David's Project 365

[Mike Farley]

Hi Dave

Some good work going on here. Overhead tree shots can work surprisingly well and you have a diagonal going from top left to bottom right which adds a bit of dynamism. Where was the shot with the moirror ball taken?

[Nina]

I like the tree shot as well Dave. Must get myself out to take another picture as my PAD will get nowhere from the word go otherwise.

[Mike Farley]

Must get myself out to take another picture as my PAD will get nowhere from the word go otherwise.

A PEOD, maybe?

[davidc]

Or a project52 perhaps?
As well as the 365 I'm intending/hoping to shoot a roll of film a month too. Going to be a photographically busy year!

[davidc]

This didn't quite turn out the way I planned. The goal was to document my second new year's resolution - to drag my backside out of bed earlier in the morning, both to open up more photo opportunities and to get to work a bit earlier!
I had tried here to cut out some custom bokeh shapes and turn the background into mini musical notes, to make it look like the alarm was going off. Alas it completely failed

So I decided to get more strobism practice in, lighting the clock from the right while avoiding glare and still letting the bokeh bleed through.



http://500px.com/photo/22578879

Strobism - YN460 right @ 1/8th power

[Mike Farley]

Did you consider shooting each half separately and merging them later in Photoshop?

Mind you, this exercise is as much about learning as anything else and it is good that we post those images which did not turn out as we had hoped. In just a week I am surprised at just how much the exercise has taught me.

[davidc]

Actually in the end I sort of did that - I took loads of shots and got the bokeh I wanted on the right but the clock was reading 9 o'clock. I'd forgotten to set it back to 6am!

So I reshot the clock set to 6am and then merged the bokeh side with the clock side. Not perfectly, I can see the join when I look closely, but online it looks OK.

[davidc]

This shot annoyed me, and how it's rendering on 500px also annoys me. Lighting it was a total pain in the arse, despite arranging the light in any manner of setup it just wasn't working and I was getting crappy shots. In the end I held the flash manually, full power and pointed it at the ceiling. Hence the brighter spot in the centre - there was just no way of avoiding that I know of without more lighting kit.

I also went for a cross-processed look in Photoshop - experimental, I freely admit, but I intend to learn PS more as well as improving my photography on this project! - but for some reason it's coming out exceedingly dark on 500px yet looks much brighter on my own laptop.

But it was nearly 11pm and I didn't have time to muck about



http://500px.com/photo/22699019

[Mike Farley]

I also went for a cross-processed look in Photoshop - experimental, I freely admit, but I intend to learn PS more as well as improving my photography on this project! - but for some reason it's coming out exceedingly dark on 500px yet looks much brighter on my own laptop.

Laptop screens are not ideal for photo editing, even if they are calibrated. The best option is to hook your computer up to an external monitor.

But it was nearly 11pm and I didn't have time to muck about

You and Rose have my respect in taking on a demanding project while holding down full time jobs. As I have found, with a set up scene it never seems to be quite as straightforward as just taking a snap and there is always some fine tuning which has to be done.

[davidc]

As I feared I didn't have time to process or post yesterday's image, spending it with a friend I've not seen in years. So I have the picture(s) and will post it along with today's efforts later tonight.