Photo 365 - Day 167 (Intersecting Lines)

Day 167 (December 17th, 2010)
Title: Intersecting Lines


I'm finally done with the little plastic boxes (for now at least)!  Time to move on to something new and exciting... Its little wooden sticks!  Woo!!  I know, its almost too exciting to handle, but handle it I shall!  Unless I get a splinter or something, but I'm willing to take that chance for you! 


Even though I've changed subject matter, I'm still working within the whole "light/dark" experiment.  I enjoyed this shot, because it really shows off both high contrast/brightness on the wood, but at the same time, gives a nice shadow effect without either overpowering each other.  I also tried a little "forced focus" in making one of the 'wooden legs' point towards the shadows, so to direct your eyes away from the brightness of the wood.  Look at me being all tricky n' stuff! 


Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 98 (Firelines)

Day 98 (October 9th, 2010)
Title: Firelines

I got this picture on the way home from Santa Cruz, and I thought it reminded me a lot of yesterdays photo, but yet different enough that I would give some "prime-blog-time".  I really enjoy the abstract of this photo, which is a strange because normally I'm not a fan of abstract paintings (now and then an abstract sculpture will really catch my eye, but I generally prefer impressionism, realism, surrealism and even baroque art).  But, with abstract photography, its interesting to me because a) you know it came from a 'real' source of some kind, but that photographer is manipulating the medium (aka camera/film) to give an effect of a non-real (re: abstract) situation. 

In this photo, we were driving home and I decided to just stick the camera out the window and take shots of the cross traffic.  I knew I wouldn't be able to get a clear shot of a car, but I was hoping to get some sort of abstract effect like I did.  Many of the shots were just blurry without any form or function to them, where as some of the others had enough 'real' elements (a tire or other car part in focus enough to take the viewer out of the 'abstract' mindset) that I couldn't use them.  This one, to me, has enough form and is defined in a way to preserve the 'abstract' concept I was going for, but was still able to avoid any of the 'real' elements that helped create it. 

Enjoy!

(Click picture for larger view)

Photo 365 - Day 55 (Good Food)

Day 55 (August 28th, 2010)
Title: Good Food

Ok, this is my last "messing around with lasers" shot (at least, for a little while).  Now, none of these were really planned out (all I knew was that I wanted to try and take long-exposure shots while playing with a laser) but I had a lot of fun making them.  I'm certainly going to experiment more with this technique and try and get it to look a bit "cleaner" in execution.

The subject matter for this particular shot is the best pizza place in all of the East Bay (perhaps central valley), Pizzaiolo.  Its a great little place on the boarder of Berkeley and Oakland (I think its technically in Oakland, but just barely).  They have a single page menu, that changes daily, with 3-4 apps, 2-3 first course items, 2-3 main course, and 5-6 pizza options.  They also have a daily desert menu that's crazy (as well as Blue Bottle Coffee).  I highly recommend it if you are wanting some thin crust pizza that's got a lot of character.  Pricing is about $20-30 per person (without boozage), but worth it!  Right, done with my marketing now! 

Enjoy! 

Photo 365 - Day 54 (Red Handed)

Day 54 (August 27th, 2010)
Title: Red Handed

The old cliche goes: "Caught red handed!"... Since I haven't been caught yet (not that I'm saying I did anything!), I thought it might be kind of fun to show off that red hand! 

This is another "painting with light" trick that I started last night.  I just held my hand in-front of the lens, pressed the shutter and then "drew" on my hand/fingers with the laser.  I did a couple of them, but I think this one came out the best.  It reminds me of the song "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.  A bit morose and dark, but its got a nice beat!  (If you would like to hear it, its at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vU22ts-Qcw)

Enjoy!

Bonus Picture!

I took the shot from yesterday, played around with it a bit in good ol' Photoshop and made this (my new Twitter background!)  I kinda like it!  Reminds me of viruses or something nifty!

Photo 365 - Day 53 (Light Noodles)

Day 53 (August 26th, 2010)
Title: Light Noodles

I found my laser pointer!  I was sitting around playing with my newly rediscovered toy and I thought that it might be fun to try and "paint" a photo with it.  It was quite fun trying, but you really can't tell if you got anything until after reviewing the photos on the computer.

To get this (and some others that I'm working on for tomorrow - I had fun with this!) I placed the camera on the tripod, set the lens to a very wide aperture (f/22) and used my 50mm fixed lens.  I chose the 50mm lens because it provided me the right sized "frame" to work with on the ceiling.  I tried using a shallower aperture (f/2.8) but it let too much of the reflected light off the ceiling and you could actually see the paint which too away from the overall look and feel of the shot. 


Tomorrow I'll be doing some more "light drawings".

Photo 365 - Day 2 (Highway 80)

Day 2 (July 5th, 2010)
Title: Highway 80

Nighttime shot of Highway 80 from balcony.  Damn California drivers need to slow down!!