Making: No Way Out

February 13, 2009

So several people now have asked me how I created this picture that I posted on flickr last night. Here’s the whole tale.

No Way Out (43 / 365)
No Way Out

Once again last night I was struggling to come up with a subject for my Project 365 photo. I’d been thinking for some time about an taking a picture of me looking through a window with my hands against the glass or cupped around my face, cropping it, and using it as a desktop picture and then taking a picture of what would hopefully appear to be me peering through my computer screen. I was thinking of this again last night on the way home from bowling. Then I thought, what if the edges of the screen were bars that I was holding onto and the portion of my hands in front of “the bars” appeared on the outside of the computer? That might be cool. Especially if it were subtle enough that it caused a double take.

No Way Out: Image 1
Image 1

When I got home I figured I’d give it a try. The first step would be taking a picture that I could use as the desktop picture on my computer. I needed to create a frame to serve as a guide for the edges of the computer screen. And it might be helpful if these edges could be chroma keyed so it was easily selected later. I took some bits of green construction paper, overlaid it on top of my screen and marked the edges that defined the screen and its frame. Then, since that was going to be all floppy, I glued some bits of wood around the edges and cut out a hole for the “screen”. Once that was done, I setup the camera and took a few pictures of me peering out of the “frame”. I could’ve used an assistant here to tell me when I was holding the thing straight and completely in the photo. Oh and I had to make sure my arms were tucked in so they would appear to originate from behind the computer. Very tedious.

No Way Out: Image 2
Image 2

Once I (finally) got a half way decent photo, and by halfway decent I’m talking mainly about alignment and perspective, because it wasn’t very sharp. Anyway, once I had that, I transferred it to my MacBook, tweaked it very slightly, corrected for perspective, cropped it, and set it as my desktop picture. Then I brought the computer over to the wall where the original picture was taken and propped it up on a stool which wasn’t tall enough. So I placed the stool on a chair. And then the light switch was in the way, but by this time it was close to 11 o’clock so I said screw it. The color of the wall and the desktop picture background seemed to match pretty closely, but the camera didn’t think so. I guess the backlighting from the LCD perhaps? After fiddling with it for a bit, I gave up and decided that maybe this change in color would make an interesting transition from the computery bits to “real life”.

Next, I took the original image and superimposed it on the photo of the laptop using the edges of my green frame to guide placement. Once that was done, I copied the portion of my hands that were in front of and beyond the edges of the screen and got rid of the rest. After that, I added a bit of shadow and I was pretty much done. It could’ve been better, but I’m not at all unhappy with the way it turned out.

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Shh, It’s a Secret!

February 10, 2009

The other day I got an email from one of my wife’s friends (very important to use the word wife’s here and not wives’, which changes the meaning significantly):

I am supposed to be a “birdie in your ear” and tell you that Susie wants chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s day. You can order them at Publix 220-1919 or Edible Arrangements at the Avenue in Murfreesboro 890-0020.

And I replied:

Thanks Karen. She’s actually been dropping some hints as well, like hey gimme some chocolate covered strawberries and I would really really like some chocolate covered strawberries. Very subtle.

And just to be certain, when I got home that evening, Susie asked if, by chance, I received any emails from Karen. Yes woman, I’m getting you your stupid chocolate covered strawberries! Happy Valentine’s Day. Wiener.

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Project 365: First 35 days

February 5, 2009
Moonlight (35 / 365)
Moonlight

35 days in and I’m still going strong with the whole Project 365 thing, despite my wife’s initial skepticism. There were several reasons for starting this little project. First, to try and learn a bit more about taking photos. While I don’t know that I’m any better a recognizing what makes one composition better than another, or how to effectively use light, I do think that I understand the technical details a bit better, and I’ve really gotten to know my camera much better. The other goals were trying to have the discipline to see this through and apply it to other “projects”, and learning to make time, even if it’s just a little, for all the things I should be doing rather than focusing on one hobby or interest to the exclusion of everything else. So far so good on that front. I’m still taking pictures, and I’m also making more time for my kids, and I’ve geocached a bit, and put some time into my blog here, and my genealogy, and well, quite a variety of things, and it’s been really good. But, the more time I spend doing this, the more things I’ve discovered that I don’t understand and maybe there are some things the more experienced photographers among you could help me clear up.

Black and White

I’ve started following people more closely on flickr and one thing I don’t get are black and white photos. That’s not to say that the black and white photos I’ve seen are bad, in fact some are quite good, but I have no idea if they might have been better in color. So what are the rules to determine when an image might be better in black and white? I’m a programmer, so I’d very much like a definition that says: if A and B or C then you might want to convert the image to black and white. And what is a black and white image supposed to convey that a color version would not? I’d love to understand, but personally I really like color and, if anything, would like for my photos to be more deeply saturated, not less.

Night Settles on LP Field (10 / 365)
Night Settles on LP Field
RAW versus JPG

I’ve looked at a couple of articles discussing the pros and cons of RAW versus JPG and apart from RAW offering a wider range of post processing opportunities, I really don’t see much advantage over JPG. At the highest quality level I’m not really seeing any compression artifacts using JPG and I also don’t have to worry whether other people have the necessary tools to view a JPG image. And of course there is a minor file size consideration. So, are there other reasons I should be using RAW? To me, post processing isn’t yet a valid reason, because the way I figure it, if I have to do more than slight cropping or rotating, then I failed to do something correctly when I was taking the picture and need to learn what I did wrong instead of having this crutch to fall back on. Once I feel confident in my abilities, maybe I’ll rethink my opinion of RAW, not so I’ll be able to fix mistakes, but perhaps to give myself more creative opportunities later on.

Tiny Pics / EXIF

A little annoyance here. For some reason, there are lots of people that use flickr, but will not post anything larger than a little preview of their photos. I don’t understand. Perhaps they don’t want people stealing their work? But why bother to use flickr at all if that’s the case? There have been many times I’ve seen what looks like it may be pretty good, but there’s not a lot of detail that can be made out at 500 x 333, or whatever. To all you that allow larger views of your photos, thank you so much. I really enjoy studying the details of some of these great images. Likewise to all the people that leave the EXIF data on their photos. As someone trying to learn, I really appreciate being able to see exposure, aperture, ISO, etc., etc.

No Photos Allowed (20 / 365)
No Photos Allowed
White Balance

Drives me crazy. And maybe for this reason I should make the switch to RAW. But it’s not just that. Maybe I need to re-read the instruction manual for my D40, but even when I’ve tried to preset the color balance with a white piece of paper, it doesn’t seem to turn out right. This is isn’t a really huge problem since most of the time leaving the color balance set to AUTO works just fine. And those times that it doesn’t, giving it a clue if I’m in the sun, shadow, under incancesdents, etc., will solve the problem. But every now and again the camera insists I’m on Mars or something.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. Thank you everyone that has viewed my photos and especially those that have left compliments. I really appreciate it. Here’s hoping I’ll eventually take something worthy of Explore.

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One of One

January 30, 2009

Yesterday I left work a bit early for an appointment a had with my periodontist. I left a bit early to give myself time to go home for a courtesy teeth brushing and gargle, and also a trip by the ATM in anticipation of bowling night. As I was driving there, I got a call from the periodontist asking if I was on my way. I told them I was, and I’d be there in 10, maybe 15 minutes. It didn’t occur to me to ask why they’d called until after I hung up, but I started to wonder. My appointment was for 4:30, I was certain of it. Wasn’t it? A pulled out my wallet and looked at my little appointment card which read “Thursday 1/29/09 @ 4:00pm”.

Crap.

I guess this is one of the many benefits of getting older, because I can’t recall ever doing something like this before. Then again, who knows? Perhaps I do it all the time and just don’t remember. In any event, having missed my dentist appointment, I found myself with a chunk of time to fill before bowling later in the evening. It was a beautiful cloudless day, the sun was beginning to set, I was approaching Old Fort Park, and my camera was lying in the seat next to me. Maybe I’d find an interesting way to shoot this sunset from the remnants of Fortress Rosecrans.

The area of the fortress where I was, is known as Lunette Palmer and I’d been there a couple times. While it’s really interesting from a historical perspective, there isn’t really a lot there that would make an interesting photo. Unless that is, you think mounds of dirt are interesting. I was thinking of heading on home, when I took a closer look at one of the park signs showing a parking area at Redoubt Brannan. I’d never seen Redoubt Brannan so I decided to take a look before the sun had completely set.

Sandwiched incongruously near a trailer park and some light industrial buildings is a little dollop of Stones River National Battlefield known as Redoubt Brannan. It is pretty much more of the same as Lunette Palmer. That is, there are mounds of dirt vaguely describing the outline of the long vanished fortifications. Sort of like Les Nessman’s office. But I happily read the various placards and imagined life inside the fort during the civil war. In the meantime, the sun slipped below the horizon leaving a fiery orange sky transitioning to deep azure. It was time to get my camera out.

One of One (29 /365)
One of One:
Sunset at Redoubt Brannan

Just as a snapped the first picture I heard a voice call out, “Hello! I have to close the gate!” So much for pictures of the sunset over Redoubt Brannan. I made my way back to the parking area where the park ranger waited. He apologized, admitting that it was a really nice sunset and we struck up a conversation. He was telling me that he had to keep a close eye on this place, it having turned into something of a “rendezvous point” for couples. He told me that he’d caught people in the act many times there. “You wouldn’t believe it”, he said, “I’ve seen people doing things here that I don’t even understand. Right out in the open too, they don’t even bother to go behind the bushes”. And then we started talking about the history of the place. He lamented progress’ encroachment on the park, explaining how the mayor of Murfreesboro wanted to see condos built on top of Redoubt Brannan. How the new hospital going up would rise above the tree line in the main park area, destroying the illusion of looking back in time across the old battlefield. He talked about the size of the fort and how little is preserved. The extreme east end of the fort is now occupied by a Hooter’s. Of course, he talked about the the battle and some of the raids that close to, but not on the fort itself. Douglas McArthur’s father and George Custer’s brother were both among the participants in the Battle I found out.

We talked for 20 minutes or so, maybe longer, but it would be bowling time soon and so I left. I was a little bummed that I didn’t get have a chance to take more than a single picture, but very happy for the history lesson. And not at all upset that I’d missed that dentist appointment.

Update: I created a map that illustrates just how huge Fortress Rosecrans was. It shows the fort overlayed on top of a satellite image of current day Murfreesboro. You can find it here on flickr

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