D 255 - He's coming, all right.

D 239 - The Tower #2

Close-up on the clocks. Daytime and nighttime.

D 219 - Orchis

D 183 - Half Way There

Abstract composition of a ceiling lamp and a photo on the wall.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

So, this is it. It's summer solstice and I am half way through my Project 365.

What do I like about it so far?
It pushed my photography forward and made me shoot some great photos. It helped me explore new areas which I neglected before.

How my photography changed?
Only recently I stopped shooting compulsively. I became more critical about what I photograph. This resulted in not making dozen shots of a single object.

That's a good thing since I used to shoot the same frame many times looking for technical excellence (perfect sharpness, exposure triangle, metering and framing) which gave me several compositionally identical photographs.

Now I circle around a subjects, moving up, down, closer and further. I control myself not to shot an interesting snapshot until I work it out to be a good photograph. If I can't find a satisfactory angle of an interesting object, I force myself to leave it be and don't photograph it at that moment.

This is what I mean by compulsory shooting. I used to think that if I waste a single photographic opportunity I will loose something. No I know that I will truly waste the opportunity if I don't stop and try to make the shot. Whether I press the shutter or not is irrelevant in the long run. I could learn just as much and develop my skills equally if I only walked around with a viewfinder and a light-meter.

Let's imagine a situation when I have my camera holstered and see a funny situation on the street. I grab the camera, turn it on and press the viewfinder to my right eye. I adjust the zoom and check the shutter speed at preset aperture and ISO. Then I tilt and turn the camera a bit to improve the frame and composition. The scene doesn't usually look as good in the camera as it does in 3D but the funny situation won't last forever so I take the not-so-good photo because otherwise the opportunity would be wasted. I end up with a mediocre photo which I copy to my disk and soon forget about it.

That would be just a waste of shutter and disk space. So now I control myself not to take such a photograph. And I loose nothing because of it.

D 152 - V-Formation

Decorations in kindergarten.
They looked like a flock of geese in flight to me.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.
RAW edited in Lightroom with custom color mix.

What I learned

If you see a good frame, take the photo right away. Don't leave it for later.

The burdock photo from yesterday couldn't be made today. A crew with overgrown lawnmowers came and shredded it like a lettuce.

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 128 - Lesser Deities

Traditional Polish wooden figurines of saints. They are a sound part of our folklore. They often don't depict any specific saint or even no saint at all, just a figure taken from everyday village life.

Their crude style suggest that their origin lies well before Christianity and it's saints.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442

What I learned

I learned that I've already shot 17 thousand shots with my E-510. Which means that the shutter life-span is a growing concern for me. It is not unheard of for those cameras to give up after 10k shutter actions but I suppose that 40-50k is mean average.

It is a bad news but potentially a lesson as well. Most successful photographers say that to make good photography you don't have to point-and-shoot at every scene which grabs your attention and fire a rapid series of shots at it. Masters of photography shoot few photos. What they do more is think, feel and look around themselves with analytic, not just enthusiastic, eye.

D 116 - In the Fountain

I liked the reflection of staircase, people and lights in the orb but wasn't sure how to show it. Besides it was a bit dark and my point-and-shoot limited my possibilities.

Equipment

S630.

What I learned

Always take a walk around the subject and check the frame edges before shooting.

D 112 - Spider curtains

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4.

What I learned

Apparently back-lit photos must be taken with some positive exposure bias. Without it this one came out to be about one EV stop too dark.

D 111 - Warm light

A lamp lit in the night.

Equipment
E-510 with ZD1442.

D 110 - Half-lit grapes

Night shooting of grapes on a dish.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

I tried some back lighting with a flashlight from underneath but the results weren't better than this photo.

D 104 - And now we have... EGG!

Happy Easter! Hang on to the Spring power!

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned
I'll just skip this section for remaining overdue posts.

D 97 - Nightime sneaking

The moon was close to full, the sky was almost to clear. The night was bright and inviting without being overwhelming.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 30. Mounted on gorilla-pod.

What I learned

I was using a manual lens at night with very little ability to precisely focus the lens and with a need to have large depth of field. I ended up with exposures from 30 to 60 seconds and ISO boosted up to 200-400.

I'd decided to start shooting SooC (Straight out of Camera). So no editing here, although I had to fight myself not to correct the exposure with Lightroom sliders. I broke at noise removal and did some.

D 95 - Cone

A spruce cone, one of the treasures gathered while walking in a park with a two year-old.

Equipment

E-510 with 6+15mm extension tubes and Pentacon 30. On a tripod.
Changed to monochrome with selective color mix, adjusted levels and sharpened in Lightroom.

What I learned

I was considering publishing this photo in color, it had such a nice warm colors:

But all in all I decided that colors are stronger in the background than the cone and divert attention from main focal point.

I was surprised when while taking this photograph my camera refused to turn on the long exposure noise reduction. I was changing modes back and forth and it was the same everywhere. I knew this option was active when I was doing the same kind of shots before. Only later I realized that I'd changed shooting mode into a series of shots and that (go figure) blocked noise reduction.

D 80 - Pencils

I just love pencils sharpened with a knife. They are to the automatically sharpened pencils the same what hand written letters are to emails.

Equipment
Samsung S630.
Edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

When going for macro, tripod is a must.

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 52 - Mistletoe's Log

Today I tried and tried again to catch an interesting triangular composition. Not entirely without successes but while I was doing so I encountered another fantastic frame just waiting for me a hand reach away from my front door.

A mistletoe hanging on here since Christmas with a part of poplar branch which it fell down with.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 58mm lens. Flash with softbox.

What I learned

My triangle shaped compositions are getting better and better.

Prime lenses force you into seeing the world through their focal length. I shot for last 3 weeks almost exclusively inside my apartment but I did it with 30mm Pentacon (60mm after 2x crop factor) and few times with my Zuiko 14 - 42mm zoom.

Once I put on the 58mm lens (116mm after crop) I found new photos in the very same places which I exhausted with shorter focal length(s).

This forced perspective limitation provokes creativity and exploration. This makes photography fun and even adventurous in a way.

D 32 - Where are you DDR?

Hahaha! My new 25-or-so-years old lens has just arrived today. East German Pentacon 35mm f:1/3.5. It may not be in mint condition but it was quite cheap and works just fine in my collection on 'standard prime' vacant position.
And just look what it can do!

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 3.5/30, flash with softbox and some "studio" lighting setup. I just love to work in my studio. Such a comfort and professional touch.

What I learned

They used to make such a good equipment in the old days. Not plastic-on-plastic like modern amateur class lenses or cameras. I'm glad they did. Autofocus is fun and useful and DSLRs have such a tiny viewfinders (especially Olympus) but still old manual lenses are a bergain for their picture and build quality.

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 7

Od Dark Light Back

Exit our Santa through the front door...
This Christmas is a sticky subject. I would like to tell you that this is the last photo about it but I planned to visit a crib by our cathedral tomorrow, so I suppose the next entry will be in the holiday mood as well.
I came up with this shot while watching a late night rerun of some CIA-supercomputer-plans-to-kill-the-president movie. With the lights far in the background I put the camera on a gorilla tripod and Santa near the other edge.

Equipment

E-510 on a gorilla-pod with Helios 44-4 for its long focal length. No flash, only Christmas lights and two dim lamps: one at the wall by the tree and the other right from Santa figure.

What I learned

Helios gives a nice bokeh... but wait! This aren't exactly pretty background lights! They are sharply cut hexagons. I didn't notice that after stopping down to f 1:8 the bokeh changes shape. On the other hand I moved from larger apertures to increase the sharpness and decrease the level of background blur. Now it seems that I should have moved the figure and the camera closer to the background instead.

Gorilla-Pod is not as stable or precise as a regular tripod but it is small, light and flexible. It was a good buy.