Cary’s 100% Generic Blog

It’s a Modest Mouse kinda night. Although I just downloaded a song by The Magic Numbers from Music Glue, and I kinda want to find more of their stuff.

Muneeb and I both bought cameras on Boxing Day. His is to document his adventures in NYC; mine to document my travels in Europe next summer (a little early, I know, but I want to learn how to use the camera now so I’m not fooling around when I’m travelling. And it was a super good deal!).

At the ArtSci get-together on the 28th, one of us suggested that we start photoblogs. Since I have a thoroughly underused blog just sitting on some webspace, I figured where better to post my pictures? I need to learn how to use it before I head off to Europe next summer, so starting today I’m going to try to post one picture per day. I’ll try to provide some context along with the photo (i.e. what it is, why I took it, what I learned from the shot, what I’d like to improve) so y’all aren’t just staring at Cary’s Random Photoblog (we’ll see if this promise lasts as long as my pledge to write something everyday. Hah!). Since it’s mostly dark by the time I get home from work, I’m going to start bringing my camera to work, so I can go outside at lunchtime and take pictures of downtown Hamilton.

I’ve had the camera since the 26th, so I figure that’s 10 pictures that I owe the blog. I’ve taken around 300 shots so far, so here are the ones I like the most (in mostly chronological order). Pictures after the jump.

This is my friend Nathaniel Wolfe. We’ve known each other much longer than we haven’t. I think this picture’s from Boxing Day, pretty much right after I got the camera. What I learned: how awesome the “Automatic Everything” setting is.

This is an ornament from my Christmas tree. I like it, but beyond that it doesn’t have any real sentimental value (I mostly dislike Christmas trees. I’m a grinch, I know). What I learned: flashes are good. Sometimes.

A Christmas nutcracker at my parents’ house. Well, not really Christmas, but it’s only ever out at Christmas. It’s been around about as long as I can remember. What I learned: playing with the Manual Focus setting is fun.

A closeup of the globe from the wizard nutcracker’s hand. What I learned: same as above.

I think this is the Joseph from one of at least two creches at my parents’ place. More playing around with manual focus.

Of the 300 pictures I’ve taken so far, I think about 100 of them are of my dog, Kylemore (”Kylie”). She’s the most willing subject - never complains, never gets tired. She is kinda difficult to work with though, and is slightly camera shy. This picture was taken right after she’d been groomed. I like taking pictures of my dog - I miss her terribly in Hamilton, and it’s something nice to remember her by here. What I learned: repeatedly saying “Kylieeeeeeeeeee” will not get my dog to look at me.

Buffet, flowers, and art at my parents’ house. More playing around with focus. Also repositioned the overhead lights to change shadows/how the scene was lit. Fun times!

This shot is from Brian’s cottage on New Year’s Day. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but it was snowing a lot and was pretty grey outside. I miss snow. What I learned: wear boots outside when it’s -15C and snowing, not slippers.

Footprints from Bri’s cottage. What I learned: same as above. Frigid toes!

This is a picture from my back porch around 5:00PM today. It’s a little crooked but I can correct that later. What I learned: use the autofocus points as guides to help straighten out the picture (although they only go so far).

I think pretty much of all of these pictures were taken using manual settings, except for the ones where I explicitly mention how awesome the automatic settings work most of the time.

Edit: I can’t figure out how to get these all to work right now. Sigh. So web unsavvy.

Edit 2: Nevermind. A little use of HTML instead of 1and1’s gimped WordPress editor and I’m good to go.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 06:58 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.