Day 338 (3 Dec 2012) Sunrise in the fog

This was one of those mornings we have here in New England where a warm, humid day is followed by a cool night, resulting in patches of dense fog.  There is something about fog that lends an air of mystery to the landscape, that just draws me into it.  I just want to enter in and see what it’s hiding my sight.

Mystery In The Field

Morning Fog

Morning Commute

This project is winding down, with less than a month to go!!  I’m excited about that fact!  This has been a HUGE commitment, more than I could have ever imagined when I began 338 days ago.  While I’m on track to meet my goal of taking a photo every day, other goals have been pushed aside to reach this one (most notably my goal to read 24 books this year, I might get to 16-18).  However, I have learned A LOT and my skill has improved more so in the last year than the all the previous years combined!  From my photography side of things, it has been worth it, but overall, taking into account the time I should have been studying, reading, doing house/yard work, etc, I’m not sure.  And to be honest, I’m not sure it matters at this point.

I will not be doing another 365 project in 2013, but I will still be very active with my camera still!  I will spend a lot more time learning and studying techniques, learning more about editing, and not feeling the pressure to come up with an idea at 10pm when I should be sleeping, just to say I shot that day.  If you have a lot of time, or really want to improve your photography, I do recommend a 365 project.  If you don’t have a lot of time, a 52 project (one a week) might be more fitting.

Now as this project approaches completion, I am looking for an idea for my last post of the year; something to top off a year of shooting some great images with style!  I’m open for suggestions, but with the caveat that I do have to work the 31st.  So fire away!

I’m also looking for ideas of what you would like to see in the next year.  I will be posting my best images, at minimum.  But I could start creating some tutorials on my favorite styles/techniques (both to help y’all out, and to make me learn them better!), and maybe do some gear reviews, of the stuff I have used (which is limited).  I don’t see this as a profession, but maybe someday I can make some money to by new gear 😀

Day 330 (25 Nov 2012) Cows At Rest

I pass this field several times a week, and can’t help but watch the cows as I drive by.  It seems at times that they live a life of ease, with nothing to do but relax and eat all day.  Then I go grab a burger and realize that maybe I don’t want that life!

Let me know what you think of the treatment I gave these images.  The foreground wasn’t very interesting, and the sky wasn’t that great, either, so I cropped them out.  The grass is a mix of dead and green, so it was hard to get the cattle to stand out a lot; that’s why I tried the B&W in the last one.  Critiques are welcome!

Day 260 (17 Sep 2012) Empty Field, or Corny Photos

I’ve shot corn fields full of corn before, but how about an empty corn field?  I think they are pretty interesting with the short stubble all in rows and the odd ears lying on the ground.  But what really caught my eye about this field a few days ago was a lone corn stalk in the middle of the field.  Just one, all by itself.

18 mm, 1/50 sec, f/8, ISO 100 (Lone Corn Stalk)

18 mm, 1/15 sec, f/8, ISO 100 (Last Sunset)

18 mm, 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO 200 (Heaven Bound)

Day 246 (3 Sep 2012) Farmers Market

I’m currently heading home after spending the long weekend hiking and camping in the Adirondacks. It was an awesome weekend! My friends and I covered >25 miles and summited 3 of the “46ers”!

Today includes a 5 hr drive, which requires a few rest stops. One such roadside plaza had a mini-farmers market. The peppers were especially colorful, and having my iPhone with me, I took a few photos and ran them through Snapseed. Enjoy!

Day 226 (13 Aug 2012) Sunset on the Farm

I’ve passed this farm many times, driving to hiking and riding trails.  I was on my way to ride this evening and just HAD to stop!  I would like to plan a shoot here, but for tonight, the clouds made it a great site! (though this, and other delays, gave me the experience of riding in the dark, lol).

I tried several presets in LR3 and used my own settings on the first one.  I really enjoy making an image my own, even if it’s not exactly what I saw with my eye.  I do at least a little tweaking to every image I publish.  Sometimes it’s just adjusting white-ballance or a B&W conversion, or taking a bad exposure and creating a great image from.  Or sometimes it’s just fun to go hog-wild!  What are your thoughts on image editing?

18 mm, 1/320 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (Sunset on the Farm)

18 mm, 1/160 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (End of the day)

18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100 (End of a Long Day)

Day 204 (22 July 2012) Gates and Fences

I have to admit that today was one of those days were I was totally unmotivated to do anything, much less hop in my truck and drive to the location for today’s shoot.  And even though I really like the results of my shooting/editing, I can’t get excited about it.  Have you ever had one of those days?  What did you do to get out of the funk?

Anyway, today’s images have a double inspiration.  First from my friend Carol, who requested that I shoot fences, and also from Shannon, co-host of this months collaborative photo shoot project/challenge.  This month’s challenge is silhouettes, and one of the idea-fostering images she shot prompted the shot of barb wire below.  Thank you both, ladies, for the inspiration for today’s shoot 🙂  I don’t know which of the two silhouettes below will be my submission.  I really like the barb wire shot, but don’t want to be a copy-cat.  Though I think I should have used a larger aperture in the wooden fence image to reduce the star-ing affect of the sun.  What do you think?

35 mm, 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 200 (Red Gate)

43 mm, 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 200 (Gate Post)

18 mm, 1/160 sec, f/11, ISO 100 (Barb Wire Silhouette)

18 mm, 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO 100 (Farm Fence Silhouette)

Day 202 (20 July 2012) Connecticut Corn

You may not know it if you never leave the larger towns, cities, and major highways of Connecticut, but CT has a thriving agriculture industry.  Nestled in the rolling hills, away from major highways and large towns & cities are thousands of acres of corn!  I run past a couple fields during my morning jogs, and when I take the backroads in the eastern part of the state, I see lots and lots of corn.  As such, corn mazes are also quite popular (and fun!).  Also, the local sweet corn is available all summer long, both in major grocery stores and road side produce stands.  It’s perfect the perfect grilling companion for a steak (or chicken or burger or . . . )!

What statistics I could find say that there are about 300 farms planting 4,600 acres of corn (as of 2007) in this small state.  Sure, a single farm in Iowa will surpass that, but this is New England 🙂

These photos are from one such farm along my jogging route:

18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/11, ISO 100 (Connecticut Corn)

55 mm, 1/40 sec, f/11, ISO 400 (Rolling Hills of Corn)

33 mm, 1/60 sec, f/10, ISO 100 (Tall Corn)

60 mm, 1/40 sec, f/11, ISO 800, 60mm macro lens (Corn Tassels)

Day 169 (17 June 2012) Summer Fun

Today after church was spend w/ a good friend and her kids. After some catch we went to a local farm called Cows & Cones. The kids can see and pet some live stock, run in the open field, and get really good ice cream. Later the kids and I played on their trampoline. A friend suggested that I set up the camera on a tripod and remotely trigger it. So I did. It was a lot of fun and the kids LOVED having their photos taken and then seeing them 🙂

This first photo I would like you to let me know what you think of it. The editing, composition, etc. I’m looking for honest critiques. I can post the original if will help (just let me know, and I’ll edit the post). Thanks in advance! The second is just for fun 🙂

20 mm, 1/400 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 (Ice Cream Time)

18 mm, 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1600 (Trampoline Fun)

Day 168 (16 June 2012) Beach and Clouds

Today I was in Westerly, RI, for a pancake breakfast fundraiser, and decided to take the LONG way home, including a stop at the shore and a few other places along the way.  I had lots of time and my camera 🙂

Turns out that the beaches are so popular that they charge for parking, so I drove to a rocky portion of the shore where there was limited free parking (gotta save my money for more camera goodies, right? 🙂 ).  The painter below allowed me to take a couple photos of him.  However, I can’t decide which of the three images from the photo I like better.  I’m leaning towards the first one.  Which is your favorite?

55 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 (Beach Painter – 1)

55 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 (Beach Painter – 2)

55 mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 (Beach Painter – 3)

39 mm, 1/250 sec, f/10, ISO 100 (Peace Sign)

55 mm, 1/160 sec, f/4.0, ISO 100 (Field of Dreams)

42 mm, 1/82 sec, f/11, ISO 100 (Power Lines)

Day 166 (14 June 2012) Flag Day, Hartford

Today is Flag Day in the US.  Many nations have their own Flag Day to celebrate the adoption of their national Flag.  Old Glory was adopted by Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777 (see Wikipedia for more).  So, of course I had to shoot some shots of the National Ensign. 🙂

Today also happened to be a great day for clouds.  There were many puffy cumulus clouds floating around the sky.  My goal was to shoot them above the city of Hartford, but by the time I got there, they were not really around.  Or maybe they were just in the northern area of CT (where I work).  Either way, I had a great time wandering the area of the Founders Bridge in Hartford.

18 mm, 1/125 sec, f/11, ISO 100 (Flag Day, USA)

18 mm, 1/30, f/18, ISO 100 (Phoenix Bridge, Hartford)

18 mm, 1/30, f/18, ISO 100 (Connecticut River Reflections)

21 mm, 1/25, f/18, ISO 100 (The Two Sided Building)

18 mm, 1/80, f/18, ISO 100 (Tobacco Field)

21 mm, 1/40, f/18, ISO 100 (Phoenix Bridge, Hartford)

Day 116 (25 April 2012) Government Building

Today I had to make a trip to Willimantic, CT.  I took a moment to stop on the way home to shoot the building where the county seat is located.  As a storm is moving in tonight, the clouds were quite wonderful to look at.  I found an old silo on my way home and shot a few  frames there, too.

18 mm, 1/160 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Government Building)

23 mm, 1/60 sec, f/11, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Silo in a Field)

18 mm, 1/60 sec, f/11, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Field)

Day 103 (12 April 2012) After the Rain

Today’s weather was interspersed with rain and sun, which meant that there were beautiful cumulus clouds everywhere, and a few rainbows!  Unfortuantly the rainbows were to faint to see once photographed, but I was still able to take a short jaunt to the same nearby corn field that I’ve shot in a few times, now.  Most recently on Tuesday night.

There is just something about the open field, surrounded by trees, and the large, gnarly oak trees that make awesome silhouettes.  I wonder how it will look thought the lens once the corn starts coming in around June.

18 mm, 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (After the Rain)

32 mm, 1/30 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Sundown on the Farm)

One thing I’m noticing about my shooting habits is my huge hesitation to go above ISO 100; I usually don’t even think about bumping up ISO unless my the lighting conditions required too slow a shutter to be hand held.  I think I tend to pull out a tripod before bumping up ISO, if I have the time/tripod available.  Any thoughts on this?  Should I ‘explore’ the higher ISOs to see how they do, or keep trying to say at ISO 100?

 

Day 52 (21 Feb 2012) Smok’n

*Disclaimer: this is not an endorsement for or against the tobacco industry or the use of their products*

As one drives through the Windsor, CT area either on I-91 or Rt 20, one can see the long, narrow, faded red tobacco sheds along side their field.  Tobacco has been grown in CT since the 1800s and there is still about 2000 acres farmed today.  The leaves grown here are primarily used in the wrapper, or outer layers of cigars.  CT’s tobacco is considered a premium variety, so the farming of this controversial crop continues.

I’ve always loved old barns and run-down/weathered buildings, and today I decided to shoot for a few minutes from near the road (I didn’t want to trespass too bad).  I decided to use my ‘nifty fifty’ or Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens to force me to think in new ways while shooting.

50 mm, 1/500 sec, f/2.2, ISO 100, EF 50mm f/1.8 ii (Tobacco Sheds)

50 mm, 1/200 sec, f/2.2, ISO 100, EF 50mm f/1.8 ii (Keep Out)

50 mm, 1/250 sec, f/1.8, ISO 100, EF 50mm f/1.8 ii (Hinge)

Day 2 (2 Jan 2012)

Good evening!

Today’s photo comes from Borderland State Park in Mass, enjoy!

18 mm, 1/40th sec, f/11, ISO 100