As mentioned in the previous post I am trying to shoot manual and man it is a little more challenging than I expected. It is also a lot of fun though. My skillz are improving but the subject matter of what I was shooting fell some. I was concentrating more on getting the focus right than on the composition.
So you just get some random day in the life around Greenlake which was swarmed with people enjoying the 70 degree weather.
That’s right MSU is going to the final game and facing their 3rd #1 seed of the tournament. They played well against UConn let’s just hope they can do the same against UNC.
This day also represented my move to manual focus. I have been complaining about my lens not being able to focus quickly enough for me to take good photos of people on the street and it finally sunk in today that this is just whinging and that I need to learn how to focus myself to make this happen.
Most of the photographers I really appreciate now either only used manual focus cameras or predominantly use it now. The drawback is that it is hard :). My normal keep rate of photos is between 5-10%. On this day I kept 1% but I like that 1%.
Evil eyes Eric:
Laughing eyes Jack:
Far away eyes Tim:
Pretty perfectly now. Time to move on to something else:
The sauce was perfect in this one:
Still playing around with light and channels in DPP. I am not quite sure I understand what I am doing yet but it is fun to play with:
Too much contrast in the upper right:
I like this but wish the underside of the molding showed up more:
And then a random cat butt:
And lots of noise. I know you are supposed to avoid noise but in certain cases I really like the additional graininess that it adds to shots. I also like the flare from the light:
I am trying to learn more about post-processing in my photos now. Changing the various aspects available to me in the free software Canon provides. Someday I will move to something like Photoshop or Lightroom but they cost more than my camera and lens right now :). Besides as i am just learning I like to keep it simple. I still have yet to read the manual for the camera I have.
A friend of mine, Culver, was telling me about changing the brightness of various channels (Red, Blue, Green) in black and white photos to achieve different effects.
This is the first attempt at that. I cannot really control the individual channels but still can play around with brightness and contrast which makes a more interesting photo. Still learning obviously though:
A tribute to Common. Again this has the lighting that I really like but am not quite sure how to achieve except through accident.
And getting back into my new years resolution to cook once a week. i was being lazy for a while but decided to make something I know until I really like it. This was almost there but the sauce was too chunky. Needed more water:
It still turned out pretty well though:
Perhaps more favored than me.
Such love:
And contentment:
And a little arm nuzzling:
I really like how these turned out and I even managed to keep myself out of them:
This one is not as compelling but I still like this approach:
Wandering around the city and playing risk at Eric’s place.
Pondering the next move:
Catching up on the chair:
Thinking deeply:
Taking a break:
Some tightrope walking in Greenlake:
The loudest meanest dog I have heard in a while:
Fuzzy friends. Again bit off someone I saw online with the hazy:
Some landscape action around the sunset:
Postings:
Flowers:
And fun:
This lens really shone for me in sky shots:
And catching multiple people in the frame:
Since I worked from home I was able to walk down to Glazers and rent a super wide angle lens. On the way there I also wandered through a construction site and had a lot of fun taking shots there.
The wide angle lens was a lot of fun to shot with but I am not as impressed with how the pics turned out. I might need to rent it again to see if it was just me acclimating to the lens or if it was just the way my style clicked with it.
The shots with the wide angle.
My favorite of Eric and Yachi tolerating me:
A little motion blur following the guy up the street:
I like the symmetry of this:
A fake Freddy:
The fun thing about this lens is the barrel distortion that makes things a lot longer than they should be. Not good for a realistic shot but fun to play with:
Taken with the old lens.
The blues are pretty cool in this:
Treads on a crane:
The reflection of a building:
And some pillars:
