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


Thursday 25 August 2011

Sunday 21st August 2011

I really love this photo. I love the angle of the tree and I like the way the carpet of fallen green leaves reflect the leaves on the branches against the sky.

I gave this version a tweak with HDR/tone mapping and it really brought a nice balance to the scene - it took some of the contrast out of the leaves at the top so they're not too stark against the sky, and brought some warmth to the fallen leaves in the foreground so your eye is drawn to them more.


10mm, 1/6s, f/8, ISO 320

Here's the non-HDRed version for comparison:


Also here's a photo of the same tree the day before. On this occasion the sun had just come out powerfully after a downpour, and the tree was steaming in the damp heat. I needed more time and a tripod to get a good photo of it though, so this didn't make it as my photo-of-the-day for yesterday.


10mm, 1/8s, f/9, ISO 200

4 comments:

  1. It looks like a wide open space but really just a path through the woods. B

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  2. Yeah I hadn't thought of that. The path is only just visible between the tree and the leaves, but it's dominantly there in my head.

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