Another Project - B&W Project 52

Week 1

I couldn't wait to post the first one!  This rose was from the bouquet my friend brought me on my birthday. I had to click this before it started to wilt with the heat, but fortunately, the weather's cooled down a little bit again, so the 3 red roses are still thriving. 

I am starting this project in the hopes of getting back on track with some serious photography, rather than just shooting what I can find.  52 black and whites in the next 52 weeks!

I will try to blog more regularly now, and hope to start with the food project in the next few months.  I rather wait for the colder months to do that, so I'll find something to shoot while I'm indoors.  I'm looking for feedback on the best practices of doing b&w photography, so please drop me a line when you stop by!

I'm also excited about two photo shoots coming up in the next couple of days - one of them is going to feature a great cartoonist from Montreal!  Stay tuned!

Day 361 - Studying a Dahlia

Quick post

Day 360 - Ottawa Tulip Festival

I went to see the tulip festival with a few friends, and was greatly disappointed - didn't get to see as many tulips as I've normally seen in the past.  Admittedly, we didn't end up going to the park where I normally go - Dow's Lake, but the festival locations in downtown should definitely have had a lot more.

I think I probably took about a dozen shots of the tulips in all.  The flowers were mostly all dried up and in pretty bad shape.  I had to look hard to find a few nice ones to photograph.  I have only processed one for now, but I'll definitely post a few more on Flickr later.

Day 314 - Textured Rose

My first attempt at adding a texture failed pretty miserably! :-(  I need to revisit this technique soon.  Maybe even tomorrow.  Please don't complain if you see me posting the same flower photos tomorrow as well.

Further, since I was in a hurry to do the shot of the day in fast fading daylight, I didn't take the time to do a CWB on this.  I want to try doing that, and also taking the time to get the colour of the rose right. I'd never seen such a dark burgundy colour rose before, that's almost bordering on brown.  I couldn't come close to reproducing the colour in camera or in post.  Need to retry!

Day 281 -Upside Down Flower

I did this yesterday and almost broke my back trying to get the timing right.  I had seen this done before, where an object is dunked into water and the splash is caught underwater.  I have to try this again as I didn't get the result I was after.

Day 221 - Busy Busy

I should say busy and tired.  I spent quite a bit of time doing stuff outdoors, and by the time I returned, I was so bushed, I decided to snooze for a bit.  Then woke up even more tired.

I had to get all the editing done for the shots I took at the office party from two days ago, so I spent a chunk of time on that.  Now that it's all done, I am surprised that I was able to fix some of them, but most of them are still very, very disappointing.  It's really time for a new flash!  Maybe I should go out and buy myself a lottery ticket!

I am posting this shot taken last summer.  I just stumbled upon it, as it was waiting to be processed.  I had stored it in a folder that I was planning to get to at some point in time, so I thought that time was today!

Day 177 - I messed it up!

I couldn't believe how I could mess up the focus so completely today despite being on a tripod.  I know I'm feeling exhausted, but that's not an excuse! :(

I was trying directional flash today, and again failed at getting the right amount of flash from my YN460.  Finally, resorted to using mixed light sources - the overhead tungsten with the flash at around 45 deg to the subject to camera right.  I used a white foam board to camera left in an effort to bounce off the flash onto the left flower which was in the shadows.  I don't think that really worked well and in the end the overhead light came to the rescue.

I didn't see any point in processing the shots at all, so just adjusted the white balance and blacks.

135 mm, f/5.0, 1/2s, ISO 100, flash as described above.  

Day 172 - Soft focus & bounced flash

My experiment today would have been to use my YN460 flash to light the background to make it look white.  Instead, it turned out that the flash wasn't behaving itself at all, and consistently turned out some really gray backgrounds.  I switched over to custom white balance and then decided to use the flash to bounce some light into the centre of the flower as it was showing up really dark.  That didn't go too badly and I did get the centre to lighten up a little.
I was hand holding the camera since I couldn't find my tripod head and the soft focus was purely accidental.  I had a bit of camera shake when trying to shoot the gerberas.  I found the soft focus actually looked pretty nice on the LCD screen of my camera and instantly decided to try and play with that.  So, I intentionally took a few shots with a soft focus and then touched them up in Lightroom.

250 mm, 1/8s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

250 mm, 1/4s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

250 mm, 1/5s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

Day 143 - Mont Saint Bruno National Park

Day 134 - Wildflower

Found this little gem by the roadside.

Day 132 - Black and White Day

I had organized a B&W photo workshop for my photo club at work.  So, we had to go out and shoot after an hour of instruction and I have to admit I don't visualize B&W well at all.  Here are a few of the shots from then.  I'd love to know what you think.

This last one turned out blurry because my arms were tired and I had to use a slower shutter speed as the sky was completely overcast and the light had gone down quite a bit. I also just saw the merger in this shot that's distracting.  Too bad, but I think this might have turned out better.

Day 122 - Lily

Day 108 - Playing catch up

I have really fallen back on both photography and posting.  We've been having killer summer temperatures and humidity, and not having even a fan was not the kind of summer I want to be spending anymore.   So, here are some photos from the last few days (umm.. or is it weeks?).  I have not abandoned my Photo 365 project - I was on summer break! ;-)

Day 105 - Day lily

Day 92 - There will be sunshine after rain

I believe what Dire Straits said in their song "Why Worry":

"There will be laughter after pain,
There will be sunshine after rain,
These things have always been the same -
So, why worry now!"

And so there was - one entirely gloomy, rainy day and look at how the sun burst forth during the early evening!

This 1-banded snail was suddenly lit up by a single shaft of sunshine that somehow penetrated the deepest part of the forest.  I would have stepped on the poor guy, otherwise!  One lucky day for this little soul!  Hope he got out and away of the forest path.

I couldn't get the exact effect I was after.  But the wind was bouncing this in and out of my frame and I was afraid the droplets would roll off if I didn't get a quick shot.

Backlit wildflower with a gossamer web almost setting it's boundaries for it to stay within.

This flower was a little bit in the distance, but most importantly deep in the marsh preventing me from getting close to it.  But my attention was caught by this single flower with another single stalk a few inches away from it.  They seemed to have sprung from nowhere.

Day 70 - Playing with custom white balance and lighting

My subject was a single red gerbera that a pretty little 4 yr old girl gave me.  She always has something to give me when she sees me - whether it's a "Princess" sticker, or a flower, or a paper cutting that she made herself.  Unfortunately, I never have anything on me that befits that little princess and that's worth offering (I usually see her in the elevator when I am either returning home from work or on my way down to the recycling bins)!  One of these days I must go up to her apartment and I better bring her a nice gift.

Anyway, so here are the experiments with the gerbera that I did over a few hours starting in the evening after it was almost completely dark, and continuing the following morning.

For this image I used my TV as the background, with two low-powered lamps placed at least 6 ft away on either side, aperture priority, f/5.6, ISO 100, spot metering, exposure bias of 1/3 stop.

Natural light at ISO 400, manual, f/5.6, 10s, spot metering

Shot with custom WB, aperture priority, ISO 200, exposure bias of 1/3 stop

90 mm macro lens, aperture priority, pattern metering, ISO 800 (flower was kept in low light), f/5.6

Shot with 90 mm macro lens, custom WB, manual, pattern metering, ISO 100 (flower was in bright ambient light), 1/8s, f/10

Day 55 - Good news and not so good news

To start with the not so good news - I went to the photography store from where I usually buy my gear and showed my new strobe to the gentleman there hoping to figure out how to get it off-camera.  One look at it and he told me that I'd never be able to work with the flash because "It's no good!  It's not good at all!"  He seemed outraged by the purchase, to say the least.  Yet, I read up all sorts of reviews about this unit and people seemed to be getting on OK.  The strobe has a single pin!  What I probably didn't realize was that their cameras might have a single pin hot shoe which doesn't bode any trouble for them, but mine has 5.  I was warned not to use it with the camera else I might fry the circuit!  :-(  So, another eBay purchase gone to waste.  Of course, working in the amateurish ways I work in, I can definitely see myself hand-holding the flash in an attempt to sync it with the shutter.

The good news is - I splurged on a macro lens. :=)  Well, splurging isn't the good news (no way!), but getting the macro lens I've wanted for so long definitely is!  It's a Tamron, 90 mm, f2.8.  Pretty nifty, this one!  I shall post some pics of it tomorrow.

I was really tired after my late evening to midnight cooking class yesterday, and obviously had no energy to do much (although I went out hoping to do some photography, but it started pouring all of a sudden).  So, I just spent time wandering the camera store, and dropping loads of cash in there.   Once the rain held up, I quickly made my exit before I did any more damage to my wallet.

And oh, I also bought a remote release and a lens cleaning kit (long overdue), as well as a compact camera bag that will now hold all my lenses.  My concern about lens storage is now at an end.

Considering that this is a 90 mm prime lens, I thought I'd also give portraits a shot.  I've read that a lot of photogs consider the 100 mm as the best portrait lens, but this one is 90, so I figured I'd see what it has to offer by way of that.  Here is the lot from today's experiments with my newest baby!

One of my first shots with the lens in fairly low light conditions. (This is my cookie that I was eating at the time). Handheld, AV, f2.8, ISO 200.

Long shot of the park at the back, from my couch.  I love the bokeh in this one.  Handheld, AV, f/2.8, ISO 200.

Long live my gerberas.  Even after over a week, they're still pretty fresh.  Mounted on tripod, AV, f/7.1, EV 0.33, ISO 200.

Mounted on tripod, AV, f/8.0, EV -1.00, ISO 100

Mounted on tripod, TV, f/4.5, EV -0.67, ISO 100.  I used a steel tray as a reflector just behind his face, to the right of the frame.  Now I see that I should have used a higher f-stop so I could have got both eyes in focus.  Next time!

Mounted on tripod, TV, f/9.0, EV -1.67, ISO 100.  I used a steel tray as a reflector in front of his face, to the right of the frame.   I corrected that in this one.

This is my first time trying some serious portraits, so I'd love to know where I could have improved.