The pleurisy has FINALLY gone away enough that I can get away with keeping my narcotics usage to the night time. I'm still on heavy amounts of ibuprofin, but I'm relieved enough over this step that I could cry. This means that I'm easing my way back into taking pictures again. This excites me greatly, as I have some gear to rent and a formal portrait shoot to do with horses at the end of January. Practice, practice, practice.

On another note. Trains are serious business.

Sunlight & fairly still child.

Speedlight & squirmy child.

Part II

Shooting while drugged was interesting. I think 12 of the 30 shots I took came out in focused. Ha! Just out of time to wait for feeling up to par. This will have to do. It's not so nice as I had hoped, but I think it works.

Fish appropriated (reused from first), glass texture appropriated. Fan scanned. Everything else shot with my moderately patient eight year old. Turned down the saturation and the selected things to bring out. Seventeen pictures in this one, eighteen if you count the one I duplicated.

---

Tweaked it more. I was tempted to edit out all of the clipping, but I like what it does where I left it.

Generally speaking, I find the behavior of my fellow classmates to be appalling.

How difficult is it to pay attention when someone is giving a presentation?

FFS, people. I was so disgusted that I left.

Then I saw where someone had recreated a Banksy painting on the trunk of his car. It was a joy to be reminded of the things that matter.

Don't know Banksy? Go look.

Here is an interesting article on the future of photography.

The game is changing so fast that nobody can see the moves before they're three moves behind.

It's all good, though. No matter what happens, I'll be there framing the world.

And, a photograph!

50mm . 400ISO . 1/400 @f1.8
It was nice and soft, but there was a patch too focused.
I softened that up in Photoshop. Otherwise it's as-is from the card.

Nothing quite like a mad scramble to get your final project done. My last batch of antibiotics worked for a few days, but mid-shoot on Weds after class I found myself flush with fever again. I spent until Friday in bed, then went off to try something new. A longer round of medication. Wee.

However! Today I was feeling well enough to shoot, and I did spend my time in bed at least planning. I've gotten the first part of my project done. It's not quite how I pictured it in my head, but there's always something lost in the translation for me.



There are 19 separate images in this composite. Three are scans (per the assignment), and one is appropriated from someone good enough to list it under creative commons (also per the assignment). I spent a little over an hour on the fish selection, which is ironic given the fact that it is small, and that the tail - the most troublesome part- has been cut off by the windowsill. I'm not too happy with the bottom left, so I suspect I will reshoot it over the weekend. Overall, though, I'm very pleased with how it came out. I can't wait to start on the second part.

I have been incredibly, dreadfully ill. I do not know what is going on, but it needs to stop.

That lingering illness took a drastic turn for the worst, and after three days of barely controlled fever, shaking, and coughs, I gave up and went to the doctor. Turns out I had pneumonia and an ear infection. Yay!

I had to drop my art history class. I missed my midterm and way too much lecture to hope to ever catch up. Luckily I can make up a great deal of my photography coursework from home.

Alas, I missed Halloween. It's my favorite holiday, but more than that there are so many funky photographs that need to be taken on Halloween! I took a few between coughing fits, braving the cold and the wet against the rocks in my chest.

I was too weak to set up my tripod, and couldn't hold my camera straight. I gave up after the first few attempts. This one doesn't look too bad so long as it's small...



At one point when I went to answer the door to the kids coming around, I discovered that the snails had come out in the dark and the rain. They really, really like squash. They were gorging themselves on the jack-o-lanterns. This one had the least of it, but the larger ones had snails stuffed into every hole and nomming on the ridges of the cuts. I'm just glad they didn't cook themselves on the candles. It was quite the sight. Remarkably, none of the children were squeamish about it, and none of them attempted to kill the things.




Trying to get life back in order again. I jump every time the wife or kids cough. The wee one has a snotty fever. I'm hoping it's just colds...

I don't use facebook, but

here is an interesting article on Facebook & Your Photographs for those of you who do.

ISO <3

It's amazing what having a proper ISO will do for you.

I wish I'd dropped the shutter speed on this and allowed a tiny bit more DOF, but I still love it.

Light!

In the office/library/craft room there is this ugly, ugly, ugly textured yellow glass window alongside the fireplace. It is long and narrow, and lets in highly directional light that does little to actually illuminate anything but a handful of bricks.

In the interests of snatching it before it went away, I snagged the children out of the backyard for light experimentation. I ignored the ragamuffin tangles and the lunch smeared all over their faces. My lens is not fast enough for quite this low light, so I had to crank up my ISO (ironic, neh?) to get anything workable. I knew that I'd be clipping into the blacks, but I was hoping to get something fairly tenebristic and so went that way rather than clipping into the whites. I think that in the future I can drop my ISO a bit and sacrifice the shutter speed in order to do so. They weren't moving overly much. If I can cram an adult into this little corner, I might have even more success with it.



Things start innocently enough.

It's easy to be patient with your mother when you're busy hamming it up.

The patience is wearing thin.

After ten minutes, the process has melted down entirely.
Imala looks like a bored thug, and Lore has set himself to a fine display of dramatics.
I let them go, made note of my settings, and left it at that.

I am sick again. I have midterms this week. YARG. I blame this:



Damn kids. Get off my lawn.

Taken on the front porch. Yes that's me in his eyes. I've decided to leave myself there.
Evening light. 50mm . f8@1/400
1600 ISO (hence the noisy bits)

On a more positive note, I've learned that much of my frustration with my photographs is due to some default setting in my camera. I keep setting my ISO to 400, and it keeps switching it around. It took me a while to notice, but I was suffering from a great deal of frustration with the noise in my images (such as the one above). Apparently, in addition to setting the ISO, I have to turn off the auto ISO feature. Now whose bright idea was that??

Hopefully I'll feel well enough to shoot something I like and get it printed in time for my QoL assignment. I have not been terribly happy with any of the ones I've taken specifically for this assignment.

Today I am 28.

I'm working nearly full time, going to school part time, volunteering, and raising two children (the last part with help, phew).

I just wrote the check for our first ever mortgage payment.

Sometimes life feels very .. well, overwhelming.

At the same time, it almost feels like I'm cheating. It really shouldn't be this easy, right? I mean, who changes careers at 28, especially with so much financial responsibility? Especially into such an income-risky profession? Especially to something they Love? Who has the right to be that lucky?

It's my second birthday without my mom. I wish I could call her up and talk about it all. Hey mom; look. I'm a photographer!



Okay, yeah. You can still be proud of me without me sticking my tongue out. :P

Yesterday was a bad day. From the moment I woke up (the husband turned off my alarm so I woke up late), to the nightmares as I was trying to get to sleep. I even got my first ever moving violation. Happy early birthday; I guess?

Today is a good day. I'm at the in-laws with the wee one. He's all about the woods and the dogs. I'm all about the light.




The sun was setting on the drive out. It was all I could do not to pull over every three seconds to take pictures. Unfortunately it's not something you get to do when you have an impatient three year old in the back seat.

Yarg. I fail at communication with authority figures.

Note to self: Do not try to segue. It is not good.

This class is FRUSTRATING me. It frustrated me enough that I even felt the need to encourage the professor to be a hardass. That was extremely difficult to do, and I botched it up royally, but that is how distressing this is. If you don't want to participate, why are you here?!

No; I don't expect everyone to be as excited as I am. Not everyone has denied themselves something they love for over ten years, and then gets to just turn around midstream and go chasing after it. I know this, but...

ENGAGE. Please. People. At least try. Please? I'm trying for you, but it's really easy to get to feeling defeated. It's not like most of us know what the heck we're doing. There's no need to feel embarrassed or as though you're going to sound stupid. Just speak your mind and volunteer your opinion. It's an opinion, not a statement of fact. Hell, if you know the statement of fact, volunteer that. Something, anything but glazed staring.

Yes, yes, I know most aren't reading this, but it's a vent about class in a class blog. Mrph.

Picture. Pictures are good. I wish I could see more class pictures! Maybe I post too many.





Cropped from the bracketing assignment.

Flowers for Alger-- er, Jesse

There's something of an ongoing bit in my class.
The instructor is under the impression that we all like flowers (who doesn't?),
and that we all like taking pictures of flowers.
I realized that I was missing pictures of flowers, and I would hate to disappoint.

So here are some flowers for Jesse.

Okay, so that one's more of barbed wire, but it's about the flowers.

Honest.

Story Time

Today I went on a walk. The sky was blue. There were many circling birds. The sun was bright and sunny. It was hot.








The grass was brown. There was a boy on the trail. Hello boy.





The boy sees a dog ahead on the path. The boy runs. Run boy, run.






Oh no! Look out, little dog! The boy is getting closer. The boy might eat the dog. RUN AWAY LITTLE DOG; RUN AWAY!







The dog turns. The dog growls.


The boy runs away.







Not to be defeated, the boy searches for the dog. He spots the black dog in the yellow grass, then chases him toward the fork in the dirty road. Run dog, run!







The hill was too hilly.

The sticks were too sticky.

The boy was sad.

The boy found the dog resting in the road. "Hello, little dog," the boy said. "Will you watch over me while I take a turn resting?"







The little dog got up and watched over the little boy. They were both very hot, and very happy.







Bigger here.

Blue Halo, Blue Halo; How do I loathe thee?

Even when out in the world doing other things, I find horses that I must photograph. Ha!

I went to the Legion of Honor this past weekend for my art history class. I took my camera along to do some of my bracketing assignment while I was there, and inevitably wound up taking other pictures as well. I wanted some high-contrasted silhouette (with marked highlights) shots, but I need to work on my exposure more. Plus people kept walking up to me asking questions and chatting me up while I was trying to fuss with it. I got frustrated and left.

Here are the two near-silhouettes I did manage to get:

These shots are frustrating in more than just the exposure department, though. Blue halos FTL! WTF, camera. I cry inside. QQ

Even the shot where I wasn't trying to get a silhouette is full of these pesky edgings.

I'm not sure how to deal with that sort of thing except to go in and photoshop it out, but that takes so much time and makes me very whiny!

I can't sleep, so I may as well document.

Yesterday (though kind of like today since I still haven't slept) I took 208 photographs. 208?? In 50 minutes.

Of those 208 photographs, I liked 107 of them enough to let my wife and her trainer pick some shots.

Of those 107 photographs, I felt that 28 were any good.

208 photographs - 28 decent ones. Yarg. Oh well, practice makes perfect? Maybe I can get that ratio higher in the future.

28 decent pictures; one for the blog:

1/320 @ f5.6 . Taken on my D70s with my old Tamron 28-200 . Metadata has it: 190mm.

I think anyone who reads this might be getting sick of horse pictures by the time this class is over. Ha!

pretty ponies

Today was such a long day. My in-laws came. I was tired and cranky and did not take pictures. I should have. Everyone was so happy but me.

I did take pictures of Eagle. I was supposed to take dressage shots of Feather, but Susan forgot. It's just as well. I still don't know what the heck I'm doing. Still, practice practice. I can't wait until I get more knowledge under my belt. I've found that I adore taking pictures of the horses. It's very difficult, though. They're so fast. Especially Eagle. Hanoverians have huge strides.

I took a lot of shots that I was really happy with. I might do some sort of composition with them after the title company on Tuesday. In the meantime, here are some of my favorites. I keep forgetting to convert to sRGB. Yarg.

48 in 24

Well, this 48 images in 24 hours has been less frustrating, but no less hectic. We're all stuck in the craziness of constantly changing stories from our broker and our realtor. Things have been dragging and dragging and dragging. There have been a lot of drawn out moments of tense stillness: staring out of windows and lying under apple trees. These are interspersed with flurries of activity: trips to the barn and the grocery store.

Everyone's nerves are short. The barn is relaxing, and the ice cream parlor is fun. The grocery store is a nightmare, and the library is hectic. We make do and give apologetic hugs as we play outside in the monstrous heat.

Everywhere I go I take my camera. It's my new mission in life. Take it. Use it. Click, click. People are glaring. I smile at them. They still glare. I hesitate and let them dissuade me. I regret that later. Practice. Practice. Oh well, next time I'll smile and take a picture of the glare.

48 pictures . 24 hours





And these two are my happy compromises between exposure and composition:

Again, Michealle? Really?

Today's lecture helped soooooooo much. And, as I've looked on the assignment sheet and the finished project appears to be due on the 8th and not today as I thought, I think I shall redo it! Bwahaha.

I hope people start participating more in class. There's some non-emergency version of the bystander effect at work here and it's making me chomp at the bit. RAR!

Here's another of the ones I liked from my last attempt. I'm trying to keep an image per entry. Consumerism fascinates me on so many levels.

48 in 24

Keeping things in my 50mm was an exercise in and of itself. Most everything was coming out over or under exposed. I kind of like the resulting images in some cases. Well, after I turned the exposure up or down, anyway.


This is a picture of the Krishna statue that I keep in the livingroom. It's a good two feet tall. I have it tucked against the wall and the barrister's bookcase to keep it safe from rampaging children and animals (and hey, in this house, sometimes adults). I believe that my uncle obtained it sometime in the 1970's.

First I converted this image to grayscale, then increased the exposure and increased the contrast to bring more of the noise to the surface. You loose some of the detailing on the piece itself, but I like the texture.





This is Sol Skugga. We call her Skugga. My wife and I took the horses out for a nice two hour trail ride before it got too hot today, then turned them out while we mucked stalls. We left them there while Amanda exercised Eagle. I snapped this shot of Skugga foraging between shots of the Eaglebeast.

This image was clearly overexposed. It was so bad that even the horse looked mostly white. I brought the exposure down and left it that way. I like how it bleached the color out of the dirt and rails.

I'm looking forward to class tomorrow, but before that I need a nice long night's sleep. Target on the last weekend before summer? What was I thinking?!?!

I guess I was thinking I had to get all the school supplies I'd just found out about. Yeesh. I wish those elementary teachers would tell us sooner!

False starts

My stomach ache turned into the stomach flu. And, fascinating as my twisting gut seems to find the inside of my toilet bowl, I do not think that it would make for a very entertaining 48 photographs. I'm starting over this evening. Still somewhat ill, but the vomit seems to have subsided.

I was kind enough to share with my poor husband. This picture of his hand is one of the images that I shot before succumbing to the urge to just curl up on the sofa in a cramped ball of misery. He gave in far before I did, and slept for near the entirety of the afternoon. All things considered, I envy him being able to sleep through the bulk of it.


The kids have been very good about entertaining themselves. Lore has scattered cars and trains all through the house, and it has made every headlong trip down the hallway an adventure in and of itself. Imala took to unpacking and redecorating her bedroom. I snatched up my camera during one of my better few minutes and leaned in through her door to snap a quick picture. She was indignant, as she tends to be anymore when it comes to my taking pictures. Letting the children use my camera to take their own pictures seems to have cut back on their retaliatory responses to seeing my lenses pointed at them. Maybe I'll pick them up some inexpensive ones for the holidays this year.

I'm dreadfully excited about this class. Now if only I can get over my frustration with never seeming to get my exposure right. Even when my meter says it's spot on, the images are coming back over or under exposed. Yarg! These two I knew would be underexposed when I shot them, but there was a decided lack of light and I was going for the moment moreso than technical proficiency. Oh well. I'll get this figured out eventually.

48 in 24

Our first assignment is to capture 48 images in 24 hours. My initial response was, "Hey, no problem. I can get 48 in one hour, let alone 24." I am finding that, in practical application, it is another thing entirely to stretch that one hour out into twenty-four.

Not only this, but this assignment is an exercise in intimacy and risk. It is a documentation of my life, and it requires that I -gasp- take my camera out of its lovely controlled setting. It's not my precious baby that I need to protect and keep in its wrapping. It is a tool. I should take care of it, but not freak out about the notion of taking it to the grocery store. Besides, I live in a nice enough environment these days that I don't have to worry about getting a knife in the kidney so someone can rip it off of my neck.

I keep taking pictures and being unhappy with them. I can't believe how reliant I've become on my programmed mode. I keep telling myself I'll start the 48 with the next one, no, the next one, no, the next one. All blurry. Too dark. Too bright. White balance is off. Etc.

Well. I made myself stick to it. Around 5 this evening I took the first in the series. They're not pretty, but they're real. An escape from the idyllic and a venture into the mundane. There was more I wanted to say, but I've got a monstrous stomach ache, so it can wait.