It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I don’t shoot (or process) near as often as I would like. I guess that’s just letting life get in the way of stuff I love. Life being school, wedding planning, and just not taking the time to do anything with my camera. The 365 project was really good at keeping me in the photo mode.
But anyway, here are some photos I’ve taken in the past few weeks. Enjoy!
Looking Up
Gold Star Bridge
Tilt Shift – Bridge
Snowing
Salmon River
Comstock Bridge
Wow! What a storm! I was lucky enough to receive 3-4 feet of snow! Well, lucky in that I have a good shovel, a 4wd truck, and a back strong enough to shovel a few hundred feet of driveway.
Well, anyway, I survived, didn’t loose power, and took a break after shoveling to break out my camera and enjoy the winter wonderland 🙂 On Sunday I took a few moments to visit a small beach to see what snow on the beach was like.
Please let me know what you think of these photos!
Here are some of my images from the past week or so, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them!
There is an irrigation pond not far from my home where the ‘old timers’ like to gather and fish. Not having good ice traction, I wasn’t able to talk to this gentleman, other than to ask if I could take his photo.
I was able to borrow my friends’s wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16mm), so I brought it to Avery Point in Groton, CT to try it out a little bit. As it was my first time with the lens, I wasn’t too impressed in general w/ my images, the lens is fun, though it feels almost like a prime. I think I’ll try the Canon 10-20 next 🙂
Wednesday night, after teaching a class to kids on photography, I felt inspired to shoot some night photography. I shot these from a pedestrian bridge over Rt 32 in Waterford, CT. In the first image you can see the athletic complex for ConCollege in the foreground and the town of Groton across the river. The brightest lights lights across the river, on the left side, are SubBase New London (yes, it’s in Groton) where I was stationed before I got out.
These last two I took today. I had a green glass bowl that I had used to make banana bread that was in the drying rack over the portion cups I used to pre-measure my ingredients. It looked pretty cool as the muted sun glinted off the now-green cups.
Just some photos from this past month, I hope you enjoy 🙂
This post is WAY overdue, I know, but it’s here 🙂 I was a bit distracted the last few days of 2012 spending time with my fiancé 🙂 But I was reminded that I still need to wrap up this project.
It took me about 4 days for the momentum of the project to slow down enough for me to not take a photo during an entire day! It was a weird experience after spending a year taking photos every day to not pick up my camera, but it was nice to not have to worry about the project while I was spending the time w/ my new fiancé before she went back to Spain for 3 months.
I’ve not given up photography, but am spending more time learning more, reading, watching videos on photography. My focus in 2013 is to focus on improving my technique, skills, and creative eye. I might try to take up some portrait gigs for friends as practice, too 🙂
I currently am working to set up a new website, where I can showcase my best work, and still keep up a blog with a more appropriate name than “365photosbyjeremy” 🙂 Once it’s up I’ll let you all know so you can follow me at my new home 🙂 Until then I’ll keep posting some images here as I work on the new site. I hope you will content to follow my work and provide feedback.
Well, here are the last few images from 2012, I hope you enjoy them!
These past several days have been crazy, busy, and awesome! I have not had a chance to post, but I have taken photos every day (even if just with my iPhone), so I am still on track for this project!!!
Below are some of the photos, the most important/best ones of these several days. Some have not been processed yet, and others (such as the iPhone snapshots) are not worth posting here. Starting next year, I will move my blog to another WordPress address; I have a few reserved, but will let you know the new address to subscribe to. I will not be doing another 365 project, but I will still be making photos all the time, and posting. My goal is to have a site (WordPress or other) where I can post not only a blog, but also galleries to show off my best work. I will also be buying a domain name (or two) and professional hosting.
Please take a moment and view below what is my absolute favorite photo of all time!!
She said YES!!!!!
Christmas with my Fiancé
Maine Lobster Pots
FIshing Boats in Portland ME
Rain On A Window (Shot with my new Lensbaby Spark!)
Latte (Shot with my new Lensbaby Spark!)
So the night of the 13th ended up having an amazing meteor shower! I saw lots and lots, from really bright to dim in the two hours I was out watching. Prior to going out I planned my shoot to a T, I thought: I found an image stacker designed to make star trails from individual images (the best way to make them w/o lots of noise or being affected as much by light pollution), had my camera settings set, used a dark sky site to find the darkest area around here, located several candidate sites, make a thermos of hot coco, dressed in LOTs of layers (it was 24F / -4C), put toe warmers in my boots, packed a sleeping bag to wrap in if needed, loaded all my camera gear (inc. the wired remote) and headed out.
First lesson learned: remember to pack my camp chair! I wasn’t going to foul up my sleeping bag on the rocks/dirt. Second: don’t forget to put the extra hand warmer on my lens. I brought an extra for that reason to keep it from icing. I forgot till too late. Third: it appears most meteors are visible around the horizon (I didn’t catch any in an hour, yet saw dozens). I pointed at the Gemini constellation, as thats where I read most would start from, which was almost straight up. Also, pointing up more exposes your front lens element to space more, which will cause it to cool to colder than the air and get ice/condensation faster (leave a comment if you want the science behind this, and I’ll explain) Fourth: a scraggly tree does not provide a good foreground subject against streaks of light. Fifth: don’t knock over your glass-lined thermos on the rocks, because the glass inside will break 😦 Sixth, and maybe most important: DO NOT stop the camera sequence, unless you want to start completely over. Notice the gaps in the trails? Those each are from a 30ish second gap in shooting. I had do delete one image because a car drove by and illuminated the tree. Pulling out the aircraft light images make it look a lot worse due to a lot more gaps.
So, I count this expedition a success! Yes, my image isn’t what I hoped for, but the next one will have some more knowledge to do this better 🙂 Like not setting up near a road, being more careful w/ my thermos, setting up the camera pointing in a better position and leaving it alone!
The software I used for this is StarStax. Click on the link to get it!
Tonight as I was pulling into my church’s parking lot to lead the final Financial Peace University class of this series, I noticed that many of the trees in the parking lot islands had lights very close to them. From the right perspective it looked like there was a light shining from the top of the tree itself, illuminating it’s branches from the top. The rain had broken by the time class was over and left a light haze which was illuminated by the lights and gave the area around it a nice glow. So what did I do? Bust out my tripod and camera, of course! I know you are not surprised 🙂
I love fog! I was on my way into town to study at a coffee shop (I get too distracted at home sometimes) and it was one of those days where it’s just a light drizzle with fog and clouds and just a chill the permeates everything. I took the short way into town, which I’ve taken many times, and I noticed just enough fog on the lake to slightly obscure the trees. It was perfect to shoot! I set up the tripod, took some exposures, then it dawned on me that the gate was open, so hopped in the car and drove down the road a bit to get another angle on the lake. That’s when I saw this swimming dock just floating out in the lake. That was the shot I was looking for, the shot I’ve wanted to take for a long time!
I was tempted to title this post “the hands of time” but I’m still a young 35 year-old kid 🙂 But these are macro shots of my hands, which all things considered, are not as rough as they could be. Years or working on cars and in the yard must not show as I’ve taken to wearing gloves as often as possible. That said, I’m not sure if I’m fascinated by seeing my hands like this or creeped out! What was your reaction?
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 😀
“Now wait a minute,” you say, “that is just a tame photo of a city in the distance, and you forgot to follow the rule of third. Why are you implying danger in this shot?” Well, I would have to say it’s because of where I was when I shot it. I was on the side of a bridge on a local freeway (I-291) over the Connecticut river at rush hour. There wasn’t much room to bet into/out of my car, so I had to time it just right. But I was smart enough to place the car “up stream” of traffic while I set up my tripod. 🙂
I had thought of doing this shot several times before, but was always concerned a police officer would stop me, but I gave it a shot today and succeeded! Not a great shot; bridge vibrations on 30 sec exposures caused it to be very unsharp on the details, and the composition wasn’t great, the city in the center and all. Guess I was distracted? Yeah, you could say that 🙂
After yesterday’s snow, the sun came out today and it warmed up a tad, so the snow started to melt a bit. Most of its still here as of tonight. So during my lunch break I took out my macro lens & tripod and attempted to shoot some droplets. I’ve been following H2O by Joanna for quite a while and she creates some amazing drop photos, and she has inspired many images of mine, such as todays (though hers are better 🙂 )
Winter in New England means snow! I love the snow; I love watching it fall, snow ball fights, hiking in it (gonna go for snow shoes this year, I think), driving in it, and LOVE snowboarding 🙂
I took my truck for a drive down an old farm road in the woods near where I live on my lunch break and took these shots. It’s not a lot of snow, yet, but it’s still November 🙂
Tomorrow I’m going to try for an early AM shot, so lets hope I can get up on time!!
Right after sunset is “blue hour’, in which the sky takes on a deepening and darkening blue as it transitions into the black of night. I think that this time of day is the best time to shoot sky photos, especially since if the clouds are just right, the sun will shine a beautiful array of reds, oranges, and purples onto them as it sinks lower below the horizon.
Today after hitting the one Black Friday sale for the one item I needed I made my way to a beach in Plymouth, MA. There was a heavy fog this morning, and I was hoping it would linger a bit. There was still some by the time I shot, so I’m happy w/ the shots 🙂 I just need a sensor cleaning (spent some time correcting for the sensor dust tonight)
Well, It isn’t anyone’s fault but mine for thinking the sky would be clear tonight, and that I would be able to get the shot I had planned. Better luck tomorrow 🙂 So, here is what I shot, not exactly the plan, but I did get to try out my new-to-me 75-300 zoom!
A couple weekends ago I was talking with my friend Shannon from SeeingSpotsPhoto about her lighthouse project, and that inspired me to shoot the Avery Point Lighthouse in Groton, CT tonight. The moon was just under 1/2 and I wanted to try my new-to-me 75-300 mm zoom to try and make the moon larger over the lighthouse. However, the moon was not in the right place (I would have has to be swimming to get the angle I wanted, lol). However, the constellation Orion was in the perfect location to shoot with the light house. I tried several perspectives, trying to keep the shutter speed at 25 seconds or less to minimize star trails while having a sufficient exposure. And during one exposure a meteor blazed almost directly over the top of the light house, and IN THE FRAME!!! It’s intensity changed as it flared in and out before dying. It was one of the most spectacular meteors I’ve seen, and I got it on the image!!!! I was (still am) so excited I texted Shannon and some other photog friends right away (past 10pm, lol). So, here it is for you to see, as well 🙂
18 mm, 25 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 (Avery Point Lighthouse Meteor)
This is one image, no layering, not combining, just some minor tweaks in Lightroom. A bucket list shot, if I do say so myself 🙂
This morning I awoke to sub-freezing temps, and as soon as the sun was high enough, I pulled out my camera and macro lens and tried to shoot the frost. I want to try this again! I love how the ice refracts the light like a prism, too.
In the summer and into the fall Harry’s Place is a happen’ place. Lines almost to the road, just waiting for their chance to get their own savory burger 🙂
But alas, it is not longer burger stand season, and Harry’s Place is closed for the season 😦
365 Photos by Jeremy 