D 27 - Orb

This is a goodbye photo for this years Christmas Tree. I'm taking it down tomorrow.

Equipment

Samsung S630, mobile phone flashlight.

What I learned

I need to get out with the camera more. I'll start this week.

D 26 - It's in the eye of the beholder

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The Devil - instinctive, animal part of us.
Always tempting us to let go of anything deeper than what we can see with our eyes and what our minds can understand and to revel in the passions of our senses.
But if we subject to it, we become prisoners of the mundane. Space and time become our chains. We grow old and scared in our hearts.

I was struggling with this topic and I wasn't sure if a photo of clock can sincerely fit it. But to me this clock with a creeping plant is a symbol of constraints of our inner animal.
I guess it's just in the eye of the beholder.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 (Helios was too narrow, I tried), flash with softbox, tripod, aluminum sheet reflector and a mirror to see what's on the lcd.

What I learned

This was quite a trick to frame properly with the back of the camera body just 5 cm away from cupboards. I turned on live view and used small mirror to see what it shows. Framing wasn't perfect but I didn't need to correct it by more than 10-15%.

I am more and more concerned by the loss of detail caused by small size of this blog frames. Sometimes it is a shame that you can't see the fine details of those shots.
Maybe I should double up those photos on some photo sharing site and post links? I sure can't do it on Picasa because it doesn't allow to link precisely required size of photo. So if I uploaded 2MP photo the closest size I could link to would be 400 pixels instead of 440 as I do now by already uploading exactly that size.

D 25 - ... or lack thereof

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Today the keyphrase is... Taking final decision. Which gave me quite a challenge. I even gave up and went for anything around that could be used for a photograph. It wasn't that bad because I came up with quite a nice shot:



But when I visited my general storage closet (Anybody know the proper word for this little separate room for tools and all the things you need to keep out of sight?) I realized that this completely messy place fits the topic by contradiction. Most of things are there because I can't find any immediate use for them and don't want to get rid of. On top of that I can't make myself look through those stuff and clean up the place. I bet you know how it works with those closets. Only psychopaths and accountants keep them orderly.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and flash with softbox for the main photo.
Samsung S630 on a tripod for the one with crystal shell. It was additionally lightened from beneath by a built in flashlight in my Sony Ericsson mobile phone.

What I learned

All things can (and should) be also considered by reversals and photos made just by the way of working on some other idea can be mostly interesting.

D 24 - The Star

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Od Dark Light Back

High in the sky or just within reach? The star - symbol of hope and things we are looking forward to. This are my two takes on another random topic.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and in case of my son's photo built-in flash with softbox.

What I learned

This self imposed random challenges are a very inspiring concept. It almost seems to easy to just pop up with some more or less universal symbol and work around it. At least it is so for me.

D 23 - Work suspended

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Today I gave myself a random topic and then I tried to catch it on film memory card. The topic was 'Suspended work' and I formulated it at 6 p.m. so it wasn't that easy to do. Fortunately there is work to be done at home too.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442, flash with softbox.

What I learned

I'm still trying to master the use of flash with a softbox and again it seems to work best as a fill light complimenting some external light source and since I have to set the flash to small output power I have to go high ISO which is tricky with Olympus DSLRs.

Working with a set topic in mind helps to focus my mind on the theme and sharpen my eyes to find it around me. I think that this is something that can be used any time when there I have no specific idea for a photograph (which is quite often).

D 22 - Bottoms Up

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Od Dark Light Back

I got the idea for this from some old DPS assignment "Filters". People used all kind of weird stuff as photographic filters, including glasses caught from various angles.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015, pop-up flash with diffuser and a blue coke glass.

Od Dark Light Back

What I learned

Once again giving a twist to your photography, however wild one brings the fun back into the experience and is a playful and rewarding in a surprising way mean of growing your skill.

D 21 - Three weeks is the time of biggest crisis

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Three weeks is the time of biggest crisis when running Project365 or so I was told. I'm not the guy to paddle against the current so I gave myself a break today.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015 lens, built-in flash with DIY softbox. A tongue.

What I learned

Sometimes you just can't push it. Sleep it through. Goodnight.

D20 - Dug in

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We have some serious snowfall this weekend. Shooting outside seems a bit to hard on my equipment so I stayed on a warm side of the window (again) and captured this snow climbing up the balcony door.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 on a gorilla-pod.

What I learned

The shapes of snow layers were quite elusive with the natural backlight, although they were quite clear to see with a naked eye.

Clean the window before you shoot through it!