Edition: 004
This monday I’m checking in at the hospital for surgery the next day. I don’t know how long I’ll have to stay, as long as all goes well. Meanwhile I’m prepping by buying new PJ’s, warm socks, I got a book as gift and also a Body Shop kit with shower gel, lotion, soap and wash cloth. I have to load my iPod Touch with movies to have something other then TV to watch. This will take a while as I have to convert with subtitles and elgato Turbo.264 doesn’t play nice with subtitles. I have been meaning to do a write up on elgato Turbo.264, that will have to be an next entry.
Obviously I’ll be taking some time off work, so this week I have been working to finish all open projects. Since I started there on January as junior I’m already been assigned as manager of all internal websites and applications. So this past week I did my best to finish all open projects so my co-workers can continue with the rest.
While at the hospital I will be without internet because they still don’t have internet for patients. I will be able to check my mail through my phone if the GPRS connection is good. In any case I’ll have stuff to keep me busy should be needed.
Today I went the bookstore and I bought “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle and “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. I’ve been wanting to buy “A New Earth” for some time already. I want to follow Oprah’s online workshop but only the streaming version has subtitles, the downloadable iPod version doesn’t has subtitles. So I can’t watch them from my iPod away from my computer. So it will be just the book.
And “The Lovely Bones” I just picked out on sight, just browsing for something that would catch my attention. I just wanted a story to read without wanting to stop. With all this I should have enough to not get bored at the hospital.
Since recently I have been trying out Adobe Lightroom. I always used Photoshop for touch ups. So Lightroom was very different, it’s basically just a digital darkroom. Instead of Actions like in Photoshop it has Presets. You can load downloaded ones, or create your own. Once the preset is loaded you just mouse over on it and get a small thumbnail preview of how the photo will look. Once you apply a preset you can change settings and adjust the photo to your taste.
But you can easily go to far with Lightroom, so a good photo composition is still key factor to a good photo. But taking photos with the Ricoh really lets one see how good DSLRs are. With my Nikon D70 in automatic mode I can shoot away perfect photos. But the Ricoh GR is not so great in automatic. I never shoot automatic, since I got the D70 I’ve been using manual 100% of the time. Once you can use manual easily automatic is like a handicap.
Everyone who owns a DSLR with a kit lens can take a good photo quality wise, so to stand out nowadays composition is everything. 10 people can photograph the same item, but only a few will take a unique view of the item.
The trick is to take a mundane object and make an interesting photo out of it. And also to know how the photo will look best, e.g. in B&W or colors? I decided to give it a try and create a composition in my room and use my desk lamp as only light source.
My shoes
See full size versions on my flickr macro set
The whole process took very little time to get done. The longest part was taking the photos. Then load them on the computer, open Lightroom, select the best shots, apply presets and done. But for me the thrill of photography is always getting a good composition. When I started taking photos with a Fuji S5000 I would sit/stand for hours observing animals in the nature to get that one great shot.
If you want to challenge yourself, get a fixed lens like a 28mm or 50mm and shoot in manual only. Think good about the composition and remember that digital editing is just the finishing touch, not what makes the picture.