D 85 - You smoke?

An older photo, from February. But it matches today's weather perfectly.

Equipment

Nokia 6233 phone 2MPix camera.
Selective color saturation and sharpness in Lightroom.

What I learned

If you know how to use yours, the mobile phone camera is your best friend.

I love the reflections from convex surfaces. They are even better than fish-eye lens shots.

D 79 - The Loop

The place where the city ends? The end of tramway line. Anything further on should be considered suburbs.

Equipment

S-630.
Edited in Lightroom.

What I learned

I wish I jumped the little fence and came up closer. It wouldn't do any harm to anybody and the shot might have come out better.

D 76 - Snow'o'seum

Another beautiful day with fresh snow and warm sunlight. Another morning walk with my son. Another park. I'm still far more satisfied with the walk than with the photos I took there.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Snow cover works as a natural reflector while bright blue sky and yellowish sun enhance both cold and warm colors.

D 63 - Nothern

I love to be reminded about how far North and East Poland lies compared to the rest of EU. I helps me to remember about this other part of me that cares about solstices and thunderstorms more than about career and bills.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Recently I read on... pardon my memory but I can't recall. Anyway I read that landscape photography is not about the objects but the light.
Confirmed.

D 61 - Through the looking glass

It looks like I get into a habit of running late with posts on the weekend. I think that it may become a regular thing since I try to devote my weekends to myself and my family. Photography is included in this package but editing and posting is not.

I should post those weekend photos en masse somewhere between Sunday and Monday evenings.

This one shows my use of ad hoc filters.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015 lens made through a foggy window.

What I learned

I just noticed that "family", "kids" and "portrait" tags usually come together. Don't I have any more family than my son?

D 60 - This ugly meltdown

The mercury bar jumped above the melting point for the first time this year. Some winter it has been.

As everything in life this boon also has its downside. With this much snow changing to water, we are bound to get mud. Loads of mud.

Equipment

Samsung S630 on manual settings.

I did some tonal curve adjustment and faded out the buildings (by local adjustment of contrast and clarity) in Lightroom.

What I learned

I tried to separate a single bush sticking out from the snow cover, then I tried to catch those heaps of snow as mountains striking against the sky but none of those photos came out well. So I went for this one with buildings oddly contrasting with the mountain-like snow formations.
If at first you don't succeed try again.

D 57 - Winter boots

Still sharing stuff from the weekend. Hope you find it's worth it as much as I do.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Only few posts ago I found out that I can change the contents of http code with link so that click on the photo shows it in the full browser window instead of redirecting to Picasa album.
Now you can easily access higher resolution view of my following photos.

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 55 - House on a hill

It was at the begining of evening golden hour. Go figure. With those clouds above, it could be midday as well.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 on a tripod.

What I learned

Tripod can be used as a monopod as well. Just keep the three legs of the tripod together.

D 54 - They once stood proud

Orchards must be revitalized every few years, to keep the fruit harvest optimal. How corporate.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Snow with heavy clouds flattening down the sunlight need strong contrasted subjects to be interesting. There are barely any shadows. The World seems like one big photography tent on such day.

D 47 - High

I'm glad. It looks like I start to like my own photos. Another afternoon walk with the son.

Equipment

Samsung S-630.

What I learned

"Be careful!"
As I reached for the camera to my inside pocket of the jacket, kept there to keep the batteries warm, I was following my son with my eyes. I took the camera out in my woolen gloves and as I shifted it to my right hand I accidentally caught the short line attached with one of my left hand fingers and dropped the camera into the snow.
Nothing happened, lucky as I was, and I could go on making photographs after I cleaned it with a tissue. Still the lesson learned is to be careful with the camera.

D 45 - Blue as a boy can be (in January)

Today I was having some more practice with shooting without looking through the viewfinder or on LCD. Some shots were quite nice but I'm posting this one from my walk with son simply because it was shot with point-and-shoot camera. I like to think of a p&s as my handy second camera. It is no worse than my DSLR for taking pictures because it isn't the gear but the man behind camera who makes a photograph good or bad.

Equipment

Samsung S-630, "Program" mode with disabled flash and exposure corrected by +1 EV.

What I learned

I wasted about 30% of the shots while trying to find out what this Samsung can and what it can't do in the snow. I was lucky (as a photographer, not as a father) that the harsh sun became overcast about 15 minutes before we got out. Otherwise some more shots would be wasted by burned highlights probably.
Anyway the camera didn't do as bad as I might think.

D 43 - Oh, it's snowing! again...

Oh boy!
I learned today that not only you can go outside, you can also go somewhere by a car. Even to another town (or in my case - village). You may not have time to shoot anything when you are there but a snapshot or two, while in traffic can be fun.

Equipment
E-510 with ZD1442, handheld from a car which was almost stopped.

What I learned

Always have the camera on you and always look out for opportunities. In this case at first I thought that the photo would be horrible if shot through a snow-stained window in a moving car without any way to stabilize the camera body. But I gave it a try and proved myself wrong.
Maybe not entirely, because two out of three shots were blurred. But it was worth it for the sake of that remaining photo.

D 35 - Down the wells

Typical yards from the city Łódź.
Deep, tight and neglected. Yet still full of life despite their inhospitality.

Equipment

E-510, Pentacon lens.

What I learned

Pentacon seems to have some notable barrel distortion. It is only 30mm wide and a prime lens so I didn't expect any.

I wonder how much can I explore my apartment and the view from the window before I can't find interesting frames anymore?
It seems a little inert but keeps me going. What does it say about myself?

D 33 - Crouching tiger

"Nysa" van half buried under the snow on a monitored parking lot. It haunted me for a week or so, because I can see it from my window lit at night.
The guard there told me that it is actually up and running and even has LPG installation. The owner wants some thousand polish zloty (about €200) for it.

This post is late, because yesterday my connection was down and I forgot to reset the router afterwards until today morning.

Equipment

E-510 with my new shiny and pretty Pentacon 3.5 30.

What I learned

At night I'd probably have to get f:1/1.4 lens to shoot sharp photos at ISO 800 hand-held. My E-510 has ISO 1600 setting but the level of noise makes it next to useless. I must take a tripod with me every time I plan to soot after dark.
I might on the other hand buy a monopod and use it also as a walking crane. I'd kill people with brutal remarks concerning their life and death and pretend I'm House MD.

Talking to people while you are out there making photos can get you a long way. This was always somewhat hard for me. I preferred to concentrate on the camera and stay invisible.
But some time ago I realized that a good photograph of a scene involving people should make the camera (and the man behind it) not a spectator but a participant of the scene. Just like when we watch a scene through our own eyes, we are a part of the scene as well. And other people around instinctively react to us, get out of the way, briefly look at the cameraman and such.
That is the right way to go. This makes the photographed scenes authentic.

D 14 - The Same River

Od Dark Light Back

The same snow, the same cold, the same limitation. After taking shower i noticed how the vapor condensed on a window created interesting vignettes and worked from there. Then when I review first photos I saw that the bar dividing the window pane looks a bit like a lake shore.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015. Natural light.

What I learned

Hangover does increase my creativity. Conclusions are dreadful.

D 13 - The Dog

Od Dark Light Back

The snow has arrived in large amounts. And so did my cold. Therefore I was working on how to make photos of the snow from the inside.

You probably don't want to know. This photo is another proof for the fact that good ideas often come to us while we are on a toilet seat. This was the case for the photo above and this is exactly the vintage point from a toilet seat. You definitely didn't want to know. Anyway...

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015 (the longer kit lens of Olympus DSLRs giving 35mm film equivalent range of 80-300mm). Natural light only.

What I learned

Nothing is more important than health. If I were not sick I would have taken a "photowalk" and get some truly Winter landscape photos from the fields and orchards.

Snow outside gives a very pleasant light indoors. Particularly for black and white photos where it doesn't matter that the light is cold in color.