Recap: 5/28 & 5/29

The absence of responsibilities lately has really left me with a bit too much time on my hands. At the same time, however, I like to think that it has accelerated my learning of photographic techniques and it's forced me to "dig deeper", so to speak, and to look beyond the obvious photo opportunity. That said, I'd kill for a trip to the zoo or something of that sort (if only New Hampshire had something to offer, Singapore Zoo here we come).

This recap reaches back to Monday night, when my dad's watching of a movie I'd seen too many times already instead of the Celtic's game drove me to try something new with a few tools:

- My camera (Olympus E-PL1)

- A flexible leg mini tripod

- A flashlight

See the description below this image for information on what I tried to do.

This was my first ever attempt at "Light Painting". To do this, I set the exposure to around 25 seconds and then used the flashlight to "paint" the car. The blurred light you see in the background is the moon (it's blurred because of clouds moving in front of it). This was definitely harder than I thought and I'll have to put much more time into it if I hope to really become good at it.

Here are two more attempts at "light painting" performed on much easier subjects. The car was simply too much area to cover for a beginner like me.

After exhausting myself with this activity, I called it a night and went inside to discover that the Celtics had lost (no thanks to the refs). 

The next day would have been thrilling if I were a meteorologist. You will see shots here in bright, beautiful sunlight, and you will see a shot taken not that long after these sunny shots that looks like it was taken out of an apocalypse film.

My mom and I took a walk around the neighborhood with Sadie around 2:30 and of course, I had to bring along my camera. I keep saying that one of these times something awesome is going to happen and I'll be able to capture it since my camera is always on me. As it turned out, nothing too eventful took place, but it's always great to spend time with mom and we did stumble upon these beautiful peonies.

Sadie also elected to escape from the brutal humidity by romping through the thick mud of a nearby creek. Mom was having none of this, though, and we gave her a pretty comprehensive hosedown before she was let anywhere near the inside of the house. Sadie actually put up with it pretty well, surprisingly, and put on a little smile for me here.

Sadie really is the easiest subject one could ask for. Always smiling, adorable, and never hard to find...I wish people were that easy.

I mentioned earlier that the weather took a quick turn for the worse. Between approximately 3:00 when this shot was taken, and Sadie's 4:00 vet appointment, the weather turned from what you see above, to what you see below.

A typical New England summer day, I suppose. 

That about sums up everything of recent note. Mom and I continue to pack (and argue about what to pack) - hard to believe I leave in only 5 days or so. 

For anyone who might have made it this far, I'd be happy to get feedback from you...What do you think of these posts? Too many pictures, not enough text? Too much text, not enough pictures? Too long/short? Let me know if you have any suggestions or thoughts on the blog. I apologize if my grammar isn't particularly impressive, I tend to write these entries after midnight, so I can't promise that my brain is functioning at its highest level.

Ridiculousness

Ridiculousness, a photo by DanBBrantley on Flickr.

And this is why I love my dog.

05/27 Daily Recap - Goose Pond

Another day without much to do around Keene meant I needed to try and get adventurous in order to keep boredom at bay. Of course, this meant going somewhere scenic in an effort to get some interesting photos. My close friend Nelson (who also enjoys photography) and I decided we'd bring his dog, Charlie, to the nearby "Goose Pond" for the afternoon. She was very excited...

Now it's been about 7 years since I last was at Goose Pond, and frankly, it was nothing like I remembered. It's very beautiful and I'd imagine very peaceful most of the time, although there were some campers being a bit rowdy while we were there. I almost fell on my face at least once in a shallow stream we had to walk through, but stubbornly stopped in the middle of the stream to snap this three photo panorama.

Of course, I was hoping to encounter some sort of interesting subject and naturally, I assumed it would be something like a snapping turtle or some geese (we were at "Goose Pond", after all). No such luck, but we did come across this most interesting fellow who after a bit of dialog, we determined to be slightly off his rocker.

He'd just come out of the pond from a long swim when we reached him.

I'm very pleasantly surprised with how this one turned out. I was not expecting the camera's dynamic range to be able to handle the bright sunlight reflecting off the water, but I was able to recover some strong detail.

Of course, the main reason we'd brought Charlie along in the first place was because she has always loved to swim in the pond. Nelson was disappointed in her lack of enthusiasm here, but she did play fetch for us a few times.

And here's a shot of her right after she came out of the pond. I love the lighting here.

Throughout our time on the pond, Nelson and I had made it our mission of sorts to get some good shots of the old man seen above. But, neither one of us had the courage to either ask him for permission or blatantly snap photos of him up close. So, on our way out of the woods, we noticed he'd followed behind us and we posted up in anticipation. Here's the result.

All in all, a good afternoon of shooting. I do wish for faster autofocus speed on my camera which becomes especially obvious with energetic pets and the like, but I'm happy with these results for now. I'm also thankful for the bit of luck that provided me with this most interesting subject to shoot, it helped liven up the afternoon. Be sure to check out the rest of the photos from the day here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzEAADA

05/26 - Daily Recap (First Night Photography)

Not much to shoot today, so I had to try and get creative. I was in Keene at a friends, and happened to notice the terrible condition of this house. I see shots composed similar to this one all the time online, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I also saw a few really powerful shots of very simple subjects, and gave my best effort given what I could find around my friend's house.

And here's a quick portrait I took of my friend Nate later in the afternoon.

In addition to the daytime shooting, I tried night photography for the first time. For the shot you see below, I used a tripod and a 4 second exposure at ISO200. Again, there really wasn't much to shoot but I'm pretty happy to see that the E-PL1 is capable of night shooting even with its pretty poor ISO performance.

Overall, I'd call the day a success given how little effort I put into finding subjects to shoot. I'd say my goal for tomorrow is to go out of my way to find more interesting subjects. In particular, I need to build up more courage so I won't be afraid to shoot people on the streets. Keene is filled with interesting people, and I owe it to myself to start photographing them. I hope to post another update tomorrow.

Waterfall

P5182751, a photo by DanBBrantley on Flickr.

This past week I had the chance to head to Acworth, NH with some friends for a quick stop at a secluded swimming hole. When I say quick, I mean it. We were asked to leave almost immediately. Apparently, our being there was a liability as others had been seriously injured in past years.