30-SEP-2006
It was one of those days.
Waited all week to get out here, yet today there's no desire to go trapising with the gear. Capture another stream, another landscape, or another bird. It's just so much of the same.
I was expecting to explore Platte Clove, but I stayed up too darn late last night and don't have the energy (or is it ambition?) to take a good climb. But I figure to push ahead, re-shoot a known landmark for the season, and see what happens along the way.
30-SEP-2006
This is nice, but it's just not all that. . . it's lacking something.
Some sunshine would be nice, but that's not quite it. And I wasn't expecting the foliage here to be prime, though here abouts the foliage is rather remarkable. This doesn't show that, but that's not it either.
Packing up I find another location a short way upstream which shows compositional potentials. Yet I think, more of the same - and decide to leave this area. Possibly run into something enticing along the round trip back home. If nothing else inspires, there are some nice roads with turning foliage around the house. [shrug]
Still hesitating to depart the current compostions, I take out the 20D and 100-400 from the toploader bag, and shoot a quick one to weigh a composition. The point was to see if the composition would nudge me to drop pack and set up the tripod, so I ignored the camera settings from the previous handling. When the image review showed a blurred composition, I'm reminded of recent readings about purposeful motion blur (for random abstracts to toy with). I take a few more shots, introducing some slow but random movements to click through. I quickly check the historgram for each shot, but otherwise ignore those images as I turn back for the car. Oh, well [slight sigh].
30-SEP-2006
Back at the house, the shots are quickly keyworded and renamed, and I see that. . . this is rather interesting! It's not the same sort of motion blur that was read about - this was less agressive, leaving some detail for an interesting effect.
The blur on the outer edges gives the otherwise static elements a bit of energy. The seeming lack of blur of some of the water flow contradicts this, giving an impression it was two images combined with masks. This particular shot I believe was done by rotating the camera clockwise slowly about the center AF point, squeezing the shutter mid way through the motion.
For me this is quite an interesting effect on a rather common compostion.
However, I could understand if it induced nausea in some.
30-SEP-2006
This was a more random movement of the lens during exposure. A bit more a stylized post processing (I never know where an image will take me).
I took about 12 shots, 3 of which I can't put in the trash (the rest I must [g]). At the end of the day I've a fair collection of images tha will warrant processing, but these two made the outing worthwhile all by themselves. They're different, which is a bit refreshing for what I tend to capture. I can't say how far this effect will go, but the practice with nuanced variations to the approach are a welcome new accessory for the mental photo kit. I'm left. . . inspired.
17-SEP-2006
Likely the only sure thing about this is. . . the results will usually be nothing one anticipates, if worth keeping at all.
But in part, the choice of how to post process the capture also plays a role.
02-OCT-2006
Simply. . . out of control.
But what's come out of this is to leave the bulk of the gear behind, and just go hand-held for a while. It's been a few years since I used to just go out with one camera, one lens, and a CP filter. The limitation makes one look about and work differently, which seems is just what I need at this time.
24-SEP-2006
That's better. Ashokan Reservoir.
