D 60 - This ugly meltdown

The mercury bar jumped above the melting point for the first time this year. Some winter it has been.

As everything in life this boon also has its downside. With this much snow changing to water, we are bound to get mud. Loads of mud.

Equipment

Samsung S630 on manual settings.

I did some tonal curve adjustment and faded out the buildings (by local adjustment of contrast and clarity) in Lightroom.

What I learned

I tried to separate a single bush sticking out from the snow cover, then I tried to catch those heaps of snow as mountains striking against the sky but none of those photos came out well. So I went for this one with buildings oddly contrasting with the mountain-like snow formations.
If at first you don't succeed try again.

D 59 - Hide behind

Ah! The beauties of my city. Major chimneys can be easily used for orienteering in the industrial areas.
This one is the same one that I can see from my window. "Blink, blink!" my son calls them, for the red lights they flash against the night sky.
Here it is seen from a platform in front of my office.

Equipment

Samsung S630.

I didn't like the way it looked on the camera LCD and with a 3Mpix I shot it with (for the sake of saving memory card space) I didn't think it would be any good.

In Lightroom I cropped it by around 20% and pushed up saturation a little. The clouds merged with sky too much, so I had to adjust levels and increase clarity. I also used a gradual filter at the bottom which increased contrast but took off some saturation and clarity for the smog look.

What I learned

I must admit that I'm a bit confused by what to think and what to say about if my photographs have been "photoshopped" or not. I don't ever use Photoshop, when I need to work on layers I go for GIMP, which would be the same thing actually. The thing is I don't use it on more than 1% of my photos.

It would seem that I don't edit my pictures, right? But I do. Not a single photo on this blog can be called straight-out-of-camera. I adjust levels, sharpness, white balance and quite often I re-crop in Lightroom (usually by less than 10% of the frame size). This was why I started to shoot RAW in the first place.

So what is the real photo and what is "photoshop" work? Not that is matters to me, but people ask and I always hesitate what to say.

D 58 - Not productive

One of those moments at work, when you would give anything to just be somewhere else, doing something more like... more like you, really.

Equipment

Sony-Ericsson W810i.

What I learned

I'm not quite satisfied with this one. Even casual photos made with your mobile phone (the best camera, as in 'the best camera is the one you have with you') should be somewhat planned and redone if not good enough at first.

D 57 - Winter boots

Still sharing stuff from the weekend. Hope you find it's worth it as much as I do.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Only few posts ago I found out that I can change the contents of http code with link so that click on the photo shows it in the full browser window instead of redirecting to Picasa album.
Now you can easily access higher resolution view of my following photos.

D 56 - And when you see a tunnel, don't follow the light.

A passage out of Jurassic/Fairy Tale theme park. Yes, that means dinosaurs and Cinderella standing shoulder to shoulder.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

The aperture...
I left it at 1/3.5.
And it shows.

I usually worship the rule of thirds. The only repetitive exception I notice in my work are photographs of alleys and portals of various kinds, when I see the central composition to be the only fitting.
I should try this conviction one day and put such object in a golden mean composition for example.

D 55 - House on a hill

It was at the begining of evening golden hour. Go figure. With those clouds above, it could be midday as well.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 on a tripod.

What I learned

Tripod can be used as a monopod as well. Just keep the three legs of the tripod together.

D 54 - They once stood proud

Orchards must be revitalized every few years, to keep the fruit harvest optimal. How corporate.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Snow with heavy clouds flattening down the sunlight need strong contrasted subjects to be interesting. There are barely any shadows. The World seems like one big photography tent on such day.