Under Construction For a Year

This post has been under construction for one year.  Okay that is not completely true, I have been gathering the images for it for a year on my cell phone, but because I never brought a USB 3 cable home I never pulled the images off.

After getting the updated phone I repeated a picture I liked out of my previous blackberry.  [Editor's Note:  Who takes pictures of lamps anyway?]

Of course I used it to find new pictures too.  One thing I noticed when going through the images tonight is a lot of them come from restaurants.  I must be easily distracted while waiting for food, or a table, or people to show up.

I also used it document the every day events.  This particular stapler went missing from my office until I caught on.

Perhaps this wasn't worth a whole year's wait, but it was fun to go through for me.

Trying out the new (phone) camera

I thought I'd give the camera on my new mobile phone a spin.  It seems the Target parking lot becomes an interesting target for my camera phone.

I also found a fire extinguisher sitting in some bright, but interesting light.

Again, this is just one of those things I think I need to do.  I consider myself a photographer.  But, if I'm not actively making pictures "photographer" is just a word.  If I don't make pictures, at best I'm a wannabe photographer, and at worst I'm a fool who wasted too money on camera stuff.

Upgrade time!

They are updating our mobiles at work.  This is interesting to me for a few reasons.  The main reason is my current one only works to talk on as a speaker phone.  This has obvious drawbacks.  It is also interesting because it means I have an upgraded "always with me" camera! 

I will have 2 full megapixels vs the measly 1.3 I have now!  I'm moving up in the world. 

I'm being a little silly.  It doesn't matter much which camera I use.  I have fun either way. True, I tend to make a different style of picture with my phone than I do with my SLRs.  And, true, I'd never do a set for someone else on a cell phone (unless someone wants to volunteer for an experiment!).  But, I think I get some visually interesting stuff out of that crappy little camera.  I have made prints, too, and the quality is reasonable.  The images have an aesthetic about them that is difficult to match with a "real" camera.

To celebrate, and prepare to turn the old one in I dumped the pictures I have been making over the last few months to my computer.  I opted to post a couple of the more detail oriented/abstract ones.

It was a good change of pace to work with these images tonight.

A little fun

I got the camera phone out again.  I always have it out I guess, but I finally dumped off all the images to go through this weekend.  I have a lot of fun seeing the little details that caught my attention.

The first is something you might find on a site like fail-blog.  Ideally it wouldn't have any camera-shake, and it would show the whole shelf.  A few things stood in my way for that.  Those things were about 4 feet tall and wandering about in front of the shelf.  They were other people's children.  I never want to give strangers the the notion that I am trying to photograph their kids.  This misunderstanding can get people arrested or worse.  Here is the picture taken at the local Barnes and Nobles.

Fail

The other two are nice abstracts.  These were taken of a table's surface at a Chinese carry out place.  The light is a tungsten thingy hanging on a "string" out of the ceiling.  Moving just a little completely changed the design that was captured.  I love that table.  I may go back for the table, although the food really isn't worth the trip.

Messin' with the toy camera

I had my cell phone camera out playing around recently. I believe I wrote it before, but it is really good to keep in practice. You even make some pretty interesting images goofing around with these things. One of my favorite images of the year was made with the phone. I really like this line of shopping carts there. Too bad I can't make reasonably sized print of it!

One thing I like to do with these is play quite a bit in post with them. I'm not super good with post-processing. Sure, I know how to pull sharpness into the image. I can clone out stuff if needed. I understand the basics of layers and how to use them. But, I really lack the ability to imagine something beyond the image and be able to take it there in post. Messing around with these helps me get a little bit stronger with that part of my photography.


Note, I believe post-work should be there to help you create something you see in your mind's eye. If you are actively capturing the image with your camera and you notice something you want to fix, and you tell yourself "I'll just take care of that in post." -- smack yourself. I think that advice comes from Zack Arias, and I feel its worth repeating.

Meandering Thoughts

When you are taken out of the normal rhythm of life a number of things can happen. For me, no matter what it is, my wind will wander around in the little playground in my head.

Lately I have found myself reliving "glory days", inventing limericks (no I won't share), creating a list of song titles for Tobias' metal album, and thinking about the first thing I am going to do when this cast is gone.

I'm a competitive individual. Its not so much that I have to win at what I do, but I have huge aversion to losing. I ran track in highschool. I primarily ran the 200 and 400 meter sprints as an individual and on the relay teams. I found myself thinking about one particular meet, the 1993 indoor track regionals. My coach entered me in the 300m sprint, which isn't something I ran all year. He told me, and then mentioned that because I had no previous times, and the A heat was full, I had to run with the B group. I hadn't ran in a B heat for two years. I felt self-conscious carrying my block's out to the line. No one else on the line had them. The A group was standing around waiting for their turn to line up, and I overheard someone say "pretentious". I don't know if they were talking about me, but I felt like it. I decided my goal was to make the poor guys stuck running with me look silly. The gun went off, and I made a great launch, to make a long story short after I crossed the finish line I slowed down, stopped, turned around, and saw second place about 4 steps out of the final turn. I also had the fastest time of the day.

My metal song titles so far are:

• Yell at the Cracker
• Deathbringer! Smasher of Ants
• Bedlam for Bedtime
• HELLO is My Greeting

I still don't know what the first thing I will do when this cast leaves, but I know I won't be Jumping for Joy. (That's a joke son, you're suppose to laugh)

I have two other random things.

My brother has a one post blog, maybe if people give him a nudge he'll continue.

Finally, I find it interesting how many songs revolve around the word Angel. Send Me an Angel, Wish I Had an Angel, Angel, Seven Spanish Angels, Entertaining Angels... to name just a few.

What does any of this have to do with photography? I have no idea, make your own connections.

"Found" Items

I'm still in the habit of making quick images with my cell phone. I have been looking at replacing the phone with a "proper" camera. The key in choosing will be size. The whole point of using the cell phone is, it is with me! I won't bore anyone by talking about the cameras I have been examining. I can bore people with pictures much quicker!


This "lady" is hanging out in a local comic shop. I know the background in this shot is terrible. There were cleaner backgrounds available, but if I shot from those angles the lady blended into her herself. We were there recently and bought Tobias an awesome Spider-man poster. The poster features the work of Alex Ross.


This fella popped up at my office campus when I was on vacation. I assume he is there to scare away the geese. I wonder how long it will be until one of those big disrespectful flying rats takes a poo on it?

Speaking of the disrespectful flying rats...

I need to look back on last year's pictures. I think I have a pretty cool picture featuring some of those critters.

The pipe at the top of the post is also from work. The light caught my attention when I exited the building one night last week. The cell phone does a mediocre job of capturing the light, but it still rendered a decent image.

Again, keep in mind, I'm not making these in the hopes of making amazing photos. These are things I have seen, that I have tried to capture in an interesting way with a crappy little cell phone camera. The point, for me, is keep my photo-sense on 11 at all times.

A bit of playtime

Its been a little while since my last post. I think I wore myself out with the Photowalk. I didn't stop making pictures. I spent a lot time experimenting with things on the post-capture side of things. I like doing this with interesting things I capture daily with the cell-camera. The main reason is because they are small files, they don't tax my aged computer! I've been playing with real cameras too, I'll post some of those in the near future.


What else has happened since my last post? Nikon announced some new goodness. The thing that has me interested the most is the D300s. Yeah, I know, I just got a new camera. Yeah, I know its expensive. Man, you guys talking in my head are starting to sound like my wife, but hear me out. My photography related goals require having a backup camera. I know the D300s is a DX sized sensor, but I have lenses that mimic the views I get on my D700, so that is a non-issue. Besides, right now I already have cameras of different sensor sizes backing each other up. I also like the smaller sensor when I pop on my telephoto lenses, they never have enough reach anyway! The control layout of the D300s and D700 also appears to be exactly the same. Nice. However, the real reason I want a new DX body is... if I get a new one then I can ship my D200 off to be converted to an Infrared camera. I really want to do that right now, but the necessity for "proper" redundancy in my gear holds me back. Will I get a new camera soon? Doubtful, but its nice to know when I do decide to a good choice exists.

Comfortable with creating?

Found this in the Target parking lot. Even my wife thought I was nuts.

One of the things I've "struggled" with regarding photography is worrying what others will think of me. I'm not worried about reactions to my pictures, I make those for me. What I have worried about is what people think when I am making pictures. I wonder how many pictures I've missed because I haven't asked someone if I could take their picture, or because I worried people would think I am a nut. Who takes pictures of lamps anyway?

No on saw me take this. I'm sneaky.

Its gotten easier to ask people if I can take their picture. I have some upcoming posts to prove it!

This one, I was given a hard time for by a coworker. Why are you photographing a lamp!!? It looks pretty cool though, huh?

Using the cell phone to photograph things that catch my eye, in public, is helping me overcome my second worry.

I think this is important. I feel free to make a picture whenever I see one now. This allows me to constantly watch for pictures. This may help me become a good photographer someday.

Unplanned Opportunity

I know I have been complaining for a while that planned picture shoots were not working out. They haven't been. Today we had a storm roll through, and the clouds were amazing. I used that as a bit of an "unplanned shoot".

I don't carry my "good" camera all the time. But, better photographers than I will tell you the "best camera is the one that's with you." As I have shown before, my phone has a camera, so I pressed it into service yet again. This time, maybe I missed my real cameras, but that's okay.

I think I have touched on this idea in the past before, but its important to me. I could have passed up the chance, too worried about "quality", but photographers photograph. I think that is true about anything. One of my English Professors told us "If you want to be a writer, than #$%ing write!" Cooks must cook. Sculpters must sculpt. Potters must ... make things with clay? You are only the things you do, not the things you think about, not the things you talk about, not the things you read about. Again, you are only what you actually do.

The clouds are what brought me outside, so I tried to emphasize them in the photos.

More Abstracts

Okay, okay, I hear you-- or maybe thats just the voice in my head. Why am I posting more abstracts? I have still been playing with the cell phone camera. Plus I haven't managed to schedule the picture-making I have in mind! Hopefully this week, tomorrow sounds good.

For anyone who is seeing this through a reader, come visit the actual blog and try the poll. I have one response! I know more than one person peeks at this. It will run through this Sunday.

I went to the library last weekend. A local photographer has some family portraits on display. Of course I had to check her website out. I found she has a blog. I probably would not be posting this, except, she has a picture of one of my high school classmates online! I'm not sure why this fascinated me so much, I mean, the web has a bajillion pictures on it. It's likely I know a few of the people in them! But, I still found it surprising.


Of course, I feel slightly silly right now. That photographer is posting cool pictures of my classmates and their kids -- and I'm posting found pictures of water fountains and storm drains. I am slightly jealous.

Repeating Element Abstracts

One of the things I've been doing lately is making abstract images with my phone. The phone is a good choice for this because I'm not too concerned with detail, resolution, or any of the other things other images might require. It is also a good choice because it is a reminder that good photography is more about what I am seeing, not about the camera.

After looking through a handful of these images, I realize what I am currently drawn to are patterns that repeat in some way. It maybe a shape, a color, variations of light and dark, or some other pattern. But, a pattern is apparent in almost all the pictures I pulled off the phone tonight.

Self -portrait with a cell phone

This is completely different for me. Its rare I'm on the other side of the camera, although its fitting I'm the person that stuck me there.


How to make a picture like this? This is taken right about sunset. The main light is provided by my car's headlights. The pin-point "flash" on the phone provides what little fill it can. I cropped out some crud to the left (its hard to compose when you can't see what you are getting). I added a bit of sharpening and vignette in post.

An interesting thought hit me while making this picture, which is the only reason I posted it here. It is uncomfortable to sit on asphalt that has random little gravels on it. That is a given, so what was this interesting thought I mentioned? In 1994 I was sitting in a similarly uncomfortable place. Then, though, I was on a full gravel driveway and I wasn't making a picture. I was having the most important conversation in my life. I was telling, or more accurately, trying to tell a girl I had a serious crush on her. I didn't really get it out properly, but that was okay she already knew. Girls have a way of knowing these things.

I am now married to that girl. It amazes me my life really started sitting uncomfortably on gravel, staring up at my favorite person in the world. It also amazes me it was so long ago!

I wish I had my camera...

I do not feel the need to carry my camera everywhere with me. I know a lot of people do, in case they come across they must photograph. The types of things I would want to photograph that I hadn't planned on generally fall into two categories. First, some events I should just watch and let my memory remember them. The second type are events that it would probably be in my best interest to run away from. Not having a camera for either of those does not bother me.

But sometimes...

Today I saw very cool light playing outside. It had been a dull and lifeless morning, but by late afternoon the clouds were breaking up, and warm colored sunlight was laying on everything it touched. I love the cold steel-grey skies contrasted against golden light. I looked out the window and wished I had my camera.


I didn't have my camera, but I did have a camera of sorts. My phone has a camera. So I grabbed it and made a few pictures. I made one from inside the building, and then held off on the rest until it was time to go home. I needed to make the other ones because, as you can see, the image from inside the building is a little lacking. Or maybe, it just plain sucks.

After I had made these, I felt I should post them up here. Images like this represent a change in my photographic-philosophy so to speak. Many times in the past I refused to photograph things I felt would be snapshots, or I didn't have the "proper" equipment to make a "good" picture. Within the last year or so, I have changed my mind. I now feel, that the mere act of creating something is important. It doesn't matter how great the result is necessarily. I have some pictures I would not have otherwise. Like Kathryn playing an angel in a Christmas play. I would not have made that before, it really is "only" a snapshot. But-- its an important one.

I will say, that I am a little irritated I had to install software to pull the images off the camera. I find that somewhat inexcusable.

I like the final image in this set the best.