D 40 - Fragile

A tulip just before falling apart.

Equipment

Samsung S630 camera, macro setting. Delayed shutter release and on a tripod. Aluminum foil sheet as a reflector.

What I learned

No reflector - no indoor shots with natural light.

I was sloppy with clearing the background. Once again I was too focused on the camera and 'getting it right' that I forgot to actually "look".

D 39 - 90 Degrees

I wasn't particularly inspired for some few days, but I'm trying to be regular with the Project 365 and I made myself take the camera, tripod and make a photo which I thought about yesterday. So this is a square composition.
I can't say it knocks me off my feet. But I can't remember any square based composition which really impressed me.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 30 lens, on tripod.

What I learned

I was wandering if I had to take longer focal length lens to make this square look right-angled and flat but it was o.k. with Pentacon's 30mm.

Unfortunately I noticed again how vulnerable to front light this lens is. I had a strong light source at about 45 degrees right from the optical axis of the lens but the contrast on that side was dramatically reduced. I admit, that I don't have a lens hood for Pentacon yet.

I'm still not happy with this composition. Again it isn't really a square.

D 38 - Not a square

Today I was looking for a square compositions to continue the geometric theme.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4 lens.

What I learned

Squares never quite worked out for me. The box was rectangular, yes. Yet the first shots I made proved to consist of triangles as far as composition was concerned. The later photos which I made straight from the front of the box were not anything that I would like to share, so I posted the triangular one.
It could be worse, I could be stuck with only square compositions unable to come up anything more dynamic.

Anyway tomorrow I'm back to square (one).

I've been looking for usable range of applications the highest ISO setting in my Olympus but without any firm success.

D 37 - Teatime

Oval composition. I was already thinking about it yesterday but only today I found something that could work out fine.
I treated the photo with split toning for tea-like colors.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon lens.

What I learned

Why on earth didn't I change ISO to 100-200?
I thought I've learned to check the settings before I start making photos. Apparently I can't take any knowledge for granted.

There is something about standard focal length. If I could have only one non-zoom lens it would be something between 40 and 50mm.

D 36 - Viewfinder off

Just another sweet baby photo but the point is that I was practicing framing without the viewfinder. The book told me to do so. It suggested that it helps in getting a sense of composition.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon.

What I learned

It is weird to shoot like that. The book which I took this suggestion from is quite old and I sure wasn't written in the world of live-view and barely acknowledges the appearance of digital cameras but the exercise is strangely appealing.
It makes you look at the scene not at the camera. You must set all parameters beforehand and then think only about the scene which you want make into a photograph.
In addition it feels vintage. You hold your camera at the chest or waist level and try to aim it at the right direction. It's a useful skill on its own to learn.

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 34 - Milk Monster

This is why I'm still so excited with my new Pentacon lens.

Equipment

E-510 with Pentacon 3.5 30. Flash with softbox, window on sunny day on the right hand side of the frame.

What I learned

I'm getting better at using automatic metering for fill flash. But it still is instinctive guessing not sound knowledge.
Any ideas about something to read about that?

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 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 31 - Better in square

I'm still finding new subjects in my apartment.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442, built in flash.

What I learned

I always took pride in how I always use manual or at worst aperture priority, in how I know my camera and it's functions and so I can use them for creative purposes. Today I was taught wrong. Not by the book I got, not by anyone in person or on the internet.

No. I just wanted to check how exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation work together depending on certain menu setting and accidentally saw a comment on how exposure compensation works with manual setting.

Nothing much, but I always used manual flash settings in manual shooting mode and it never crossed my mind that the camera can automatically compensate the strength to adjust to chosen aperture and shutter settings. I rarely managed to hit the right flash power to expose correctly. Going on automatic flash exposure will make my life a lot easier at most times. Although I know that occasionally I will still want to make sure that the flash goes of at minimum power for example.

Bottom line: Read your manuals and then go back to them wherever you have a chance. Maybe my Olympus E-510 is no EOS-1D but it still was regarded as having by far the best customization options and additional functions for its class. And an unclear menu to add to that.

D 30 - Misty

Foggy day outside, ill child inside. I'll have to postpone my decision to go out with the camera more.

I noticed that I always use contrast adjustments on my RAW files to increase the output contrast. So I tried to go for something different this time.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4.

What I learned

This photo was done hand-held with window glass as a support but the ISO had to be high. It comes out that perhaps even more than with high contrast, low contrast photographs must be done with low ISO to minimize the noise.

I was kindly instructed how to upload larger photos to Picasa and then shrink them when embedding in blog. So now you can click the photo to see four times bigger photo in Picasa.

D 29 - The art of maroon

I got this e-book that says my photography can be better, see. It says that I need to work on making my eye see and by brain compose. It says that there are points, lines, areas and edges that really count in photography. It's got Don't panic! written on the cover exercises to put the theoretical concepts into practice.
It told me to photograph stones or rocks. I don't have any! I got walnuts and chestnuts.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4 hand-held, softbox for built in flash, sheet of white A4 paper and smaller sheet of aluminum foil as reflectors, LED light in my mobile phone.
I set the whole thing up in a corner of a sill with paper sheet on the right and aluminum on the left. I had to edit out some of the aluminum foil in Lightroom, because it was partially visible as a darker area (what a precision of reflecting surface setup!) in the upper right corner.

What I learned

Reflected light is a treasure to be deeply studied. Composition is the basic building brick of photography. To the point that having mastered it one can make great photos without much of an interesting subject.
You'll likely to hear me complaining for those exercises some more. I plan to improve my workshop with the book: Photography the art of composition.

D 28 - Just make it quick

Today I wanted to do something fun and witty. I came up with this idea for stylizing an egg for a kamikaze with a nasty grin and putting it into my microwave. But my skills of egg-decoration failed and the photos were just stupid. Nevertheless the inside of a typical oven presents itself quite interesting if you don't listen to the mistress of the house yelling at you, how dare you show people that her oven is not squeaky clean.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442.

What I learned

Trying to make a planned photo is just as fun as achieving a satisfying result.

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 26 - It's in the eye of the beholder

Od Dark Light Back

The Devil - instinctive, animal part of us.
Always tempting us to let go of anything deeper than what we can see with our eyes and what our minds can understand and to revel in the passions of our senses.
But if we subject to it, we become prisoners of the mundane. Space and time become our chains. We grow old and scared in our hearts.

I was struggling with this topic and I wasn't sure if a photo of clock can sincerely fit it. But to me this clock with a creeping plant is a symbol of constraints of our inner animal.
I guess it's just in the eye of the beholder.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 (Helios was too narrow, I tried), flash with softbox, tripod, aluminum sheet reflector and a mirror to see what's on the lcd.

What I learned

This was quite a trick to frame properly with the back of the camera body just 5 cm away from cupboards. I turned on live view and used small mirror to see what it shows. Framing wasn't perfect but I didn't need to correct it by more than 10-15%.

I am more and more concerned by the loss of detail caused by small size of this blog frames. Sometimes it is a shame that you can't see the fine details of those shots.
Maybe I should double up those photos on some photo sharing site and post links? I sure can't do it on Picasa because it doesn't allow to link precisely required size of photo. So if I uploaded 2MP photo the closest size I could link to would be 400 pixels instead of 440 as I do now by already uploading exactly that size.

D 25 - ... or lack thereof

Od Dark Light Back

Today the keyphrase is... Taking final decision. Which gave me quite a challenge. I even gave up and went for anything around that could be used for a photograph. It wasn't that bad because I came up with quite a nice shot:



But when I visited my general storage closet (Anybody know the proper word for this little separate room for tools and all the things you need to keep out of sight?) I realized that this completely messy place fits the topic by contradiction. Most of things are there because I can't find any immediate use for them and don't want to get rid of. On top of that I can't make myself look through those stuff and clean up the place. I bet you know how it works with those closets. Only psychopaths and accountants keep them orderly.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and flash with softbox for the main photo.
Samsung S630 on a tripod for the one with crystal shell. It was additionally lightened from beneath by a built in flashlight in my Sony Ericsson mobile phone.

What I learned

All things can (and should) be also considered by reversals and photos made just by the way of working on some other idea can be mostly interesting.

D 24 - The Star

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

High in the sky or just within reach? The star - symbol of hope and things we are looking forward to. This are my two takes on another random topic.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and in case of my son's photo built-in flash with softbox.

What I learned

This self imposed random challenges are a very inspiring concept. It almost seems to easy to just pop up with some more or less universal symbol and work around it. At least it is so for me.

D 23 - Work suspended

Od Dark Light Back

Today I gave myself a random topic and then I tried to catch it on film memory card. The topic was 'Suspended work' and I formulated it at 6 p.m. so it wasn't that easy to do. Fortunately there is work to be done at home too.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442, flash with softbox.

What I learned

I'm still trying to master the use of flash with a softbox and again it seems to work best as a fill light complimenting some external light source and since I have to set the flash to small output power I have to go high ISO which is tricky with Olympus DSLRs.

Working with a set topic in mind helps to focus my mind on the theme and sharpen my eyes to find it around me. I think that this is something that can be used any time when there I have no specific idea for a photograph (which is quite often).

D 22 - Bottoms Up

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

I got the idea for this from some old DPS assignment "Filters". People used all kind of weird stuff as photographic filters, including glasses caught from various angles.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015, pop-up flash with diffuser and a blue coke glass.

Od Dark Light Back

What I learned

Once again giving a twist to your photography, however wild one brings the fun back into the experience and is a playful and rewarding in a surprising way mean of growing your skill.

D 21 - Three weeks is the time of biggest crisis

Od Dark Light Back

Three weeks is the time of biggest crisis when running Project365 or so I was told. I'm not the guy to paddle against the current so I gave myself a break today.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD4015 lens, built-in flash with DIY softbox. A tongue.

What I learned

Sometimes you just can't push it. Sleep it through. Goodnight.

D20 - Dug in

Od Dark Light Back

We have some serious snowfall this weekend. Shooting outside seems a bit to hard on my equipment so I stayed on a warm side of the window (again) and captured this snow climbing up the balcony door.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 on a gorilla-pod.

What I learned

The shapes of snow layers were quite elusive with the natural backlight, although they were quite clear to see with a naked eye.

Clean the window before you shoot through it!

D 19 - Magic components

Od Dark Light Back

RGB - the components of color TV magic. Tiny colored light spots that fool our eyes and minds to see illusions.

Equipment

A570 IS on a tripod about 5 cm from the CRT TV screen surface.

What I learned

Capturing the right moment isn't that easy with live television broadcast. I should have used a still frame from my DVD with more colors in it. Here the red dots are barely visible.

I chose compact camera for this, because they are pretty good with macro having small optics and matrices. The magnification factor didn't seem to be enough. For this shot I should have used E-510 with reversed Helios 44-4 lens mounted in front of ZD4015. They give a very good magnification factor but extremely shallow depth of field.

D 18 - Stainless

Od Dark Light Back

I had a good idea to use my DIY softbox with a compact camera built-in flash as a makeshift off-camera flash for my E-510. The immediate results weren't too great, but technically it worked, as long as I gave myself some time for manually releasing the compact camera flash by using delayed shutter release and longer exposure time - in this case 4 seconds.

Eventually I made this shot without any flash. The light came from Christmas-tree and dimmed lamp at the other wall of the room.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4 lens on a tripod without built-in flash. A570 IS stuck in the softbox working as external flash was not used in the above photo.

What I learned

Unusual light and angle can change ordinary home tool into a strange object. Macro ftw.

D 17 - Time to go, Starboy

Od Dark Light Back

I have been playing around with my new softbox today. It works quite nice as a main light source but also makes a great fill light, which is something I have been looking for a while. I like to use the natural light (sunlight or indoor lights) and now I can use it without having to use a tripod.

Equipment

E-510 with Helios 44-4 and my new DIY softbox on pop-up flash. ISO 800 and 1/90 sec exposure time.

What I learned

I had today a primal fun taking shots of everything around with my new gadget, because it opened new opportunities for me. Still I have to compromise by going high ISO and getting grain (which I learned that is mostly chroma noise which can be easily dealt with in Lightroom with minimum loss to sharpness).

For now I'm ignoring the differences between tungsten or sunlight and the flashlight in color temperature because I like doing b&w photos. But it is a problem to be faced in the future.

D 16 - Positivism

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

Today my work on photography was more a groundwork. Since my tight budget keeps me safely away from an external flash then I had to go DIY.
I sadly don't remember the exact website which gave me an idea of making a softbox for pop-up flash from cigarette box, aluminum foil and a napkin. It goes much as H E R E except it is slightly more... MacGyver.

The photo is example of how the softbox works in a candid portrait. I like it. And my favorite model at least smiles this time when she punches me with her wool mittens.

Equipment

E-510 with pop-up flash popped up, perfume box, aluminum tape, a sheet of lignin and some scotch tape.

What I learned

It works! I should make some time another one from stronger materials and giving more light upwards to get some reflected light from low ceilings.

D 15 - Brutalism

Od Dark Light Back

For thirty years I keep wondering who designed this? and why? The building was completed in the end of 70s so I thought that it must be some misunderstood application of modernist concepts.

Wikipedia says:

"Brutalist buildings usually are formed with striking repetitive angular geometries, and where concrete is used, often revealing the texture of the wooden forms used for the in-situ casting. Although concrete is the material most widely associated with Brutalist architecture, not all Brutalist buildings are formed from concrete. Instead, a building may achieve its Brutalist quality through a rough, blocky appearance, and the expression of its structural materials, forms, and (in some cases) services on its exterior. (...)

Brutalism as an architectural philosophy, rather than a style, was often also associated with a socialist utopian ideology, which tended to be supported by its designers, especially Alison and Peter Smithson, near the height of the style. Critics argue that this abstract nature of Brutalism makes the style unfriendly and uncommunicative, instead of being integrating and protective, as its proponents intended. Brutalism also is criticised as disregarding the social, historic, and architectural environment of its surroundings, making the introduction of such structures in existing developed areas appear starkly out of place and alien."

Equipment

Canon Powershot A570 IS. Natural light from city lights and a series of lamps just below the frame.

What I learned

I must plan ahead for what will I shoot on a given day. Otherwise my photos will become more and more boring and I will gradually lose interest in this project.

Raw ugliness of this building (which I happen to live in) does hold a strange aesthetics which can be re-discovered by a willing eye. I should hurry with appreciating the geometries and textures while it is still left unchanged. The other 3 buildings in this condominium project have been insulated with polystyrene foam and repainted loosing their brutalist character.

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.

D 12 - Late Hands

Od Dark Light Back

It's a yesterday photo, I admit. But I like it and the photos I of sleeping dog which tried to make today didn't work out because the dog is a wreck after yesterday's fireworks and he won't lie steady and let me click around him with the camera and tripod.

Equipment

Canon A570IS with built-in flash.

What I learned

Built-in flash is not a useless gadget and you can use it to make good photos. Just not very often.
Trying to make some good photos of a living (although barely) dog while babysitting is not a good idea. Maybe I'll still have a chance to shoot the dog later today.
I'm beginning to understand what kind of commitment this Project and active photography is. I'm not bored or tired of this at all but I see that I sacrifice other entertainment options on a regular basis.

D 11 - Y2K+10

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

Happy New Year!
The photos are too straightforward to write anything about them. This is simply a happy time!

Equipment

Both: E-510 with ZD1442, no flash.

What I learned

In 2009 I learned that... Hahaha! Forget it, I'm on booze.

D 10 - Garlic, garlic on the wall

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

Still loving to carry the A570 IS compact Powershot with me (and composing photos with 2,5 inch LCD). Today I made a ride on the kitchen. I started with shooting this bunch of garlic from a distance to show how the stalks cross to form a star shape. It didn't look bad, but things started to become more interesting when I got close to them.

Equipment

Canon Powershot A570 IS, one lamp close on a wall and a stronger one further on the ceiling.

What I learned

Compacts are handy, cheap and toy-like and that makes me much more playful than with DSLR (even as small as E-510). And that keeps my mind open for more weird photos. And in photography on the web, where people can access more good photos than they can perceive, weird is better than sublime.
Still I wouldn't swap my Olympus for high-end compact camera. A DSLR and a small compact as a complement work just fine.

Internal stabilization and ability to focus just a centimeter or so from the front lens makes A570 IS a great tool (or was it "toy"?).

D 9 - Urban Horror

Od Dark Light Back

Urban Horror.

I got back my Canon A570IS from my sister and this is a huge relief to have a camera in your pocket instead of a bag being a regular drag.

This is a snapshot I took while coming home from a walk downtown. It was made at 1 sec exposure so no wonder it got all blurred but I really like imperfect photos, mine or others. Since the composition was fine and the mood as well I decided to spice it up with some textures and give it a go.

Equipment

Canon Powershot A570 IS and a pair of gloves.

I changed exposure levels, noise and sharpening (go figure) in Lightroom and added layers in GIMP. One was a worn floor tile and the other a wooden surface with some editing (both textures downloaded from Deviantart). I used Overlay mode for texture layers visibility, added some noise and gaussian blur and adjusted brightness and contrast on both of them.

What I learned

Textures are for people to use so it was the first time I used them but - as with tone splitting - not the last time for sure.

I saw an ad of new Olumpus Pen camera with Kevin Spacey. The bottom line was that he didn't want to feel like a tourist but have childlike fun with photography, so he wanted the new compact camera not a new DSLR. I heard another ad like that on some Polish radio for a different company.
I totally agree with this guy: "The best camera is the one you have with you." And the more handy your camera is the more likely you are to use it frequently.
So maybe it is this year's marketing idea of the major camera producers but I have give them a big thumbs-up for finally dropping the Megapixel Race and giving people small cameras with big (in physical size) sensors. About time they did!

D 8

Od Dark Light Back

Ho-ho-ho!
My plans got changed and I couldn't get to the cathedral to shoot the crib. So I thought about some studio/macro photos. First I took some big Lego bricks, put them on a white towel and arrange some lights, but I wasn't too happy with results. Suddenly I noticed this spooky looking roots of the orchid on my widow. The light was ready so I only had to do some acrobatics with a tripod to get it close enough to the plant to hide the pot... Which reminds me that I still have to remove a CD box from underneath it.

Equipment

E-510, ZD1442, cheap chinese tripod, CD pie-box, two regular lamps with shades.

What I learned

One trivial thing - I would use a good background screen or a way to make one.
One general thing - plan your shoot ahead by stay alert for unexpected opportunities.
General remark - macro and frog perspective photos are the most cost-effective ways to put some interest into trivial subjects.

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.

D 6

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

It's birthday party time. My niece had her first birthday anniversary and it wouldn't be fair of me not to honor it here.
Happy birthday Weronika!

Equipment

Olympus E-510 with Helios 44-4, no flash. Light in the restaurant was nice, soft and coming from at least dozen light bulbs in a few chandeliers. It wasn't very bright so I stayed around f 1:2,8 and at ISO 800.

What I learned

Even with a bright lens wide open and high ISO it still leaves me with exposures of 1/30 sec to 1/60 sec. A bit too long for a party with kids. I also did some shots with my in-law's Nikkon with external lamp pointed 90deg. up and this is what gets the photos nice.
Helios lens is fast and sharp but manages very poorly agains a light source, which was an issue in a room with low chandaliers. Some photos are useless due to a loss of contrast. My next lens must deal with this situation better.
Extremely shallow DOF can counter the flattening effect of longer focal lengths as the second photo shows. The girl was held on the man's arms but he looks quite distanced.

D 5

Od Dark Light Back

Od Dark Light Back

I must admit that I am stunned by the quality and color of light im my girlfiend's parents' living room. Whether in daylight coming through the curtain covered windows or the nightlights it always feels like in a wooden hut lit by a fireplace or in painter's studio. I am trying to make the best use of it every time I'm there (or rather "here").

Equipment

Olympus E-510 with ZD1442 lens. This room has it all - main light from the window on the right, warm fill light from the shiny wallpaper from behind (in the picture on the sofa) and from the left.

What I learned

The same effect can be achieved in wood covered rooms with small window(s) on one wall. Probably it is the curtains that are responsible for making this well lit room so intimate and soft as opposed to most others where I took photos.

Unable to upload

Sorry!

It was a busy day and I just came to the computer but I recalled that the camera battery stayed in the room where my son is sleeping. I will not risk waking him up to put a photo on this blog.

So for now take my word for it - I did some photos today and I will put load them up tomorrow.

But to fill the post with something here goes one of the photos I grew to like after editing it in Picasa.

Od Jesień 2009

It was crooked and unfocused but with some histogram and white balance changes it really came up nice.

D 4

Od Dark Light Back

Just a candid shot from early Christmas Eve party with my family. It caught my eye because it just looks kinda like a Nativity painting.
The accidental but dramatic poses of my grandmother pointing her finger and my father, leaning back like in Leonardo's "Pieta", together with my sister holding the baby keep making me smile as a mock reference to classical paintings.
At the party I was experimenting with a DIY business card diffuser/deflector for pop up flash to document this short family meeting.

Equipment

E-510 with ZD1442 and a card stuck in front of pop up flash. I saw this idea on the web and I got to like it for it's simplicity.

What I learned

Small rooms and cluttered walls make for a poor photo backgrounds. I guess that thinking ahead what will happen next and where to be with a camera to catch a good photo is one thing and trying to talk people into helping you in this would help a lot. The photographer and his camera are and should be a part of the photographed scene, so it is more than okay to ask everyone to stand or face those directions which will help you get nice photos.
The card party bouncer for pop up works fine as long as I keep the camera in landscape position. When I turn it over for a portrait orientation the light does not look much like an external flash pointed sideways at the wall. It makes ugly shadows on the background just like pop up flash without it.
As to the presented photograph itself I think that I would do much better if I shortened exposure time by at least half. This should leave the people well lit and put the background in a deeper shadow.

D 3

Od Dark Light Back

Now you may ask: 'So what am I looking at?'. It is the same X-mas tree as before and the same golden hue done with split toning. But this is actually the result of my attempt to make a portrait in connection to the Empress tarot card.
I admit. It is not really near the intended look and it is technically inferior.

Equipment

I was fighting to change my living room into a makeshift studio and to change the lamps I had to studio lights. It was my first try to do so and I think the last for a while. E-510 on tripod a with ZD1442 lens set to a standard focal length (around 50mm after taking 2x crop into account). Light was delivered by halogen lamps with DIY refractors and aluminum tape mirror to direct it onto the scene. My beloved model was a bit tired at the end of the day, refused to put on anything more bothersome than this bathrobe and told me that I had 3 minutes to make my photos.

What I learned

I don't know anything about studio lights. There is a lot to be learned about it. How to make a curtain light on the background and get rid of that ugly shadow of the tree?
I also need to get at least one external flash and a studio screen for the background (although I would love to see some interesting texture behind a model).
But most of all, I absolutely need to have a cooperation from the model instead of just a consent (or even less as today). I'm not really counting on enthusiasm every time but if I plan for a shooting session and the model - a model - seems not in the mood, I'd better change lens and make some fun macro photos.

D 2

Od Dark Light Back

This year I have a real problem with X-mas trees. I already decorated two this week and I frankly wasn't satisfied with none. So this is my shoot at tweaking the reality into something more up to holiday dream.

Equipment

All made again with E-510 with Helios 44-4 on (sorry for my mistake - already fixed - about lens used in last post). Oly isn't exactly the most pleasing with high ISO but the two smallest photos were made with ISO 1600. RAW files edited in Lightroom and than brought together in Gimp.

What I learned

I found that Lightroom can really get the ugliness away from heavily noised photo when I convert to monochrome and then give it a high contrast. The photos get to look dirty but quite to my tastes.
The Split Toning was something I barely used until very recently. This time it worked for me whether I changed monochrome or color (but quite desaturated) photo.

D 1

Od Dark Light Back

This is the view outside my window at 7:45 a.m. First sunlight barely illuminating the smoke from a central heating plant. This was a lucky day. Winds usually push this smoke completely sideways and today it was heading right for me.

Equipment
 
Taken with Helios 44-4 - a good old Russian 58mm lens - on my Olympus E-510. That was 126mm with 4/3 System crop factor of 2x. And the quality suffered from taking it hand-held.

What I learned?

In less than perfect light conditions even supporting that fast lens is not enough to get a sharp photo even with higher ISO and Shake Reduction.