Concept



This year I will be mostly... taking a photo every day, and posting it up here for you all to see and comment on if you feel inclined (please do). It's not an original idea, I stole it off a friend and many other people are doing the same as I speak, but I thought it seemed like a great idea to get used to my new toy, my Canon Eos 500D with Tamron 18-250mm Macro lens - my first digital SLR.

A lot of sites online talk about 'project 365' where people are encouraged to take a photo every day, but while their take on it is to create a personal history of the photographer, I wanted to make it a bit more abstract, more about the world around me. So this isn't meant to be a photo diary of my life, I am striving for each photo to be 'good' because of its artistic and technical merit, not because it's personal to me. Having said that personal subject matter will inevitably creep in as inspiration, but that's allowed, the book I'm reading claim that "every picture we take is merely a self-portrait of our inner psyche"!

I had a think of a couple of ideas for themes and settled on 'moods'. Then I was hit by indecision as to what to do if I take a photo I like and want to upload as my daily snap, but it doesn't fit the theme. So I have decided that the theme is just for inspiration rather than as a criteria, the photos can be of anything. That way I get the most flexibility of what to upload, and still have a muse.

While I'll be taking photos every day, I'll only upload them every few days, so keep checking back. I'm not anticipating the photos to be groundbreaking (at least not to start with!), the whole point is to improve so I won't be great initially. But I'll still try my best which will hopefully keep it interesting. Please feel free to add whatever comments you like (hopefully constructive!) as that will help me as much as the process of actually taking a photo a day, I will endeavour to reply to them all.

For my trip reports blog see http://fidgetsadventures.blogspot.com


Monday, 31 January 2011

Monday 31st January 2011

I would like to try to showcase some of the amazing old buildings in Stoke over the course of the year. I'm not sure the best way to take photos of buildings, but you've got to start somewhere, so here's my start. The lettering on This building says 'Free Library', 'Public Baths', 'Queen Victoria Jubilee Buildings', 'Science & Art Institute' and 'A.D.1889', and still houses the library plus a Victorian swimming pool which I hope to photograph another day.


39mm, 1/125s, f/11, ISO 100

4 comments:

  1. Very English! (I don't know why it makes me think that but it just does....)

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  2. :-) I now spot amazing buildings wherever I go in Stoke but still not sure the best way to portray most of them.

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  3. The old telephone exchange is pretty good as well. I've been vaguely wondering if it's worth modelling them in google as proper 3D buildings. Here's a streetview link

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Hanley,+Stoke-on-Trent+ST4,+United+Kingdom&aq=&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=13.022672,43.286133&ie=UTF8&geocode=FUwWKQMdV5Le_w&split=0&hq=&hnear=Hanley,+Stoke-on-Trent,+United+Kingdom&ll=53.025568,-2.179181&spn=0.001616,0.005284&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=53.025568,-2.179181&panoid=iJvUlpbQPtPhKo0cmp-gKA&cbp=12,112.69,,0,5

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  4. Thanks, I think I've run past that building but didn't know what it was (I run with a club in Northwood and use the runs as photo recce trips too).

    I work with maps but haven't really looked at the google functionality short of using it on my phone for navigating, so didn't know you can do 3D modelling in it.

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