D 174 - Dirt

Bathroom sink after rinsing vacuum filter.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

Even dirty menial housework can have an interesting perspective.

Well... Alice In Chains rules anyway. I'm playing 'Dirt' on my stereo today, so I guess I got inspired or something.

Garbage, sewage, dirt and abandon. The rat and roach infested backstage of modern life. Menial works that nobody thinks about but someone has to be doing it. It all sounds like a very tempting theme and it has always been so to me. Freud wouldn't have liked it.

D 173 - Tyred

Old tires put around a backyard in some deliberate manner but without any obvious purpose.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 172 - Half Earth, Half Heaven

An office building in midday sun.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 171 - Bad Stuff

Another industrial area, now turned to a low-end offices.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 170 - Handset

A doorphone handset shot in a DIY light tent made from a recipe found on the net.

Equipment

E-510 with both kit ZD- lens interchanged.
RAW heavily worked on in Lightroom.

What I learned

I bow before accomplished product photographers. I thought it was a no-brainer to make some clean and appealing product shots.

I was very wrong. Achieving a barely satisfying result was quite a hard work for me.

I didn't make it easy for myself and used only household and DIY equipment to make the photos. It took my well over 3 hours to make a makeshift photo tent and set it up under a lamp with extra bright bulb (do they still call that name those new fluorescent energy-saving things?) and than make the shots.

I approved 12 out of 42 photos, which all-in-all is quite a good ratio but on the flip side, I know that next time I could make the shots way better.

I wish I've had: black backdrop, dense fabric for tent walls (or a light tent), two or more lamps giving exactly the same light, a good tripod, external flash(-es) with a reflector or soft-box.

Additionally I must remember to compensate exposure bias when photographing white object on white backdrop. I had to brighten photos in Lightroom to a point when even ISO 100 gave away some noise.

D 169 - Bus Reject

If you pay attention, you can spot water in a ditch between the road and this old bus stop.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

Recently my Project 365 with a photo-every-day turns more into photos-every-weekend with occasional shot made during the week.

But I don't worry. I'm not even half way down the project and I already feel my work becoming more to my liking, taking some shape. Not distinct enough to call it a name but just enough to feel it's presence.

D 168 - Swingallows

And sometimes a night can look like a day.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 167 - 40 Days of Night

Sometimes a day can look like a night...

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 166 - Night of the Lush Green

A scene that attracted attention on a dark, cloudy night.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 165 - Ms. Whiskers

Ever-elusive cat has been finally befriended and photographed.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

D 164 - Twist

A slightly overcomplicated ceiling.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

Tip from Chris Weston

"Something I still do to this day is, before I press the shutter I ask myself the question “How would I caption this image?” If the only answer I can conjure is the species name, then I wait for a better shot."

- Chris Weston

From: Digital Photography School