Day 243 of 365

Day 243 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I saw a photo a while back of a couple needles with colorful thread that was pretty nice but I couldn't get close to replicating the look. When something isn't working for me I tend to play with focus and blur to see how it may look. This is an instance where out of focus is more appealing to me.

Because I tend to only show my finished shot so I thought I'd show what the base was. I've included another shot I liked but didn't pick as my official photo of the day. The bottom shot kind of makes me think of a blurry cloud and rainbow.

Day 242 of 365

Day 242 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

A little more contrived than I'd like but nothing else I did with the corks and corkscrew looked any better.

Day 241 of 365

Day 241 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Two types of photography I need to do more of in the next 124 days are food and portrait. Since we decided to barbeque our dinner tonight so our house didn't get any warmer, it hit the mid 80's here on the coast which doesn't happen often, I thought I'd take a stab at the food shot.

I tried several different angles and besides the smoke obscuring many of the shots I ended up liking this one as it gave a better view of more items. There were a few of the artichokes I liked but I really need to stop always using f/1.8 since I don't always want a blurry background. It's hard breaking the f/1.8 habit...

If you're curious there are artichokes (first steamed to almost soft), red and yellow peppers, summer squash slices and red cabbage. The red cabbage was an experiment and it's not half bad. The cabbage, peppers and squash were marinaded in olive oil and balsamic vinegar first. I left the marinade inside the peppers while they cooked to help steam them. Not shown are the barbeque sauce marinaded tofu slices :)

Day 240 of 365

Day 240 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I was inspired by a photograph from another 365 project photographer, Bingdella 365.

Day 239 of 365

Day 239 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

When faced with little time left in the day and not a whole lot of creative energy I find myself just grabbing something mundane and see if I can do something to it so it's not so mundane. For instance tonight It was grabbing 4 different sizes of forks. Not a whole lot interesting about forks so I blurred them a bit and played with angles.

Not the best but it's given me some ideas for future projects when I'm not in a hurry.

Day 238 of 365

Day 238 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Was planning on just doing a bowl of cherry tomatoes on white but was setting up and didn't have the white balance correct and found I really liked the shot for some reason.

Day 237 of 365

Day 237 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I'm guessing I'll probably duplicate a few ideas as my 365 project enters the last couple of months. I was going to avoid doing this but after a few comments today I realized that some of you who visit my site may not have seen all 237 photos I've posted. I may take some time tomorrow and look at some older stuff and see if I can come up with something along the same lines but better.

Thanks again for taking the time to visit.

Day 236 of 365

Day 236 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I guess in a year long project I'm bound to repeat myself a few times so here's a repeat of a 2 lens reverse macro shot of a dandelion.

Day 235 of 365

Day 235 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Looking at this pepper earlier while making dinner made me decide to try and emulate Edward Weston's famous pepper photo. I decided to keep it in color because while mine is a pepper like Mr. Weston's his was more about the lighting and shape, in my opinion, and I find mine more about the color and less about the shape.

Day 234 of 365

Day 234 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I've used this fern for a photo of the day several months ago so after not getting any good shots at a street fair I went to I decided to take a few of the fern.

This fern is prehistoric looking. At least 10 feet tall with several shoots coming from one main trunk. Nice being able to take a photo of a plant without having to get down on my hands and knees.

Used my 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8 so I could get a good amount of bokeh.

Day 233 of 365

Day 233 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

More smoke but used a prop to control the smoke a little better. A wine bottle with a hole in the side with the incense stick through the hole.

I did a simple black and white conversion to see how it looked and decided to just post it.

Day 232 of 365

Day 232 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Two sticks of incense set apart to get two unique smoke streams. To get ripples and swirls I lightly tap the table.

Day 231 of 365

Day 230 of 365

Day 230 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I can always count on smoke for those nights when nothing else comes to mind. Nothing special here so played a bit in Photoshop and came up with something I liked better than the straight out of the camera version.

Day 229 of 365

Day 229 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Day 228 of 365

Day 228 of 365.jpg, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Bought a large bag of onion today at Costco and had the idea of trying to do a classic still life. I think I will try this again another day and put a bit more light on the basket side so it doesn't just disappear.

Day 227 of 365

Day 227 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Took photos of classic cars and pelicans and found myself drawn more to this shot than any of the cars. I took several of the pelicans diving into the ocean but haven't figured out a good way to show them yet.

If you'd like to see the classic cars click on the photo below and it will take you to my Flickr set.

Day 226 of 365

Day 226 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

I had planned on heading out today to take some photos of the fancy cars that are in Monterey this weekend for several different events. I ended up working an event instead. Unfortunately I wasn't working as a photographer but as my actual side job...a massage therapist.

After several hours of work I got back to my car and decided to just hang out and read for a bit while the traffic from the event thinned out. Since I was parked right on the street I had access to view all the cars driving by. The funny thing is I didn't even think to pull my camera out until about 20 minutes after I decided to sit and wait out the traffic. I was engrossed in a book when I noticed a group of guys running after a car taking photos of it. After a short session of calling myself an idiot for not thinking of having my camera sitting ready to use I pulled it out and watched for a car to drive by worth shooting. There was some nice cars that drove by but didn't get the great shot I was looking for. I didn't feel like getting back out of the car after standing for 8+ hours so sat in my car seat shooting out my window with my 70-300mm lens.

I went with this shot of a Porsche front end mostly because it completely filled the frame and I like the lines and angles. I think it's a Porsche anyway...I'm not much into cars.

Day 225 of 365

Day 225 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

A forest fire near Santa Cruz is blanketing Monterey with smoke and ash. I took this from my backyard after work.

I decided at the last minute to head down to the beach before the sun set but was about 2 minutes late but liked the shape of the smoke clouds over the bay and Monterey.

Day 224 of 365

Day 224 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

While pulling all the fruit and veggies we got from our weekly CSA box I thought they would make for a good photo of the day. In post I would crop the bottom off a little. Went with a different angle just to see how it would look.

Here is another angle that I did a little work to in post. Not much...just a little contrast bump to brighten the color a little and cropping some dead space off the top. Only so much brown lawn needs to be seen.

Day 223 of 365

Day 223 of 365

Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Started to do water drip photos and did a bunch of them but found that I enjoyed this constant stream shot better than all of them. Our terracotta water cooler served as the back drop. I initially used white foam core but didn't like the look of it so thought the reddish color would be something different.

This shot below is of the succulent I used in yesterdays 2 lens reverse macro shot. Thought you'd like to see exactly what it was I photographed.

Day 222 of 365

Day 222 of 365

Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Back for another spin at 2 lens reverse macro. This is a small succulent plant.

Thanks for the comments the last couple of days...appreciate them.

Day 221 of 365

Day 221 of 365

Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Noticed this plant growing in a crack in the sidewalk outside our house a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to photograph it. Decided I better do it today before someone decides to pull it up.

Day 220 of 365

Day 220 of 365

Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Just to prove to myself that I could do something outside the garage I went out at dusk to catch some long exposure sunset on the water shots. Did much better this time after not doing so well the first time I tried to do this months ago.

Day 219 of 365

Day 219 of 365
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

More abstract work dealing with lights, blur and with this one extreme closeup using a 2x extender in front of the 50mm. Dirty looking due to the extender being old and really dirty, even after cleaning.

Day 218 of 365

Day 218 of 365.jpg
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Day 217 of 365

Day 217 of 365
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

I know my recent photos aren't for everyone. When I started this project I assumed I'd be taking lots of photos of my boots (you'd have to go way back to January and February to see those) having an adventure around this old Army base I live on. I was all for it but the more photos I took the more my tastes started to change.

I started exploring how to use my camera in different ways. Why hold my camera steady for every shot? Why not zoom in or out while the shutter is open? Why not leave it out of focus? I'm sure these questions have been asked by others and I'm sure if I did some google searches I'd probably find other people out there doing it.

I've purposely avoided looking for others doing this type of work or to look for new ideas. I've enjoyed thinking up new ideas, as painful as it can be sometimes, but I feel more satisfied when I did something unique (in my mind) on my own.

Will I continue to do these dark and dreary photos? Probably not but I have learned a few things so it wasn't in vain.

What exactly is today's photo?

Colored Christmas lights under black silky fabric. My camera with 50mm f/1.8 lens on a tripod and it a little out of focus. I extended the tripod head up as high as it would go with the lights at the bottom of the frame and with a long exposure slowly lowered the tripod head down.

Day 216 of 365

Day 216 of 365
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

After 40 minutes of sitting first in my wife's craft room and then in the garage trying to come up with an idea I pick up the piece of foam core I had the pins stuck in and saw light peeking through the empty holes. A couple of minutes later I was playing...

Day 215 of 365

Day 215 of 365
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

Sometimes I get in my head and I can't get out. The pounding of my fists against the inside of my noggin doesn't help.

Day 214 of 365

Spent the day out at the 2009 Monterey Scottish Games & Celtic Festival. A couple of the participates are friends so wanted to get some photos of them and try my hand at something quite a bit different than what I've been doing recently. I took over 300 photos and most were burst shots so I could capture action.

Out of all the action shots why did I pick this one as my pick of the day? I found it to be my cleanest and most like what I was trying to capture. I just found the way he lifted the stone above his head and looked up while focusing on the task at hand to be appealing.

I'm still going through the photos but have posted to my Flickr if you're interested.

Day 213 of 365

Day 213 of 365
Originally uploaded by Rob Weiher

I guess for me when nothing else comes to mind grab something and make it spin. Two paper swirls, one red the other white, one overlapping the other. Set it to spin using the power drill and using my 70-300mm lens zoomed from 300mm to around 100mm while holding the shutter open.