D 125 - Sitting idle

My son watching his favorite cartoons.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

I like portraits made with wide-angle lens. Generally I'm rather after surreal, impressionist quality of portraits than the nuances of classical portraits which are supposed to be favorable for the model. It's the surprising and unusual in people that I like to see.

Colors

I'm about in a third of the way with my 365 days Project.

I wanted to concentrate on the simplicity and beauty of monochrome photographs. I still do. But I've noticed that most of my recent photos were color.

I hope this is just the thing that Spring does to me with the sudden flood of extra sunlight hours and intensity. In a way its a result of not working out photography ideas but documenting beautiful sights and details.

That's nice but that is not why I started this 4 months ago. I wanted to improve my photography, not share snapshots of my surroundings.

I need to refocus on the original aims and get back to compose photos. Black and white photos which are better for composition and form studies.

Like this one:

D 124 - Infloration

The chestnut tree, which I have planted from a crooked twig dug out from underneath terrace stairs, blossoms for the first time this year.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Series of shots which I took trying to portray this flower buds was (contrary to the shots of the motorway construction site) too focused on the subject and lacked a proper background or secondary subject contesting with the main one.

D 123 - Loader wanted

One of the favorite toys of my son.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

D 122 - Back-lit trunk

A trunk of an aspen with a stick pushed in from the top with the camera put low on the opposing side to the setting sun.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Golden hour ftw.

At some point you begin to think that you don't even need a subject to get a nice photo at dusk or dawn. It may be even true. All in all, what your sensor registers is light, not the subject.

D 121 - Dead Dog

A dog. Asleep. Right in the middle of the busiest pass in the house.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
Developed from RAW in Lightroom: levels, color mix, sharpness and just a 1-2% of a frame cropped from the top.

What I learned

Coming back from the land of no editing I admit that many shots should be leaved as they come out of camera without any changes and only some need anything more than sharpening and a slight crop correction.

There is however no way I can imagine making b&w photos without playing around with the RAW file in Lightroom. Just to show my point, here is the same photo as it came out of E-510 in jpg format (click to enlarge):



With each level of zooming in the amount of detail lost becomes obvious. And remember, that in Lightroom I was working on the original 10 megapixel file, so I was able to witness 10x more details that this 768x1024 file.

D 120 - Where is T-Rex?

Shooting up the tree is one of those cliche but effective techniques. In this case the poplar has a long bare trunk with some branches (still leafless after the winter) at the top.

To me it looks like one of those prehistoric giant ferns.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
Saturation, levels and sharpness corrected in Lightroom.

What I learned

Cliche techniques and compositions are not to be avoided during the learning process.

D 119 - Birds

Bird tracks in a river mud. Part of "My Way or the Highway" series.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
Developed from RAW in Lightroom: saturation, levels, color mix and sharpness.

What I learned

After the time of posting straight out of camera shots I'm trying to assimilate the skills learned into my regular photography. I think the most important thing is acceptance of the original crop. Framing the scene properly is what I should expect myself to do before pressing the shutter.

D 118 - Ivy

Nature shots at sunset. These were taken on a shaded side of a large tree trunk.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

When avoiding direct sunlight golden hour is also very good for black and white shots.

D 117 - Tracks

A photo from a series of shots of a nice spot that will be run over by a major East-West trans-European motorway in a few months. Some terrain bulldozing has already taken place.

I plan to call this series "My Way or the Highway".

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

I'll make a comment to the entire series of shots I made, after I reviewed it on a PC. I made too much similar general shots and panoramas. In a series there must be more shots showing details and single objects.