Category: Artifacts

This assignment came around the time when the baby had really gotten a good grasp at using my lens cap. Its not a typical lens cap — my 28mm and my 50mm lenses both have reversing rings, which allow you to mount your lens backwards allowing you to take macro photos. As such, these lenses use rear lens caps as their front lens caps – and which are perfect for little hands for grasp and manipulate.

I also took a more standard approach to the assignment, with five little circles on a curve.

We spent last weekend making a photobook of the baby for grandma.

Along the way I found this photo. I know it’s not a self-portrait so I gotta assume my wife took it. I think it was taken that day or two a few months ago when I was playing with a flash on my camera.

Thought I’d throw it up…

This ended up becoming a series which I will eventually finish and post up at some point, but this one in specific came from waiting in line at Home Depot waiting to return an air compressor we didn’t need. It was the top of the Porter Cable Box.

My wife’s parents are drying some dates from the garden. So while I was taking photos for the “negative space” assignment I was able to get a few interesting photos with the baby and the dates. In general I think the dark grass made for stronger negative space shots, but I liked these as a series of explorations.

Unlike the previous assignment, we happened to have a moment when we went to sprouts without the baby. I realized this was most likely my one chance to just shoot away and even though I forgot my D40, the iphone did quite well in the bright environs of the supermarket.

One advantage of the iphone is that it facilitates a different shooting style and let me compose a shot without my eyeball in the viewfinder, which was quite necessary when digging into the cheese fridge. This was also one of the few items that was naturally upside down.

There was also some green peppers

And an artichoke that was invading the eggplants

And a box of mac and cheese…but I cheated on that one.

The assignment for OTP 172 was Favorite Things. It would have been a fairly natural assignment but we were caught up in putting down the wood floors in the kitchen and barely had a moment to breathe. As such it turned out to be an all iphone assignment, with shots grabbed around and about my day.

I accidentally thought Harbor Freight opened up at 7am instead of its actual opening at 8am, so I spent about 45 minutes wandering around taking shots. My favorite turned out to be this shot of the Home Depot parking lot behind Harbor Freight.

But I did find an interesting little present on the ground at Harbor Freight.

I also went to the neighboring park and found a couple nice more ephemeral item on the ground.

Made some bokeh with the iphone

And here’s a little fun with a self portrait

A couple months ago we got some crayons for the baby.

It didn’t take long for her to use it on more than just paper. When the paper hit the floor and the crayons did too.

I tried some close up photos, most of which were kind of meh, but I really really like this photo. Its just a nice simple composition.

OTP 158 had an assignment abstraction. Its been hanging over my head for the past couple months as I’ve been taking different abstracts as I pass through the world, but I finally decided to go ahead and upload them. I might keep doing it…or maybe not…but it was time I shipped.

This is what I uploaded to the OTP group. The swatches came out really well and was just a strong graphical item.

However I did a whole bunch of other photos I want to upload so here you go:

Window Blinds really create some nice effects.

Like the shadows, I found that some of the photos were much more interesting with just a little insertion of people into the picture. Of course my dughter always wins for me, but so do strangers.

While at Jack in the Box, I also came across a really interesting situation at the dining counter. I tried several views but I am quite partial to this one with a perspective…but cut dead horizontal.

Close ups of the glass espresso cup at the coffee shop up the street also worked nicely.

And while looking at closeups, here is one of something that is so familiar that I can barely think of something more banal…my car seat cover.

Interesting assignment all in all…but I’m happy its out the door now.