D 212 - "Y"

Parking Lot.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015.

D 211 - "2"

A factory wall.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015.

D 209 - Too gloomy to fly today

Pigeons at a rooftop.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015

D 207 - Beggar

Pigeon in a gateway.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015.

What I learned

I've attached the kit tele-lens zoom the my Olympus and try to keep it on at all times. I've strongly neglected this focal length range before and so I feel that only forced practice can give me the feel of it.

D 201 - Valkyrie

My wife's niece shortly after a little incident on patio stairs.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4.

D 193 - Dead Heat #1

A stroll down sun flooded streets with a mobile phone.

Equipment

W810i.

D 190 - Nature vs decoration

A sign from the times past. It was one of only a few furniture shops in a town of almost 1 mln people and it had barely any supplies usually. Hurray for centrally planned economy!

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4.

What I learned

I keep seeing those ridiculous trees rising straight from concrete surface with no other green matter but themselves around.

D 179 - Antenna

Quiet corner by my building.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 176 - Pretty far, dude...

Some guys were filming capoeira on the roof. It was raining most of the time and they stayed there for hours. Those two took a cigarette break.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 175 - Giraffes

Not cows.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

I slowly learn gravity of the term 'standard zoom' lens. It could be called: 'between 80-99% of your photographs' lens. Unless you are struck with some specific kind of photography like macro or astro. Even if you are, than if you shoot in the field, you will find yourself eventually drifting into those percentages.

Just try to click "ZD1442" tag under the post. Divide it by 175 and you will see what fraction of my photos have been taken by the standard zoom since December.

Hmmm... I did that and I only got 50%, but the figures would be correct for last few weeks. Exactly 83,3%.

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 171 - Bad Stuff

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

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

D 154 - Trailer / Park

Another kindergarten shot. I spotted this lonely trailer on a desolate lot behind a new house from D 149. Then I found a satisfactory angle to shoot it from the kindergarten window.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

I'm more and more happy with my new, critical attitude toward making photos.
I don't take quick snapshots. I respect every shot like if I had a film with limited capacity loaded into the camera body.

As a result I come home with three to eight shots, each of them workable, some half of them interesting to my eye even after the first enthusiasm passes.

I don't get the nasty feeling I used to, when I look at my photos on PC and wonder: 'What the hell did I see in this frame when I pressed the shutter?'.

D 139 - Rememberance

There has been a controversial initiative proposed for this year, to honor Soviet soldiers fallen in 1945 during the march for Berlin of the Red Army.

As the Polish Prime Minister said although they released us from Nazi occupation they didn't bring us freedom because they didn't have any themselves.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 30mm.
Usual Lightroom edit from RAW.

What I learned

With a small viefinder of Olympus Evolt line and manual lens I had problems with focusing on the first tombs and gradually going soft towards the end of the line.

D 138 - Boring Photo

A little surprising detail in a neglected mansion just few hundred meters from my home.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 30mm.
Usual edit in Lightroom.

What I learned

I'm a voyeur in denial. I love to enter dark yards of neglected (but not necessarily abandoned) mansions at night or to capture little insights into other peoples' homes while walking down a street and wonder how their homes are like.

Sometimes it translates into really good photographic opportunities. Of course I don't feel tempted to photograph naked people through the windows. It is more about exploring possibilities of other lives, getting beyond my personal circumstances of life, as seen through the places people live in.

D 137 - Leaning out

Another forced perspective from my balcony.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
In Lightroom: levels, blue filter, sharpness, noise, little crop to remove some distractions at the bottom and left edges of the frame.

What I learned

Photos don't have to be straight to be O.K.

D 127 - Cont'd

Another photo from my modernist concrete building shots.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442

D 126 - Bird's view on raw concrete

Finally I get to shoot my block before it is insulated and repainted. The works already begun and by this Winter it will not look as I remember it since childhood any more.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Converging vertical lines of tall buildings when shot with wide angle lens are supposed to be avoided for classical, balanced photographs. I like them crooked and seemingly folding within, like they were on a brink of collapsing.

D 115 - Growing

One of my favorite objects (and subjects) for photography: free standing tenement house.

Equipment

S630 with a +2/3 EV bias.

D 94 - Foggy morning outside

A shot through my kitchen window.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

I have to keep the spherical distortion more in mind when making photographs of architecture or as in this case through architecture.