photography today, but it was for work. I was asked to shoot our site, inside and out. Here’s just one “non-identifying” shot.

The shoot went late and I left work about 6pm, the time I was supposed to be meeting Sweetie and our friends for dinner in Fernley (40 minutes away!).  Dinner, enjoyable as it was, ran long and I just didn’t get much of a chance to shoot.    By the time I got my camera out again, it was very late.

Day 124 – Back to Basics – Ball, Cube, and Cylinder – Updated

Maybe I’m feeling a little sad that the lighting class is just about over. I was in the first group so my final project was critiqued at tonight’s class. Next Tuesday we will critique the second half of the class and then say our good-byes. I’m not eligible to take the advanced lighting class as I have not taken the color class which at this point is an impossibility since it is only offered during the day (9 – 11:45 am), and there is no way I can leave work for 4 hours a day twice a week to take the class.  Not that my learning will stop. I’ll just have to look elsewhere.

Anyway, our first assignment was to shoot a ball, cube, and cylinder using a single light source.  This assignment was to get us to “see” the light: its intensity, the quality of it, how it falls on objects of different shapes, planes, angles,  etc.

At the time I wrote:

It seems simple enough: shoot a white cube, sphere and cylinder against a white background using a single light source.  Simple, yes. Easy? No!  Here’s the catch: Nothing can bleed into anything else. All planes must be distinct, including the backdrop and the table top.   This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, photographically speaking.

My results at the time were less than stellar, even after hours upon hours over several days of trying to get it right:

Jeff challenged us at the time that if we wanted to, we should re-shoot this assignment, once the class was over, using what we’d learned in the class.  I gave it a shot tonight. It didn’t take me long to get close to what I was looking for.  Not perfect, but not bad for just a few minutes of trying.  I may give this a longer whirl this weekend.

I guess I might have learned something.

08-May-2012: After looking at this last photo again, I’m still not satisfied. Top of the cube and cylinder are too close to the shade of the background. Will. Keep. Trying.

Day 123 – It started with pancakes

We had a pancake breakfast today at work to kick off our social responsibility program and to raise funds for the Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation.  We raised a nice chunk of change, had a good time, and the pancakes were terrific.

Day 122 – Crazy Day

It didn’t start out that way. In fact, I was actually able to get away at lunch which allowed me to take this lovely photo.

Peaceful and lovely.

BUT.

Then I found out that a corporate visitor would be arriving late in the afternoon rather than tomorrow morning AND wanted me to schedule meetings for him.

Say what?

I’m the executive assistant so I needed to be there, but I was also supposed to leave for class at the same time Big Guy was scheduled to show up. Something had to give.

Quick email to Jeff letting him know that I would not be able to make class which bummed me out because I was hoping to get some feedback on my prints. Gracious man that he is, Jeff offered to take a look at my prints tomorrow. So at 9am  I’ll slip away to his studio which is literally right around the corner from where I work (after arriving at work early to make sure Big Guy is all settled in).

I left work around 5:15 and took a different route home trying to miss all the spring/summer road construction.

I missed the construction, but not the head-on collision traffic jam on the alternate route.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

I arrived home after 7pm.

Day 121 – Sunlit tree and another illusion

Taken this evening as the sun was setting. The dancing light on the branches really caught my eye. Black and white seemed the best treatment of this photo.

I shot the photo below through our glass front door looking southeast. I used a very large aperture and focused on the far horizon. Those dark lines are not shadows. They are the bars of our stair railing. And yet . . . look closely. You can see right through them. The effect is even more noticeable if you click on the photo to see the larger image. If there is someone who can explain this illusion to me, I’d really appreciate it. Does it have to do with bending light?

Day 120 – Wine glass illusions

I’d set these two wine glasses on the counter after taking them out of the dishwasher and kind of forgot about them.  I worked on printing most of the day so hadn’t given much thought to my photo of the day. I’d been snapping some photos of the kitties (more shallow depth of field stuff) and happened do walk by the two glasses on the counter. I snapped a quick photo (I love shiny glass) and then noticed something interesting. I could see the second glass through the first one.  Well, one thing led to another   . . .

There are all kinds of optical illusions happening in the various planes of glass.