Day thirty one - Being great

Day thirty - Parched

Day twenty nine - 43

Day twenty nine - Twilight

New white bundle of joy

It took less than 30 days for me to take the leap and upgrade. This project finally gave me a reason.  So I am now the proud new owner of a pristine white iPhone 4s.  Day one and its not the new 8MP lens or real flash that has got me a twitter. Although those were big factors in getting me to upgrade. I'm just giddy over the dual processor.  Hooray for faster developing! And should I find myself stranded in that cabin, I now can figure out where it is since I finally have GPS - 'bout time.


I also decided to have these developed into physical photos each week (including some from the cutting room floor as many of my best photos ended up there. Mainly because it was a good day or locale for photo ops and I could only choose one to represent that day on my blog. But I digress.) I've finally received photos from the first two weeks. I've noticed, as expected, that the actually images are slightly different than the digital ones I can view on the screen. Some are darker than I hoped and others have more detail than anticipated. A few turned out to be fuzzy and out of focus - disappointing. I'm still figuring out which lens, film, flash combinations I like the best and this is just another tool for that. I'm also thinking of making a book of these photos. I just need to decide if it will mirror the blog or be another animal altogether.


The cutting room floor is getting smaller, unfortunately its not because of improved editing. Seems that my limited footprint is yeilding fewer worthwhile photo opportunities in this dry, cold season. Its that or I'm less inspired. I don't want to wish life away, but spring would be nice.


Here are some images that didn't make the cut (week 4; days 22-28) -

I liked this composition better but it was too green for my liking. That's editing for ya.

If only the sun would have caught his eye.





On a different day this would have made it, like several others. Some days are just great for taking photos and others not so much.



The second version of this, I'm still not sure if I chose the right one.



p.s. Happy birthday big brother

Day twenty eight - Microclimate

Day twenty seven - Mother's calling

Day twenty six - H is for horse

Day twenty five - I'm not a plant, I just play one on film.

Day twenty four - The doors on the bus go open and shut

Day twenty three - Chasing cars

Day twenty two - Up a tree

Double word days are here!

I need to upgrade my 2nd gen iPhone. I'm unable to purchase or use some of the new lens packs that hipsta has available. Bah!

This week's cutting room floor (week 3; days 15-21):

Day twenty one - Black, black, beige and yellow

Day twenty - Mid-day

Day nineteen - Before the bee

Day eighteen - Who's afraid of the coyote cutout

Day seventeen - Ice fire

Day sixteen - Too much time on my hands

Adventures in Hipsta-snapping

Taking snapshots is so fantastically fun with Hipstamatic but its not without its frustrations and fussiness. In week two I worked through understanding which lens produce which affect to get the most out of my fifteen minutes. This is certainly a help as there are other issues to contend with. One being the inability to frequently see what I'm shooting . Especially this time of year with sun and snow, the glare is exceptionally bright and seeing through the viewfinder on my screen is next to impossible.  I've got an idea what the image should look like but often I'm crossing my fingers and leaving it up to the fates.

Then there is the random stopping to 'rewind the film' as it takes time for images to develop. I happen to like this nod to analog camera operation, but it does hinder the shots at times and eats into my picture taking time.

But what gets me swearing is when I do the equivilent of popping open the back of a film camera and pop out of the app to carry on using my smart phone for the bazillion other functions it provides. In that moment of switching apps I lose the undeveloped work I've thus far captured. Yep you'd think I hit my thumb with a hammer.

So no I don't have to fuss about with metering or bracketing, or leading a pack mule to carry around camera equipment thankfully. But Hipstamatic snapping is a form of photography afterall and in fine tradition comes with its own unique set of frustrations.

This weeks cutting room floor (week 2; days 8-14) -

Day fifteen - Green in the garden afterall

Day fourteen - Take a chance on me

Day thirteen - Shake it out

Day twelve - Winter jewelry

Day eleven - Which way?

Day ten - Sentries

Day nine - Thaw

Day eight - Clear skies

The cutting room floor

Who knew? On a base level this is an easy endevour. Go outside. Snap a picture or twelve. Upload one to the blog each day. However, it is interesting for me to contemplate my first week of this project. I found that is was easy basically because I was excited to do it each day and yet my mind swirled with the issue of editing.

Deciding what to post of the dozen or two photos that I'd shot daily gave me the most food for thought. It goes back to the question of what I am I trying to show, say, reveal? What are my constraints? I think subconsciously I decided early on that my photos would be more than just natural subjects. I happen to like to see the evidence of man in our surrounds and landscape. Subject matter doesn't always concern me as much as composition or evoking a certain emotion. Besides I'm generally only about 10 paces from my backdoor, so I gotta work with what I've got.  I also think that since this is a slice of my existance, some photos should reflect that - my dogs, my coffee, etc. and let's not forget, I'm always affected by the 'oh shiny' factor.

Then there is the question should these photos be viewed as a collection of a week, month, year or should they strickly be stand alone?  I know if this was a complilation of my week those chosen would be much different.  In fact some days I had four or five I wanted to upload and other days not a one. I do have two constraints for certain though and that is that I've limited it to one photo a day and it has to be shot in my 15 minute outside timeframe. No going back and shooting more, there's always tomorrow.

But having said that, here are some from the cutting room floor, maybe they will help my future editing (week 1; days 1-7) -