Sorting The Week-end's Photos

Decided to go with the down spout for the weekly assignment. Didn’t like the quilt blocks as much.

I did get some wildflower photos, however, while we were there. One of the Texas Yellow Stars had a bee visiting a number of flowers. I caught a good shot of it. That’s been posted as my photo of the week.

I started a thread for cold weather photography. Got some answers. It looks like the main issues are battery life and condensation. Both are solveable.

Wildflower Center II

Killed a couple birds with one trip today. I’d promise to take my wife to the Wildflower Center today. The sky was cloudy but it was a nice day. I figure the Antarctic is likely to have overcast days, so it would be a good test for exposure. I also took the monopod along to see if I could capture a panorama.

On the exposure front, I adjusted the WB and set the camera for ISO 200. The photos came out a reasonable color. I bracketed a few and set the camera for +0.3 EV on some. Those adjustments are getting more automatic, at least in terms of knowing what to push.

I may have to practice setting the controls for manual shutter and apeture. The panorama photos didn’t all take at the same speed. One is noticeably darker. When they get stiched together they’ll look funny.

I also, by accident, found a curved tile downspout. With the supporting limestone works, it is a good possible entry for the Angles assignment. I’d already taken some quilt block photos. So, I’ve got multiple possibilities.

Zigzag Iris

The weekly photo is up.

It was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I specifically slowed down the shutter speed to get a little blur in the water. It does give it some motion.

I posted the assignment to DPS as well. While at the center I found a flower pot recycling bin. Lots of colorful circles.

Haven’t had a lot of time to play with the camera. Taught an all day MindManager class on Friday, so most of the week was tied up in class prep.

Update: I may have read the wrong sign. The weekly photo is probably an Iris, as it is purple. A Spider Lily is white.

Spring(clip)

I posted the weekly picture. It is the Spring(clip)-o-piller. I used it as the model for the Weekly Assignment over on DPS.

Disk Space

I can see it isn’t going to take long to fill my hard drive. 30 photos at 2 Mb each, and all of a sudden an experiment can be 60+ Mb of photos.

A lot of the experiment shots aren’t woth keeping. So, I’ve culled more than 50% of them. Hard to break a habit of saving everything. But I didn’t usually order duplicates of everything I shot on film. And I've got a lot of marginal prints.

Road Trip Report

Great weather for a drive to Marble Falls. Used the trip to explore a couple of new roads. There appears to be a North South road called Ronald Reagan Blvd that connects 29 to 1431. Mostly an entension of Parmer Lane.

Only found a few places with enough Bluebonnets to warrant stopping. A lot of the road had steep shoulders, and wouldn’t have been a good place to get out.

Coming home on 29, there were more Bluebonnets than on 1431 but nothing dense.

Got the pictures I wanted. Both with the Bluebonnets on the way out, and at the Middle School after we’d gotten home. Driving back into town I noticed a large number of small blue flowers. (I believe they’re called Dotted Blue-eyed Grass.) I’ll post two photos over at DPS next Wednesday.

My photo of the week for next week will be "The famous (but rare) Texas Spring(clip)-o-piller." Constructed from a ruler, spring-clips, and a Jack In The Box Christmas antenna ball. It even had ear-muffs.

Road Trip

Looks like it is going to clear up tomorrow. It has been off and on gloomy with heavy cloud cover. Drizzle the last few days to top it off.

I signed up to take Joanne to Marble Falls. It’s a smaller town about 40 miles from here, and along the lake.

The wildflowers are everywhere now. I should get a field or two. Next week’s assignment at DPS is "Spring."

Wildflowers are an obvious choice for the assignment, so I need a twist. I’m thinking of using a wine bottle holder I got for Christmas. It is coiled metal wire, so essentially it is a "Spring." If I put it in amongst a clutch of wildflowers, it’s a 2-fer!

Microstock

My wife brought home an interesting book from the library. Selling Photography by Roger Antrobus. It had been listed in the Edward R. Hamilton’s Bargain Books catalogue. I’d marked 4 or 5 titles and she checked to see if our library already had it.

In the book, Roger is making the case for "stock" photography as a way to sell and resell your photographs.

As I investigated the larger companies I realized that they usually want fairly large files (50MB). That would be shooting in RAW. And that would quickly use up my memory space while I’m in the Antarctic.

I posted a question on the Digital Photography School forum and was informaed there are also "microstock" web sites. These are smaller photo sizes, so worth investigating further.

I’m not sure my photos reach the quality needed, at least not yet. But, good penguin pictures might be better than actic landscapes. And, if I focus on the penguin, the depth of field won’t be that critical.