The Photographic Journals

All this semester I'm working on a massive photo project covering a wide variety of themes that will eventually end up in a bound book. I'm also writing a journal of my efforts to track where I've been, and I recently realized that such material would be perfect for this blog. And so I present the first entry of many to be featured here on this blog.

10/8 – Lessons in Lazy Observation

Today I learned to do a better job cleaning up my frame. Yesterday evening I headed out to wrap up my collection for my “Nature” theme near a stream that flows alongside campus. I took a few shots here and there, including a shot of the cattails I had been eying for a while. (note that the cattails shot didn’t really turn out how I hoped) Then I stumbled across a cluster of lovely blue flowers and decided to try my hand at photographing those. To my surprise, the photo turned out really well, and I left satisfied.

Earlier today, I uploaded my pictures from the outing to my computer to take a look. At first glance, the “blue flower” picture didn’t disappoint. Good colors, good lighting, good composition, interesting background (which has been problematic in the past).

Then I noticed the, um, errors. See those little white hanging things? I have no idea what they are, but one crept into the edge of my frame and was now sitting very close to the front of the picture, out of focus to boot. It wasn’t highly noticeable, but good photography is like Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way. “If I’m going to be a good photographer,” I thought, “that thingy has to go.” So I cropped the picture. I hated to do it, because that limited the scope of a picture with a pretty elaborate background.

At that time, I noticed culprit number two: a couple of dead, withered flowers hanging lifelessly just to the right of the big blue cluster! At this point, I couldn’t crop any more, so those simply stay for now. By this time I’ve learned my lesson, however. Whenever you’re looking through that itty bitty hole that represents your frame, check it to make sure everything (repeat: everything!) unsightly is gone. No dead flowers. No white thingies. Nothing else that will compromise the perceived perfection of the picture.

I might go out and reshoot this, although I may still end up using the original. I’m seldom satisfied with reshoots. Some how the spontaneity of the first time is lost, resulting in an inferior piece. But this picture wasn’t too hard to get, so we’ll see…
T.H. Excellence

Summer PhotoBlog!

Dang, it's been a really long time since I've done one of these. Too long, in fact. I'd better get started right away.


Here's a quick shot I took at Downtown Disney with my new polarizing filter.

These flowers were really hard to edit.


These next few were shot on a college retreat.


Why does this picture make me think of The Lion King?


Random water pipe shot.


Now for a few photographs from an overcast afternoon at the beach.


This shot of the lifeguard station didn't turn out as well as I thought, but it's not terrible.


Finally, a sunset shot of a lonely set of power lines, strung off into the distance.

Wow, it's been a really long time. I need to start doing these more. Hopefully I'll be taking more pics while I'm working at Disneyland this summer.
T.H. Excellence

A Hoax and a PhotoBlog

Exactly one week ago, I posted photographs from an alleged u.f.o. sighting. Obviously, the u.f.o.s were bogus, and you all set about to figure out what they really were, nearly everyone thinking they were clouds of some sort. Well, guess what. These supposed spacecraft were not some strange natural phenomena (and my dad later pointed out that lenticular clouds usually only formed over mountains) but rather a hoax, and not even an elaborate one at that.
So based off of that information, we'll see if anyone can uncover the truth. Just reread the post carefully. Perhaps you might read something helpful.

Anyway, while you're doing that, here's a PhotoBlog to keep you occupied.

So I was coming out of the library at school and I liked the symmetry in this shot.


A while ago I took a shot similar to this but was displeased with it, so I reshot it here at school. I'm still not entirely satisfied, but this is a bit closer to what I want.


And here's a tall shot.


Finally, a premature dandelion.


This picture makes me happy. I shot it up in Joshua Tree two weekends ago. I zoomed in tight on the flower, and the sunset brought out all the excellent colors. My only regret is that the flower is incredibly soft (as in, not sharp) when the picture is looked at closely. But here you can't really tell.

I shot this just before the last one. Again, the flower is a bit soft, but since the frame isn't as tight it's not as significant.


This was an experiment of sorts. I wanted to have the closest flower sharp in the foreground with the other flowers a touch out of focus in the background, serving as a nice backdrop. The focus/out of focus effect worked well, although I don't quite like the composition. Oh well.


Once the sun set, I devoted much of my effort to photographing the night sky. Unfortunately, my effort was quite insufficient. The night sky is incredibly difficult to focus, particularly because it's practically impossible to tell if you're in focus or not. This was one of the better shots.


This was one of my last shots of the night. I accomplished this effect by setting up a long exposure time (20-30 seconds) and zooming over the course of the exposure. The result was something that looks remarkable like lightspeed, but is also very grainy.


Okay, that'll do it for me today. I'm crazy busy right now, with a ton of projects I'm working on. I'll try to keep you posted on those.

Over and out
T.H. Excellence