January 29th: Frozen water
29th January 2008
I am glad that there are such rich photographic opportunities within a few minutes’ walk from my office else I would taking a lot of pictures of objects around the house given the short days this time of year. I do hope one day to be able to reach the state of sensitized sympathy that Minor White talked about* but I hold no illusions of that right now.
I liked almost all the pictures I selected from today’s shots equally and had a hard time picking out one as the picture for the day. Maybe I just need more time with them. The picture of the sidewalk under construction was the one I had the most hope for when I shot it and the one whose result most disappoints me. I tried to tweak it by duplicating layers, blurring them, and messing with the layer blending modes but should probably have just left well enough alone.
Shooting and processing notes
Like usual, shot with the 17-40 F4.0 L at 17mm, f9, ISO 400. This patch of water and its melting skin of ice surprised me as I turned a corner on the trail. I shot several frames but I never quite understood what to do with all the messy branches everywhere in the frame and I was pulled towards the texture of the ice, and the dark reflections of the tree trunks in the water, and the leaves under the water, and the moss along the shore. This was just a straightforward conversion to grayscale in Lightroom. I opened it in Photoshop but discovered there was nothing else I wanted to do with it.
* "If he were to walk a block in a state of sensitized sympathy to everything to be seen, he would be exhausted before the block was up and out of film long before that." - Minor White.
Photo a Day 2008 Links
Photo a Day 2008
Photo a Day 2008: January
Flickr: Collection: Photo a Day 2008
Flickr: January 2008 Photoset
Flickr: January 2008 Extras Photoset