In general, I far prefer the span of higher shutter speeds and smaller apertures selected by the P (for Programmed) exposure mode, but I needed to try out the shutter-speed mode. 1/500 for this shot is nearing ridiculous, although I do appreciate the soft rendering of everything beyond what I focused on, that stop sign in the middle. The fuzz is almost ethereal.
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J R learns the D200 - Day 24
Getting the priorities
right:
trees, birds,
playthings, monuments and swings
The Flowered Tree 1/250 @ f/4.8 iso 320 FF HH CWA
Wednesday March 29, 2006: Driving to the lake, I saw this in a park I used to walk through. A place thick with trees where my mind wanders almost everytime I drive by. I was doing just that when I saw this one (the only one in the park) flowered tree nearly tipped over, dark and flowered among so many vertical grays.
I parked in the lot down the hill and walked back to get the same view as when I first saw it (above). Then I wandered around in the park with my telephoto and my new camera set to shutter priority for the first time. I didn't want blurred shots from handholding that heavy thing.
Flowered Tree Flowers 1/500 @ f/4.8 iso 320 FF HH CWA
Then, feeling like the hotshot photog, I shot "close-ups" of the flowers, just knowing that if I shot them at 1/500th of a second, they'd be rendered sharp. Well some few of them were, although most of the depth of the field is on the leaves behind. I shoulda tried smaller apertures and not so fast shutters, but the light was dull the few times the sun shone through the bounteous clouds.
I was wrong about the 180mm substituting successfully for a macro lens.
Trees 1/500 @ f/4.8 iso 200 FF HH CWA
This is the sort of grouping of trees that sets my mind wandering as I drive by. Something about long, thin masses and light and shadow and multitudes of them all crissing and crossing as I glide by, lost in wordless image thought.
Playground Thingy 1/250 @ f/5.6 iso 320 FF HH CWA
There are several playground groupings, a roofed over picnic area and lots of sidewalks rolling in and out of the trees. There's also a series of strange concrete canals that cut through the park at dangerous intervals, and just a few, widely scattered concrete bridges.
Crossing over to the other side means a longish walk. Which is what I was out for, so why not.
The Car & Pony Show 1/x@ f/x iso 320 80% of FF HH CWA
This was taken in cloudy dull conditions. I got another shot of it in brighter sunshine, but that one's less sharp. So this will have to do. I almost didn't include it here, but I like it so much, the childhood dreamness of these animatable cartoon characters abstracted to their essence.
It's possible that having kids on and interacting with these characters might yield better photographs, but I do like it just like this, artifacts of childhood uncomplicated by real children...
Canal 1/350 @ f/5.6 iso 200 FF HH CWA
Near the main playground, there's fences keeping kids from jumping into or trying to jump over (I wouldn't) these hard, squared canals. But most of the park just has them out in the open, where anybody could wander into them or get trapped walking over in darkness. I wonder how many injuries over the years they've been guilty of.
Table with Cup 1/180 @ f/11 iso 200 FF HH CWA
It's a perfectly ordinary thing for a park to have, but the light and dark on it and through it makes it a sort of visual cipher, an abstraction, a bit of mystery wrapped in bright and shadow. Of course, I was drawn to it.
Trees Trees 1/180 @ f/6.7 iso 200 FF HH CWA
Chiaroscuro — "1. The technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation. or 2. The arrangement of light and dark elements in a pictorial work of art." According to the CD-based American Heritage Dictionary.
Parking Lot Across the Street 1/180 @ f/5.6 iso 200 FF HH CWA
This is the parking lot across the street from my neighborhood Subway restaurant, where I grabbed the $2.49 daily special with avocado for fifty cents extra. While eating it, I watched, as I often do, this strange parking lot. I've never before thought of photographing it, so today, I did.
I shot it twice, and the differences are negligible. They looked almost identical. This one felt better.
Boat Unload 1/350 @ f/4 iso 2000 FF HH CWA
First place I stopped at the lake, was the residential area across the lake and up the hill from the boat house. I'd decided not to shoot anything I'd already shot, so I was ready for just about anything new. This looked new, but I didn't want to wait around for the long procedure of putting them into the juice.
The Memorial 1/180 @ f/6.7 iso 200 FF HH CWA
I've always thought of this as a sort of junior informal Vietnam Veteran's Memorial that nobody else knows about. One of those But Is It Really Art? or just a bunch of stones things that get crosswise in my mind sometimes. The sun was not a constant today, but when did shine, it did that lovely rounded pleating thing in the background that almost makes this picture.
I know I have not yet shot this stone wall from the perfect angle with the perfect light. But this is close. I'll be back again. I've been working at it intermittently for several years. I think I got closest today.
Beyond Post Hill 1/250 @ f/6.7 iso 200 FF HH CWA
I'm calling where Lawther floats around the lake through that ritzy neighborhood over those hills and dales and past those numerous stop signs, Post Hill. Because of the posts at all angles along the side. You'll see more views of the hill itself. This is me standing on the hill across from it, photographing out as far as I can see.
This sample scoops over the hills, dips over The Boat House up to Playground Hill and the trees on the other side of the lake. There's barest essential samples of the lake in tiny pieces between branches at about 1 o'clock. I love that the sun and sun reflected in the lake, twice lights boat house so that it phosphoresces in this dull darkness.
Corvette on Post Hill 1/250 @ f/4.8 iso 200 FF HH CWA
I got tired of waiting for a biker to pedal down or up the hill, passed on a Mini Cooper, but couldn't help myself with the streamlined Corvette. I didn't want it caught up in the lace of the tree branches, and it needed to be in the space between that and the pole. Right about just where it is.
In larger versions of these shots (I did a couple with bicycles on the other side going up), this side is sharp and the other side is not. See how the grass on that side fuzzes?
Trees & Buildings 1/500 @ f/4 iso 200 FF HH CWA
I was hoping for a new view that windowed through to my favorite building on White Rock Lake, the Bath House, which is what's at the top middle in this photograph, obscured by trees. The other shapes are, bottom to top, the lake, boat house, driveways, hill up to the playground, concrete holding the playground from silting down the hill, more lake, bath house, trees on the other side, and the sky.
This is, of course, also beyond Post Hill. I like its messy abstraction with sharp branches and the confusion of shapes and green and white and yellows. The original shot is amush with low contrast but lots of detail. I stole it from its low-contrast nowhere by narrowing its density scale from light to dark. Now, there's some of each.
Red Fence with White Plant 1/500 @ f/4 iso 200 FF HH CWA
By now, I should probably know what kind of plant this is. Some sort of Pampas Grass or something. Maybe. I've been making bad photographs of the red wood wall and the fairly boring house with strangely tinted windows safe behind it for months and years.
This shot needed sun. It's okay, but with sun would come shadows, especially in the feathery bits, and maybe even the green of the grass itself would be darker. Still, I like this, not quite successful photograph, for its dreaminess and color excess.
Stop Stop 20 1/500 @ f/3.3 iso 200 FF HH CWA
Shot down into the edge of the park from Post Hill, I waited a long time for the traffic to clear, so the space would show. Compressed by the longish telephoto, green on green on green with the long line of gray posts, gray street, gray path, gray distant road.
