D 255 - He's coming, all right.

D 210 - Twin-Valve

Some derelict hydraulics outside industrial complex now turned into offices.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015

D 204 - Beeseye

A decent summer flower.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442

What I learned

While not being my kind of a subject sometimes flowers seem hypnotically irresistible.

D 192 - Toying around

Die alone and that cats eat you.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

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 155 - Busy Bees

On a walk in the park with my son he collected sow thistles and suddenly a hungry bee came down to feed on those I held in my hand. I just had a mobile phone handy and took this macro shot.

Equipment

Sony-Ericsson W810i.
Cropped and enhanced saturation in Lightroom.

What I learned

I learned to finally leave behind Picasa and do the works in Lightroom. I don't even need to use GIMP, because I don't do any multiple-exposure shots or collages and I gradually learn to appreciate the functions of Library module.

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 113 - Flowers interwined

A pair of spring flowers.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4.

What I learned

I gave into the temptation to edit the photo. I took it in JPG but I didn't like a distracting fragment of another flower at the edge. While I was at it, I also improved the tonal curve and noise/sharpness settings.

It feels that after 2 weeks of posting only Straight out of Camera photos I learned to look at my photos critically first and only then when it's necessary edit them in Lightroom. Before I knew I would edit every photo anyway so I didn't really care how the photo looks like before I "develop" it digitally. I only cared to capture as much tonal information on the sensor as possible without clipping.

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 105 - Too close

Macro and lighting experiments.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 on tripod, white-sheet reflector.

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 103 - Spring sprout

First signs of spring sprouting from under the grass.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

I must always keep some photos ready to upload for sake of contingency. Like this time when I had to devote all my time to my family and the Easter festivities. If I even had a few photos ready I could just prepare posts to publish in advance.

D 102 - Mustang

I know I promised no more photos made by my son, but this one I actually like. A matchbox car on a town street-like carpet.

Equipment

S630 on macro setting.

What I learned

I think that it is the pedestrian crossing stripes and fence that make this photo dynamic.

D 101 - Was Andy sober?

I had a great idea for a photo after puring myself some of this fine stout with an exceptional foam.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and Pentacon 30 + 21mm extension tube.

What I learned

Combined photos have never been my strong side. I always seem to be missing something important after I combine the elements.

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 90 - Not all that glitters is gold

Macro close-up on a hand sharpened pencil.

I'm trying to make some improvements to the visual side of the blog every once in a while. I think that the dark borders around photos help to frame the compositions within them.

Equipment

E-510, 6-15-27mm extension tubes and Helios 44-4. Flash with a soft-box, aluminum sheet reflector.

What I learned

Not every macro proves to be as fascinating as those of thorny chestnut skin. Perhaps most man-made objects are just a very poor imitation of mother nature.

If you look at natural objects you will find them showing new fascinating textures from naked eye view all the way to atomic structure. At every level there is an organization of elements because the nature "made" them as a bottom-up designs - the characteristics of the smallest particles forces specific arrangements at higher levels.

When man designs and produces an item, he thinks top-down. He knows what he wants in the end and then works out what materials and arrangements to use at smaller scales. And there is no particle in this universe that would naturally form itself into a blender, bicycle or a Zuiko Digital lens. So at some structural level man-made things have to be clumsy, simplified, dull and ugly.

Or so says Zarathustra.

D 88 - Incarnate

Limitations fuel creation. Again.

I was thinking about a nice close-up shot with my palms spread around an eye for a Pan's Labyrinth like effect. But since I had a macro rings with Helios lens on, I decided to keep this magnification factor and work something out within it.

Equipment

E-510 with all three extension tubes (yeah, now I remember - that's the name) and Helios 44-4 on a tripod.

Cropped and changed to greyscale in Lightroom.

What I learned

This is the mode of work I like not only with photography. It is more like a philosophy for me. I try to approach a subject with some idea in mind and then react to the insights I have while working on it, experiment and come up with something different than what I planned but exciting and satisfying.

D 86 - Chestnuts

Macro festival goes on.
These are some dried chestnuts skins from the Fall. I never thought that they had so much texture and color in them.

Equipment

E-510 with 15mm (the 1st photo) and 48mm (the 2nd one) macro distance rings between the body and the Pentacon 30 3.5. Tripod
Aperture f/22, exposure 30+ seconds. Mirror lock-up.

What I learned

Distance rings are excellent but they severely decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor. So do very small apertures, which are necessary to get some depth of field.

I had some wild ideas today, one was to put the distance rings between the camera body and the Tair 300mm lens. I got a 1:2 magnification factor from a distance of about 2m from the sensor. But the lens is so heavy that I can't hold it steady enough for macro.