Leonland - Leon Barnard
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March 31, 2008
Daily photo for March 31st
My photo for today:
And that's that.
For me, this project has been an exercise in deliberate practice. I've tried to not to be so concerned with the end results of my photographing as with what factors seemed to make one shot preferable to another.
Learning how to make my camera work for me better was a great skill that I picked up. Here are a couple of lessons that I learned.
Tips for reducing blurriness.
I think this is the bane of most amateur photographers. I love the look of indoor and night shots without flash, but they often come out too blurry to be usable. I came up with an ordered list of factors that I adjust when I'm worried about blur.
- Zoom. Zooming in makes your camera more sensitive to hand shaking. It's better to zoom all the way out and crop later.
- Exposure. Under-exposing will generally increase the shutter speed (since less light is needed). It's relatively easy to increase the exposure once it's on your computer.
- ISO. It's great to be able to take bump your camera up to 800 or higher ISO to prevent a blurry photo, but it's become my last resort since the graininess is hard to get rid of and seems to negate the benefits of not using flash.
- Embrace Blurriness. Another approach is to use blur to your advantage to create a cool effect. Especially when there's motion in the scene, the blur can add to the shot.
Zoom in a bit to get rid of distortion.
As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I tend to take a lot of shots with strong horizontal and vertical lines. What I started noticing, though, was that they didn't look as nice because the lines would have a light curve to them, creating a very slight fish-eye effect. This is caused by lens distortion.
By stepping back and zooming in, that effect disappears and the lines look normal.
I used this technique a lot once I internalized it.
Underexpose night shots.
Your camera is designed to make every photo the same average level of brightness. But, it's dark at night and photos at night should be dark. Usually, you don't mind if the sky or the shadows are nearly black because you're not interested in all the details. Underexposing makes any light that is in the shot stand out more, and that's usually what you want to draw attention to. I often underexpose my night shots by a full stop or more. Of course, this also helps with blurriness.
Other than that, I'm not sure what I can say. I've definitely gained an appreciation for good photographers. I struggled a lot with composition and cropping. There were a lot of interesting scenes that I couldn't quite seem to turn into interesting photos. I did learn to be a little more deliberate with my shooting. I found that it was worth it to take the extra time to get the shot right, whether that meant waiting for people to get out of the way, stepping back and zooming in to get rid of the distortion, making adjustments so that it wouldn't come out blurry, standing on top of something to get a better angle, or coming to the same spot the next day when the light was better.
Any thoughts or feedback? Anyone have a favorite photo from the month?
March 30, 2008
Daily photo for March 30th
My photo for today:
I had a hard time cropping this one. Zoomed all the way out, the large scale of the building is kind of cool. But there's also this seemingly-out-of-nowhere blue face from some kid's kite that asks for a close-up. What I decided on was something in the middle. I think it looks pretty ok full-size.
Wow, my project is almost done. It's been fun.
March 29, 2008
Daily photo for March 29th
My photo for today:
At the Kostnice Ossuary (a.k.a. "Bone Church") in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. Creepy, huh?
March 28, 2008
Daily photo for March 28th
My photo for today:
March 27, 2008
Daily photo for March 27th
My photo for today:
Trying out more portraits. This is my wife telling me all about Nietzsche.
March 26, 2008
Daily photo for March 26th
My photo for today:
Nothing really artistic from me here, just got a kick out of the logo on this truck.
March 25, 2008
Daily photo for March 25th
My photo for today:
Speaking of "artful chaos", I saw this as I left the house today.
March 24, 2008
Daily photo for March 24th
My photo for today:
I noticed that I've been posting a lot of head-on shots with clear vertical and horizontal lines like this one. I think that I should try to break out of that habit. Maybe I should work on shots with less order and more artful chaos.
March 23, 2008
Daily photo for March 23rd
My photo for today:
I Had a lazy day today, so I didn't get out to take many photos. It was a fun challenge to find some shots around the house. I like this one of my wife, I think it feels very candid and natural.
March 22, 2008
Daily photo for March 22nd
My photo for today:
My first attempt at a (nearly) black and white shot. I've been wanting to take a picture of these guys for a while now. I call them "sleeping guards".
March 21, 2008
Daily photo for March 21st
My photo for today:
From my bedroom window last night. I thought about posting this one in black and white, but it seemed too dark. I am hoping to experiment with some black and white photos this month.
March 20, 2008
Daily photo for March 20th
I'm having a hard time deciding which photo to post today. Maybe you can help me out. I'm trying to decide between two photos that are quite different, it's kind of an "apples to oranges" thing.
The first one I call "artsy"
The next is more... I don't know, "photojournalistic"?
I don't think either one is especially great, but I'm just curious to hear what people think about the merits of each. Is the "artsy" one just "artsy" with no substance? Is the other one too much substance and story without enough art? Thanks in advance.
March 19, 2008
Daily photo for March 19th
My photo for today:
I'm not very good at taking pictures of people, so I decided to work at it this month. Today was the first day that I feel like I shot anything decent. This is my wife at home, absorbed in the marvelous world of the Internet.
March 18, 2008
Daily photo for March 18th
My photo for today:
I'm not sure if this is a very interesting photo or not, but I got kind of attached to it. I think because I was really enjoying the music I was listening to at the time I took it.
March 17, 2008
Daily photo for March 17th
My photo for today:
Another Metro photo. I think this photo is interesting because the area of focus is on the right, but many of us read left-to-right and tend to start our focusing on the left. I think it looks a little different if you start looking at it from the right than if you start from the left. I think I could've cropped this one better, but I couldn't find one that seemed to really work.
March 16, 2008
Daily photo for March 16th
My photo for today:
I'm trying to work on portraits, but I'm not there yet, so landscapes will have to do for now.
March 15, 2008
Daily photo for March 15th
My photo for today:
Even though we took a walk through wonderful Letna park with its great views of central Prague, my favorite picture today was this unremarkable scene that I didn't even frame very deliberately. I guess you just get lucky sometimes.
The picture I posted yesterday did grow on me quite a bit after I posted it, but I still played around with it a little more afterwards. Here's something much closer to the original that I think I prefer to the one I posted yesterday.
March 14, 2008
Daily photo for March 14th
My photo for today:
As you can probably tell, I really tortured this one in iPhoto, but we caught some pretty dramatic views along the Charles Bridge tonight as the sun was setting and the shots I took seemed to want to be taken to the extreme. I like the silhouette effect of the lower half, but I couldn't quite make the sky happy. I'm even thinking of playing around with the same photo and re-posting it tomorrow because it's bugging me right now.
March 13, 2008
Daily photo for March 13th
My photo for today:
The metro is a wealth of photo opportunities. Today I got the shot that I was trying to get 10 days ago, with the train just entering the frame.
And here's a fun shot that I took today of a cool t-shirt for sale.
From what I can read, this is what it says:
TODAY 13
SUPREME
Want To Enjoy Some
FOR-OUT A PARTY?
Door Open 9:00 pm
Midnight FROM 4AM
Totally, man. I want to enjoy some for-out a party.
March 12, 2008
Daily photo for March 12th
My photo for today:
Today was better than the last two days. I slowed down a little bit and that gave me more time to look around me and to shoot more carefully. I actually had two shots that I really liked for today and had a hard time choosing between them. In the end, I went with this one because it seemed to evoke more feeling than the other one.
March 11, 2008
Daily photo for March 11th
My photo for today:
Today was another tough day, photography-wise. I was in a bit of a rush all day, which isn't conducive to taking pictures. I think there's something interesting to this photo, but I'm not exactly sure what, or where, it is.
March 10, 2008
Daily photo for March 10th
My photo for today:
After my great success yesterday, today brought me back down to earth. I was back to my work week routine and had a hard time eyeing anything new. I caught these interesting lines outside my office building, and I guess they'll do for today.
March 09, 2008
Daily photo for March 9th
My photo for today:
I'm quite pleased with this photo. When I posted my first photo this month, I mentioned that I wanted to stay away modifying the originals until I learned more about what makes a good photo good. Over the last few days I've slowly started to play around with some tweaks to make improvements over the originals - a little bit of cropping, a slight boost in contrast or saturation - never too many things at once. I spent a little more time than usual in iPhoto this time doing some fine-tuning and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I feel like the adjustments I made, small changes to various elements of the color, saturation, exposure, etc., really enhanced the original. For comparison, you can see the original photo here. I think that the modified one really "pops", whereas the original doesn't.
What I'm hoping is that through this project my eye for photos is slowly getting better and that this photo turned out well not because I found the "magic" settings in iPhoto, but because it was already good (or had the potential to be good) , and my adjustments in iPhoto just brought out the "good"-ness of it (or unlocked the "good" potential of it, or whatever). In any case, with this project I'm going to try to focus on taking good photos, rather than trying to make ordinary photos look good with software. I think there's still an art to photography, even with the great digital cameras and software that you can easily get today. Even if it's sometimes subtle, there's a difference between a photo that looks good and a photo that is good.
March 08, 2008
Daily photo for March 8th
My photo for today:
At Tesco today. Even in the Czech Republic, there's more variety than you need.
Also at Tesco, I saw this:
Just thought it was funny that they don't call him Mr. Clean here. Apparently, he goes by other names too.
March 07, 2008
Daily photo for March 7th
My photo for today:
We have a skylight in the bathroom, which made this ordinary group of objects look like something worth photographing.
March 06, 2008
Daily photo for March 6th
My photo for today:
Caught some nice light outside my door as I was leaving. This project is getting me to notice things around me more.
March 05, 2008
Daily photo for March 5th
My photo for today:
I'm pretty happy with this photo, but I spent a lot of time struggling with different crops. I couldn't find one that seemed more compelling than the original, so I left it as I took it. I still feel like there's a better crop in there somewhere.
March 04, 2008
Daily photo for March 4th
My photo for today:
I had kind of a hard time today. None of the photos I took really jumped out at me. I'll have to pay a little more attention when I'm shooting tomorrow.
I like the tone of the colors in this one, but I think it's mostly a result of having the wrong white balance setting on my camera when I took this. Having Prague Castle in the background also makes it nice, of course ; )
March 03, 2008
Daily photo for March 3rd
My photo for today:
Again, I did very minimal touching up. I only straightened the photo a degree or two and cropped the uneven edges. I like the colors and the bold horizontal lines in this one and how there's a place right in the middle of the photo where you can see clearly through to the wall behind the train (completely unintentional, of course).
I was actually trying to catch the train a moment sooner, so that you could see the front of it entering the frame. I'm not sure if that would've turned out better or not...
March 02, 2008
March 12 in 12 project
I'm not quite ready to start getting back into shape, physically (next month?!), but I'm starting to get back into shape, creatively. My January project was a lot of fun and today I was thinking about how my enthusiasm for my wonderful new city has waned - dulled by the monotony of work and the gloom of Winter. But the beauty is still here - all around me, in fact. I just need to become more attuned to it. So, this month, I've decided that I'll focus on sharpening my awareness of the world around me. My "12 in 12" project/goal for March will be:
Take 10 photos each day and post one of them online.
Here's my first photo of the month (I know I skipped yesterday, but, whatever).
There was some great light at this cool brunch place we went to today and a funky Communist-era (maybe?) phone in the windowsill. Perfect ingredients for a nice photo, huh? The hard part was fighting off the urge to make it look like what I thought a nice photograph is supposed to look like. I experimented with turning the contrast all the way up and with giving it an antique, faded look. But I decided that if I want to become a good photographer, it couldn't hurt to try to forget what I think I know about photography. So, I didn't do anything to this photo. No cropping or Photoshop effects for now. I'm pretty happy with the original anyway, I like the colors and I think the composition isn't bad (it's got a little bit of the "rule of thirds" going on).
I'm a little intimidated about tomorrow, since it's a regular work day and it'll take some effort to notice the things that I see all the time. But, of course, I'm also looking forward to it.
March 01, 2008
Cesky Krumlov pics
I just added some photos from Cesky Krumlov, a cool little town a few hours south of Prague.
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