神酒 Coal 365 Project

Abandoned

2009-08-31T18:15:00.001+09:00

After careful thought, I decided to abandon this project. As I frequently have to work late nights, getting a daily photo most days was proving to become a chore, which goes directly against the original aim of the project, that being to breathe new life into my hobby and inspire me. I was also very dissatisfied with the quality of some of the later pictures which lacked substance and interest. I have in the meantime found new and interesting inspirations for photography, so do keep an eye on my Flickr stream for updates.

Thanks again for viewing!

41/365

2009-08-11T23:59:00.002+09:00

41/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

First time I've been out of the house since Friday. Discovered these rather intimidating robo-bike stands. Shooting at f/1.4 gave the impression of a larger platoon.

40/365

2009-08-10T21:04:00.002+09:00

40/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

The approaching typhoon had left some interesting cloud patterns. Attempts to capture them without blowing out the ground level proved harder than anticipated.

38/365

2009-08-10T14:41:00.005+09:00

38/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

One week vacation continues in a good way. Handheld using ambient lighting.

39/365

2009-08-10T14:41:00.004+09:00

39/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Yaprak sarma for balcony picnic. Playing with overexposed back lighting.

37/365

2009-08-07T20:43:00.002+09:00

37/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

And so the week vacation starts, and what a start. Picked this little beauty up for ¥687, with 1.5L of accompanying coke for just ¥168. Wake me up Monday week.

Of course, photographing a glass bottle with flash brings its own trickiness.

36/365

2009-08-06T23:25:00.002+09:00

36/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Had the joy here of finding a spot on the road where all passing subjects are lit front and rear by two separate bright light sources, those being the Seiyu Supermarket and the Seven Eleven over the road. This gave some nice effects on the back of the gentleman's shirt and the lady's neck.

35/365

2009-08-05T23:01:00.002+09:00

35/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Practice run of a roast pork I plan to make this weekend. As the lighting on the balcony proved to be so nice, I decided to leave the camera on the same settings and see how this would come out.

34/365

2009-08-04T22:36:00.002+09:00

34/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Noticed while sitting on my balcony how nice the natural lighting is that seeps in from an adjascent building. Decided to see if I could sit still for a long exposure.

33/365

2009-08-03T22:14:00.002+09:00

33/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Long day at work. Deciding what to drink.

32/365

2009-08-03T22:04:00.004+09:00

32/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Not entirely sure what was going on, but the choice to shoot it as a long exposure at f/8 seemed to have payed off.

All drinks were half price by the way.

31/365

2009-08-02T15:38:00.002+09:00

31/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Not enough wind so got too smokey to get any good fireworks shots, but they're a dime a dozen anyway. Focussed instead on the people enjoying them. Getting the colour temperature right was near impossible due to the ever-changing lightsource, but was able to meter off the white shirt in post.

30/365

2009-08-01T15:06:00.002+09:00

30/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

After a few hours drinking with a fellow photog at The Tavern, I only had a limited window of opportunity to get today's shot, so decided to play with the extreme lighting eminating from Yokohama Station. After trying various angles and approaches, I found the contrast of light and dark right here had the best balance. Similarity to previous picture noted, but I think this one came out better.

29/365

2009-07-30T23:34:00.002+09:00

29/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Who doesn't love bokeh?! Here's a man bathing in the stuff.

28/365

2009-07-29T23:33:00.002+09:00

28/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Don't believe I've posted any real food shots as part of this project yet... Nothing rounds off a hard day of work like juicy steak and potatoes with homemade onion gravy, and accordingly a fitting subject for niku-no-hi (29日).

27/365

2009-07-28T23:03:00.003+09:00

27/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

It's been 3 years to do the day since I first had a drink out on this balcony, and while the drink in this instance is tea, the sentiment is the same.

And this was when I noticed how hard it is to light the balcony naturally – it falls mostly into shadow, and has no apparent bounce target, which made this another exercise in flash work. Manual was of course a must because of the excess of very light and very dark colour, and it was all to easy to blow out losing the natural shadows from the outside lighting.

26/365

2009-07-28T00:37:00.002+09:00

26/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Playing with controlled DOF at macro levels, and bounce flash illumination that doesn't cause weird catchlight – ended up having to illuminate a section of wall immediatey behind me so I would personally block the most direct reflections, and it seems to have worked. Was unable to avoid the reflection of my desk quite so easily though. That's something for next time.

25/365

2009-07-28T00:35:00.002+09:00

25/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Sometimes a cup of strong cooked Turkish coffee is just a cup of strong cooked Turkish coffee... Busy day...

24/365

2009-07-25T12:49:00.002+09:00

24/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Continuing from yesterday, this was an exercise in optimal pre-focussing. Focal distance set to approximately 7.89 meters at f/11 on a 50mm lens should in principle give you 3.94 meters to infinite focus. So I did that. The harsh midday lighting made metering a nightmare, so decided to expose for the light and contrast a chunk of the picture in shadow. Also tried to keep perspective distortion to a minimum.

23/365

2009-07-24T21:02:00.002+09:00

23/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Today's theme is distance, scale and DOF. After having downloaded a super free application called iSee4K for the iPhone which lets me calculate DOF on the go, I thought I might apply it. So for this set-up, I calculated my height, divided it by the length of the sensor and multiplied it by the focal length of the lens to determine that I would need to stand 5 meters from the (estimated) central nodal point of the lens in order to fit in frame at a 100mm focal length, and then further calculated that at f/2.8 I would have around 20cm focus either side of me, which is more than sufficient to keep me in focus but also give the background some blurring. I then set the ISO to 50 and bounced an off-camera 580 EXii at half power off the ceiling about two-thirds of the distance from the camera to me. And it worked – hence the smug, but slightly tired look!

Wanted to shoot this at 135mm, but my house just wasn't big enough.

22/365

2009-07-23T21:19:00.002+09:00

22/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Alone with my iPhone, and curious to see just how much I could get away with in terms of minimal lighting. iPhone screen is primary light source, landing light providing the rest from outside the door.

21/365

2009-07-22T23:11:00.002+09:00

21/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Very little time today, so played with close focus at a wide aperture on a long lens.

20/365

2009-07-21T21:12:00.002+09:00

20/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Not the exact scene I had in mind – I had the night lights in the background arranged just how I wanted them, so people walking by on the right hand side would contrast darkness on one side and the light from the koban on the other. Sadly, all too many came out like this due to the auto-focus missing. Mental note – must learn to manual focus on the go at 135mm. While holding an umbrella...

That said however, this one jumped out at me at being remarkably successful despite the subject taking centre frame. Structurally I liked how she appears to be in a spotlight flanked by darkness. Aesthetically there's a definite pathos.

19/365

2009-07-20T19:27:00.002+09:00

19/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Focussing on keeping perspective distortion at a minimum, despite the camera being at knee level and not being a tilt-shift. I found the constantly changing colours of this road surface worked well with this.

18/365

2009-07-19T22:01:00.002+09:00

18/365, originally uploaded by 神酒 Coal.

Yeah, I like taking pictures of cats. Much more than dogs. Dogs always put on a pose, whereas cats just threaten you with legal action.