Photography
Exploring
I was always impressed with the high quality pictures my dad took of our childhood years and especially our family vacations, but I myself just had a simple pocket camera and I took a few snaps in automatic mode to preserve memories without much idea of what all the settings meant. I lost most of mine due to backup failure and relationship issues. The picture above of my son at a wild-life park was taken with a point-and-click FujiFilm FinePix camera, but that got damaged and I was going through distressing times.
Years later my interest was rekindled by a Facebook friend and I append about that at the base of this web page.
As an amateur learning about photography in more recent years, I would write what I was learning on social media and web sites. Alas unsettling circumstances continued, the sites changed and I was harassed and bullied off some. What I have got saved is not in a usable form. An issue I have with all of the platforms is that their format is not portable, they scrambled names of image files, compressed the data and stripped out embedded identifying information. Thus they even made things difficult to relate to backups and originals. These are problems I think I've solved with this site and I may eventually resurect some of my previous work.
More importantly, today I'm forging ahead with photography that currently interests me. Below are posts in reverse order of what I'm up to, while pages about specific topics will be added to the main menu. Although mirrored from my home computer in public, what I write here is in the first instance just personal records.
Last updated: 2024-04-14
2022-03-20 The auto setting
Camera auto setting sounds too good to be true and maybe indeed... it is! Here are two pictures I took today where the camera has clearly focussed on the wrong subject. (Click an image to enlarge it)
On the camera display a green indicator shows when it has acquired auto focus, but on the small display, you can't tell what is and what isn't in focus. ILCE-6300 has Automatic AF mode. In that mode it switches from single focus (AF-S) to continuous (AF-C) if it decides that the target is moving. My puppies were indeed moving, but the AI might also get confused due to my moving the camera to reframe the picture before pressing the shutter release all the way. It then displays little green focus dots that are sparkling on the subject, but it's not easy to see on the small display out in bright sun.
The next day I was using the view finder and paying better attention. This first one with the drift wood in the forground came out OK.
With the subject right behind it though, on every attempt, focus would latch onto the drift wood and quickly Lucy had exited the frame and the moment was gone. I wanted to try again but with accurately placed single shot auto focus (AF-S mode). Alas I was unable to find it in the menus there and then. Maybe I need to spend more time studying it and will have better luck another day.
With my Sony QX-1 this is a lot simpler as you just touch the screen where you want it to focus. QX-1 camera then acquires focus at that point and takes the picture all in one go, but that too could fail with things in the foreground and, like manual focus it it needs two hands which isn't very practical when also throwing balls for your dog to chase.
2021-12-07 Droplets
Walking my dog one day I spotted some sparkling fresh rain drops on a plant protruding from the pavement and I wondered if I could capture that fresh feel in a photo. As soon as I got home I grabbed my camera and a macro lens. I hopped in my car and raced back before the lighting changed.
An altercation ensued with a motorist who wanted to reverse into her driveway with a trailer. She was fuming at me daring to pull up off the road next to her. I did explain she hadn't been indicating, neither were her reversing lights on to make intentions clear and that I wasn't in her way at all where I was. Then I proceeded to ignore her and continued to take my picture (the one above). It now reminds me to restore my web page about water droplets and it will be in the main menu as Aqua Green.
darkness & light
Here I use monochrome to bring out the translucent qualities of yellow flag iris petals against the grey shimmer of flowing water.
The above picture of me was taken by Ian Farnbach. Ian is a professional photographer that I knew only casually as a Facebook friend.
I had not long transitioned (male to female, in case you couldn't guess). Having been through traumatic earthquake events and been ill for a while, I was unemployed. I was also being targeted IRL as a result of malicious slander. Ian realized I had to get away from it all for a break, so he invited me to come share a holiday chalet over in Australia for a week. He is the one who reintroduced me to the exciting art of photography.
Light in the Dark
We had a good time making pictures. Most intriguing was his night time photography techniques and also his extensive use of an ND filter to get long exposure times and calculated artistic motion blur effects. The above video presents some of his work.
Benighted
Returning home I discovered thugs had tried to burgle my place and someone had wrecked my security camera. There was also a stroppy letter from WINZ but I shall write about that on my political site. There was plenty more trouble in store for me, and I heard misfortunes befell Ian too. Our plans for him to come over here never came to fruition and I've quit Facebook so we lost touch.
Back again
Burglars did make off with my cameras and lenses, but eventually I bought a new one. Ian's work remains an inspiration to me, although I don't think he does much photography anymore.
