Friday, February 18, 2011

More Photography Stuff

A couple of quick notes:

As I learn more about photography, I'm thinking that's it's not always the camera that makes the shot.  Case in point: I took my camera out last Monday for a walk around the nature preserve by my house (along the old Erie Canal) to work on my photographer's eye and try to get a few good shots.  I ended up deleting most of them.  This was probably my best attempt:


Not so good.  It was the middle of the day, so the light wasn't really stellar, and to tell you the truth, the scenery was a little boring (would have been a good place for some xc skiing, though). Contrast that with this picture (another find from my old closet) I took when I was in New Zealand for a semester in college:


That picture was taken with an old, cheap, 35mm camera, developed as a 3x5 and then scanned in to my computer at one of the lowest settings.  And it has a date burned into upper right corner!  And it still looks a million times more artistic, creative, and lively than that drab picture from the Nature Preserve.  I guess there's only one solution: go back to New Zealand.

All hope is not lost, though.  If it takes me a while to get the hang of photography, I can always fall back on video.  I thought the video feature of my new camera was kind of a nice bonus, but not really of much use for serious film.  I was seriously mistaken.  Here's a video shot entirely with my camera (the Pentax k-x):

Scion Snow Tour 2011 Roundtop Rail Jam from Manhouse Media on Vimeo.

Sick.

Weather might be a little sketchy this weekend (thaw/freeze/thaw/freeze/wind), but I'll be skiing both days.  Maybe I'll see you at the mountain.

2 comments:

  1. Nice couple of blogs, always enjoy reading whatever you write about!
    The New Zealand picture has been on my mind, it brings a human element and connection to the recent earthquake...

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  2. Matt - that New Zealand pic is amazing. It's got all the elements that make a great photo: converging lines, curves, dramatic lighting. Now, just go out and apply that to some skiing photography this weekend. There... it's that easy! (LOL). BTW, I think Harv may have already asked this but are you going to ski with your dslr?

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