Photography

In early July I got the idea of trying to see if I could take one photo per day for at least 200 days. The rules are simple, one photo per day, it doesn’t have to be a great photo, just something taken during the day. Tomorrow I will have been doing this for 6 months, which is almost certainly a personal record, but I’m not at number 200 yet.

Some days it has been really difficult to get a photo, other days I’ve wanted to post several photos (but rules are rules). Anyway, it’s fun to look back and see what I’ve been doing each day. Here are a few examples

Day 9 - The most important part of the roof is done

Day 37 - They are trying to figure out what I’m doing.

Day 72 - Making coffee

Day 129 - First jutsu camp since 2019

Day 163 - Visiting southern Sweden

Day 169 - Graduation for kids

Day 180 - Umeå bus station

In the middle of January I will reach number 200 and then I need to decide if I should continue doing this or stop. Go here if you want to see the photos I’ve taken during these 6 months.

Changing subject is harder than I thought

I’ve been taking photos for a few years now and during the last 10+ years it has meant a lot of martial arts photos. Technically I’ve improved a lot and my guess is that I’ve got a “hit rate” of about 80% now - with this I mean that the technical part of the photo is OK, not that the photo in itself is OK.

However, due to the pandemic etc I’ve had to start photographing other things: landscapes and a puppy. And boy, do I have problems !!

I know how I want my landscapes to look like but I’m having huge difficulties in actually making the photos looking like I imagine them. My biggest problem is in getting the right “mood” in the photos, so far I’m not able to get my photos to reflect the feeling I have when I walk around in the forest (landscape pretty much mean forest where I live). I’m getting better but I have a long way to go before they will look decent.

As for the puppy, not mine, it’s even worse, here I’m having problems of focusing when it’s running around. Which is kind of interesting because I’m pretty used to taking photos of fast paced movement when photographing martial arts. However, even if the movements are fast the people are pretty much in the same place. This means that I can to a large degree concentrate on pressing the shutter at the right time. The puppy … hmmm … let me put it this way, he is not stationary in any way what so ever. He is all over the place and it’s basically impossible to predict where he will be in a second - except when he is sleeping. So here I need to focus on actually trying to keep him in sight - this results in a lot of photos with motion blur. Well, I’m getting to know how to do this also and I’m improving but I doubt that I will ever come over 30-40% hit rate for the technical part.

The positive side is that it’s fun (and frustrating) to try something new. But it came as a complete surprise that it would be such a difficult thing to change what is in front of the lens.

If you like photography have you considered submitting your own photos to BtS Critiques and hear the comments from two photographers? I’ve found it very useful.

The time consuming part of my weekend preparations is done.

I had my first “play time” with Photo Mechanic and … it’s really fast, I mean really really really fast compared to Lightroom. I still need to take a more detailed look at tagging but as far as culling, PM is way better that LR.

That Adobe cancels accounts in Venezuela got me thinking about what happens when Trump decides that Sweden is one of the “bad” countries and issue a similar order about Sweden.

I’m not very fond of Adobes subscription model and don’t feel comfortable to have my photos locked into their software (I know I can get the files but I’m also thinking about edits and organization). This once again makes me interested in alternatives to Lightroom … but I would hate spending time I don’t have transferring the photos to a new system. Done that once (Aperture => Lightroom) and that was no fun.

Hmmm, I suddenly realized that it’s more funny being a part of running/organizing a conference that just being a participant.

Since both @jack and @burk have been talking about their Peak Design bags, I thought I would share my experiences. I bought my 10l Sling 1-2 years ago and I use it as my mirrorless bag. It also works as my work bag when I travel. This has been my setup for the last 10 days (work, conference and vaccination). I have two cameras, four lenses, iPad 11”, batteries, memory cards, small tripod, chargers + cables (which isn’t in the picture since they are charging stuff at the moment). As you can see there is space left.

I also have a large Everyday Messenger that I bought for my DSLR stuff … which have never actually been in that bag. Instead it became my office bag which I use Everyday 🙄 to carry stuff back and forth to work.

None of them are perfect but they work very well for me.

Where do I put my DSLR??? Well, my usual setup is a D4s, large pro-body, with a two large lenses, 24-70 & 70-200 both 2.8, and a large flash with batteries etc and to be able handle that I bought a second hand backpack which fit two pro bodies, flash, these two lenses + other lenses if needed. I forgot the brand … but I know that it’s heavy when fully loaded 🤪

From a photography perspective I really dislike the garbage bins in Aberdeen