On this day, I spent just over an hour drawing. I started with the initial measurements based on the reference material in the book. However, I’ve actually been struggling with getting those measurements right and this will require further investigation. Once I had my guildelines, I spent some time trying to get the head’s outline in place, this time immediately including the jaw. I had a lot of insecurity and issues getting it in place, so there are a lot of “scratch marks” present. And it’s not even perfect anyway.
There are two things I learned during this stage:
There are natural pivot points that can be used with your arm (your elbow, you wrist, etc…). These can be used to help draw some curves more naturally. Obviously, it will require more experimentation, but keeping that in mind can be useful.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of drawing, symmetric things are sometimes not trivial to draw. Because I’m using my right hand, there some stroke orientations/directions are more natural to me than others. This means if I try to draw the four quarters of a circle separately, each will have a different level of difficulty. This can be alleviated by re-orienting the canvas, but that still won’t accomplish proper symmetry…only a rotation.
Head outline with jaw, guidelines included
Once the head’s shape was sketched, I sketched the eyes, nose and mouth. At this stage, the results seem disappointing and unnerving, but that’s ok. It’s meant for rough placement.
Head with rough eyes, nose and mouth. (Guidelines included)Head with rough eyes, nose and mouth. (No Guidelines)
The next step was to refine the eyes, eyebrows, eye lashes and ears, along with a little blush for effect. One very notable thing with this step is that I spent a lot of time adjusting things. For example, deleting parts of the eyes that existed in the previous part, and trying to fix them, better center them, etc.. A lot of learning at this stage, which eventually should be replaced by intuition if I gain enough experience. Two important lessons I’ve learned here:
It’s ok if parts of the rough sketch are not perfect, they can be adapted later. Early on, “good enough” is sufficient
Some detail imperfections can get masked by thicker lines in some situations, especially when it comes to having the “perfect curve” (Though I will have to learn more about thickness of line and their proper purpose in the future)
Eyes, lashes and ears with more detail
Once these part of the face were “ready”, I moved on to the hair (also adding a neck and shoulders). Here there was a lot of erasing and retries, in particular with the neck and shoulders. As for the hair, I followed the book, first with an outline of where the hair would lie:
Preparing hair spacing
Finally, I tried to add detail to the hair. I definitely struggled a bit with this one, and realized how unintuitive hair placement feels to me. A few issues I’ve dealt with are:
The actual orientation of the hair to make it more natural
What individual lines represent. Ultimately, we’re representing the general shape of the hair, rather than individual strands. However, I struggled to make sense of when to connect strands of hair, and when to simply add unconnected lines.
Here is the final result, with and without guidelines. It’s definitely no masterpiece, and isn’t as good as the model I’m following, but for my third day, I think it’s not too shabby. (There was an extra step I could have followed, but I opted to stop there for the day.)
Day 03 final drawing (With Guidelines)Day 03 final drawing (No guidelines)
On day 02, I ended up spending roughly 45 minutes drawing. Not because I felt like I wanted to stop, but because I actually had something scheduled that forced me to stop. Similar to the previous challenge, I did face some motivation issues with getting started. However, once I did start, I did fully immerse myself in the drawing. This time, I also ended up drawing in my room.
Following some issues I had on the previous day, I also decided to disable “hand touch” on my tablet this time. It seems to have resulted in less unexpected behavior, although wanting to zoom in did become more annoying.
As on day 01, I started from scratch. I started with drawing guidelines. After looking at the reference model, I believe for the initial head shape, the vertical line follows a 3:2 ratio, and the horizontal lines are 2:2. (I.e.: They’re the same length as the the lower part of the vertical line). However, despite these measurements, I miscalculated and used a 2:1 ratio for a vertical length of 9cm. (6cm:3cm).
Day 02 – Guidelines
Afterwards, I moved on to draw the general shape of the head, and opted to immediately add a jaw line. Note that the jaw line adds verticality to the face (I.e.: It goes lower than the guidelines initially did). I must say, the shape of the head does leave to be desired, especially the top of it. Although funnily enough, it reminds of super-intelligent super villains in cartoons, where their brain bulges out.
Day 02 – Head outline
Once that was done, I went back to drawing more guidelines for eye and nose placement. At this point, according to the reference material, I had to split the vertical line (including the jaw) in four equal lengths. With the jaw, the length was 10cm, so four equal lengths of 2.5cm. The center now should serve for the top of the eyes, while the bottom 1/4th mark serves for the nose. The length of the eyes I measured as roughly 1/8, so the bottom of the eyes should be roughly halfway between the top of the eyes and the nose. Those guidelines didn’t end up as horizontal (or parallel to one-another) as they should have been. (Future note: I am not convinced about those exact ratios, so please do not take those to heart)
Day 02 – Eyes guidelines
Unsurprisingly, once these guidelines were in place, I moved on to draw a rough version of the eyes, nose and mouth. At this stage, the eyes were just one big circle each.
Day 02 – Rough Face Elements added
The next step was to add eyebrows, ears and initial detail to the eyes. This meant adding pupils and a circle to represent the eyeball itself. Meanwhile, the initial circle of the eye was partially erased. On the previous day, this was where I stopped.
Day 02 – First Eye refinement
Finally, I opted to continue with the next steps. This means I refined the eyes and added a blush under the eyes. I also changed the placement of the eyebrows a little, and tried to fix the shape of the head. (Although I now realize that this could be partially addressed while adding hair in a future step anyway). Here, I most struggled with the eyes. I redrew chunks of them quite a few times! Here are the results:
Day 02 – Final drawing (With Guidelines)Day 02 – Final drawing (No Guidelines)
I think this drawing isn’t that bad. I’d even say there was some improvement when compared to the previous day. One thing I’ve also realized is that a lot of the early steps just need to be “good enough” and not perfect, since a lot of it ends up being drawn over and removed as more refinements are added. Obviously, it’s important to have adequate proportions, and if it’s not “good enough” things will go on looking off all the way through, potentially skewing the outcome. However, perfection definitely does not seem necessary in those early stages. Looking forward to see how tomorrow goes, and whether I continue improving a bit. I’m also planning to add an extra stage to my drawing, with some hair.
Before I leave you, one final note of embarrassment. I’ve mostly been following the drawings themselves, skipping over the Chinese comments due to a lack of time and the fact I’m still unfamiliar with a lot of the vocabulary present.
Hello everyone,
I’ve now completed a week of drawing daily. As promised, it’s time to evaluate whether this challenge makes sense for me or not.
As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted a lot of content this past week (as of writing this, only the first day has been published). Does this mean the habit didn’t stick? Not quite, I have been drawing every day. I’m actually really happy with the progress I’ve made and what I’ve been able to accomplish. It’s nothing out of this world, but I’ve still managed results that are better than I would have expected.
Unfortunately, while drawing has been going well, I haven’t been able to keep up with the blog posts. There are a few factors behind this:
I tend to review my posts at a later time (usually the next day), which means more work, and an extra task left incomplete for an extended period of time (a mental “loose end”). And I do catch a lot of mistakes in that review step (I’m also sure there are plenty left afterwards)
Since I’m drawing on the tablet, but writing my posts on a computer, I need to export and transfer the files (a recording and my drawings), adding extra friction. Moreover, the software I’m using has a few kinks with its export feature.
Things have been really exhausting and stressful for me lately, and I’ve been getting further and further behind, adding to my stress
So, based on this, what’s the verdict? I think I’m going to pause this challenge for a bit to get my life back on track. I’ve been struggling a bit with my language classes lately, and I also have to go through an alien resident application (which I find stressful). Therefore, I want to spend one or two weeks handling these. Afterwards, I plan to focus on catching up with the posts I haven’t completed yet. Since it’s my impressions that the content is much better if I can write it while the drawing experience is still fresh in my mind, I’d rather get up-to-date first and have a fresh start, instead of trying to catch up to this constantly moving goal post. Once I’m back on track, I plan to re-attempt this challenge, starting once again with a one week trial period.
So, would I say this experiment was a failure? Not exactly, I’d just say it was poorly timed. If this habit had already been formed, I don’t think I’d be struggling so much (after all, my daily reading doesn’t really feel like an issue here). For anyone that’s following me, I’m sorry about this set back, but unfortunately I had to re-prioritize things. I’d like to use this opportunity to remind everyone of the important of taking care of your mental health!
Thank you everyone who has been following me, and I hope to be back soon re-invigorated and re-energized, even better equipped to tackle this challenge. Have a nice one!
Here is the outcome of my first day of the drawing challenge. I ended up spending almost 1h25mins on it, so my first day was quite productive from that point of view. Also, I apologize in advance: I tried to make some gifs out of the process, but had some major issues the gif’s colors. Also, it turns out the app I use does not add a line until it’s completed and the pen is raised. This isn’t an issue while drawing, since the e-ink physically appears as the pen passes. However, it makes for an underwhelming viewing experience.
Before starting my drawing session, I decided to make a detour to purchase a small ruler. I figured that being able to make small measurements and to draw straight lines might be useful. It turns out this was the a good decision.
After this purchase, I went to a Cafe and started to check the book. After looking at the “lesson” I was to follow, I realized I should probably start with some basic exercises. For this reason, I started by drawing an ellipse and trying to trace over it for a while. I’m…not great at tracing an ellipse.
First attempt at an ellipse
After some time, I decided it might be a little easier to divide the task. Instead of drawing a full ellipse, I added the two straight lines (guidelines for the face shape), and split the task in four, independently drawing the sections in each quadrant. (I also added a neck to better follow the book). I also tried to make a few fixes here and there to the shape.
Second attempt at an ellipse (with a neck)
Once that was done, I looked at the first few examples demonstrating the shape of a head, and decided to start over and practice this step once more. I once again drew two perpendicular lines, took measurements from the book, and added a few annotations to show the head’s oval should be aligned, roughly. This time, I made a lot of corrections to it to try to get an acceptable result. Once that was done, I erased everything and started over once more. (My goal was to practice after all)
Third attempt at an ellipse (with a neck)
On my next attempt, I drew the guidelines, and then started with the shape of the head. This time, once I got a passable result, I decided to move on with the next exercise. With this one, I added a few markers and guidelines as shown in the book to mark where the eyes and nose should be. (I may actually have gotten the wrong measurements here). Then I attempted to draw the basic shapes of eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Once that was completed, I went on with the next part, adding simple eyebrows and some complexity to the eyes. The final result is definitely not great, but for a first attempt, it’s not that bad.
First Attempt with Guidelines and MarksFirst Attempt
Once done, I once again started from scratch. This time, once I got a general oval shape, I tried to update the shape to get more of a jaw-line, as shown in the book. Unfortunately, this didn’t go too well at this stage, so I reverted my changes. I then moved on to add marks and guidelines, before drawing some extra features (I did waste some time on the guidelines, since I got a little confused about the ratios and measurements. I’ll have to look at this more closely tomorrow). Finally, I decided to re-attempt to sketch a jawline. Unfortunately, this second drawings seems worse than the first one. I think this is due to a measurement error with the guidelines, resulting the eyes looking too small. I’ll definitely pay closer attention to this tomorrow. This final sketch is where I stopped on my first day.
Second AttemptSecond Attempt with Guidelines and Marks
A few extra notes:
I have a few qualms about using my tablet for drawing. In particular, it often detects my hand while I sketch, resulting in unexpected/unwanted “touches”, sometimes messing things up
It turns out that drawing symmetrical things is a rather tricky endeavor. Because I use a single hand to draw, it means that when drawing the mirror image of a stroke, my motion itself isn’t actually a mirror image, and so one direction tends to be trickier than the other. Hopefully, this is something that gets better with practice.
I need to train myself to better gauge and draw angles, symmetry and ratios, along with accurate placement of different elements.
I’m probably going to go on with this sort of simple exercise for some time, since I don’t have proper foundations. Maybe add a few elements over time, but still repeating these very basic aspects to train these skills
With the speed reading challenge complete, it’s time to start a new one. My goal would be to spend 12 weeks learning to draw (roughly 3 months). If my count is correct, starting on January 08 would mean ending on March 31. However, do note that committing to 3 months at this point would be foolhardy, especially with no experience or clarity on the amount of effort involved. For this reason, I’m planning to have a one-week trial period, during which I plan to draw every day, and to write a daily blog post. After that, I’ll should be better positioned to evaluate whether this makes sense, or whether I should go back to the…drawing board (pun intended).
A few notes on the specifics. First, I’m planning to use a book to guide me, and to follow it like I would a course. As a bonus challenge, it’s a book I purchased in Taiwan, and is entirely in Chinese.
The book I’m planning to use for learning
But I’m willing to take this challenge, and I think it’ll be a useful way to also practice my Chinese. Also, the focus of this book is drawing people accurately.
As for the equipment I’m planning to use, I’ll go with my e-ink color tablet. It does mean that there are some limitations I’ll be facing, but it also means I should be able to do this from anywhere, without requiring supplemental material (I’m already bringing it everywhere with me). I’m also planning to use the built-in note-taking app. It’s definitely not the best software for drawing, but it’s well optimized for this tablet (including the limited palette choice).
Thanks for partaking in this adventure with me, and I hope you find the ride entertaining and insightful. Wish me luck!
For the month of December, my primary goal was to spend some time daily (ideally at least 30 minutes) taking pictures with my DSLR camera. This goal I did accomplish. However, I was also planning to make weekly videos on my YouTube channel documenting my journey. This was a massive failure (Spoilers, I did not release a single video beyond the initial announcement of December in Photography). Afterwards, once I’d finally set up this blog, I planned to release one post per day. This also hasn’t been going so great (By the time of writing this, I’m at two blog posts for December in Photography, and each of those took me multiple day, each with multiple hours of effort). With this out of the way, let’s discuss what went well, what didn’t go so well, what I’ve learned, and what’s in reserve for the future.
What went well?
Let’s start with what went well. I did manage to put time aside every single day for Photography. It wasn’t exactly easy: there were many days where it felt like a complete chore to get started. Honestly, I got worried at some point that I wouldn’t manage to complete it. However, I still pulled through, although my wavering motivation resulted in often taking pictures after dark, which is definitely a more complicated task.
On the plus side, despite the fact that I often had trouble motivating myself, once I actually got out and got my camera ready, things went smoothly. I was enjoying myself. I found the process fun, interesting, and even relaxing at times. I definitely never regretted doing it once it was underway.
Another thing I think went well: it pushed me to create this blog and start making posts, somewhat regularly. Granted, I don’t have a lot of posts out yet, but I think it’s still a good start that I should be happy with. It got a new habit in place.
What didn’t go well?
As mentioned earlier, I had a lot of trouble releasing videos or posts. But why is that? Unfortunately, I massively underestimated how much effort it would be to look through a bunch of pictures to review and analyze them. Turns out that it’s easy to take a lot of different pictures in a short time, but going through all of them and actually trying to analyze them is a lot more time-consuming. Ultimately, I think this might have been the wrong challenge to start with, considering how disproportionate the effort needed for retrospection is.
Another thing that didn’t go too great was keeping up with my reading material, Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Things were ok initially, but as the month dragged on, I eventually stopped reading it, and missed out on useful information that could have been valuable, only learning these things after the end of the month while finishing the book (If you’re interesting in photography, I definitely recommend the book).
Along a similar vein, I believe not reviewing my pictures until after the end of the challenge stifled my learning experience. I think retrospection is an important part of learning, and so is being able to apply what the lessons of the retrospection afterwards, to iterate. And as with most such processes, a shorter feedback loop is ideal.
What I’ve learned
Obviously, I did learn a few things about photography. However, I think I’ll leave a lot of this out for a dedicated post. My main takeaways are about exposure, framing and my own personal preferences.
Next, I now realize how important continually retrospecting is, but also how much effort that can be in itself for some projects (in particular for photography). Because of this, I better understand the importance of accountability and of tackling more manageable chunks. I also realize it’s important to have a notion of how complex and time-consuming tasks will be, while also acknowledging it’s hard to assess without first-hand experience. My initial goal of weekly videos was definitely unreasonable in retrospect, but I did not initially realize the scope of such and undertaking.
If I were to tackle a photography challenge again, I would probably adapt it in one of two ways:
Limiting the amount of pictures I review and present (Maybe have a limit of x good pictures and y bad pictures to analyze)
Diminish the frequency to have more time for the the retrospection. For example, taking picture every other day, maybe using the extra day to learn photography post-processing as well. Then I’d have more time to analyze the pictures.
A combination of both might also be a good idea.
I also think it might be useful for my learning to be more “guided”. For example, I could try to focus on a specific aspect of the skill each week. When trying to learn a new skill, there are usually many different things to tackle. For example, in this case I could have approached either different kinds of subjects (Indoors, buildings, nature, traffic, night, etc…) or different techniques (Framing, exposure, aperture vs shutter speed, focus, flash photography, etc…). This would probably have helped limit the scope of the daily blog posts as well.
For future projects, I think it’ll important to have an initial trial period to see how much effort is involved with each part, possibly a week, and then adapt accordingly.
The future
So, what about the missing days of December in Photography? Currently, my thoughts are that I want to start with my next project, for which I will have a separate post. My biggest goal for December in Photography at this point is to complete December 30 and 31. After that, I might go through the remaining days, although with a more limited scope, possibly only keeping the best pictures (and also interesting ones even if they’re not great), and limiting in-depth conversations to interesting topics I haven’t covered yet. But as I don’t want to tie myself down too much at this point (it would only end in disappointment and stress), I’m not making any promises.
Final Thoughts
Despite the fact that multiple aspects of this could be considered a failure, I think it was still a great learning experience for me and I’m glad I tackled this challenge. I also had a lot of fun doing it, although there was definitely some stress involved. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this, and the existing posts.
So, I’ve now spend a week learning to speed read. Here are my thoughts about this experiment.
The resource I used presents two different exercises (For proper explanations about the process, I recommend reading it yourself).
*Edit 2024/01/09: In order to avoid plagiarism, I opted not to fully reiterate what the exercises are. For this reason, it is advised to at least skim the sections “Second – Trackers and Pacers” and “Third – Perceptual Expansion” from the original article”
The first exercise, labelled as “trackers and pacers”, consists of two incremental steps. The goal is to focus on “maintaining consistent speed and decreasing fixation duration” by using a tracer (e.g.: a pencil) to go through each line at a consistent speed (first 1sec and then 1/2sec). The second exercise focuses on “perceptual expansion” and contains three incremental steps. The goal being not to go back and forth to the very beginning and very end of the line, reducing travel time.
Each day, I proceeded by:
Taking an initial baseline speed test on swiftread.com
Going through the five steps of the exercise reading a copy of Frankenstein on my e-ink tablet (I chose Frankenstein because I’d already read it before, and it’s public domain)
Taking a speed test after the fact
The whole process usually took roughly 15-20 minutes.
First thing to note: from the second day onward, I was already using the “distance” of 3 words from each end of a line, as per the last perceptual expansion exercise. Even for the Trackers and Pacers exercises. Thus, I wasn’t really focusing on perceptual expansion anymore.
Next, while doing these exercises, I was usually having trouble understanding what I was “reading”, even if I was in the moment. The exercises do state that it’s fine not to be able to comprehend your reading during the exercise, but I thought it was still noteworthy. As I progressed through the week, I got a little more comfortable with understanding what I was reading during the slower exercises, but not from the faster ones.
I also think that ideally, I should always have conducted these tests in a quite and comfortable environment. For instance, on one of the days (01/03), I was in a library surrounded by loud people that kept making the table I was using shake. This didn’t feel like the best of environments for something like this.
Also worth noting, during the last few days, it seemed like my eyes were moving on their own while taking the final speed test. I’m not sure about the actual implications of this, but I found it interesting all the same.
Finally, it turns out that wanting to get a baseline of my reading speed felt kind of stressful. And since I worried more about the speed than the comprehension, I tended to be worried about how going back to read things I missed would affect my speed. Moreover, thinking about these concerns also took away from my concentration. However, there were some days where I was more confident about quickly rechecking a few details, and I feel like going through the speed tests themselves I also learned a little about how they worked and how to take them, even though I still got nervous and often didn’t get perfect comprehension.
Now, the results:
Day
01/01
01/02
01/03
01/04
01/05
01/06
01/07
Before: Speed
223 WMP
407 WMP
327 WMP
399 WMP
389 WMP
361 WMP
329 WMP
Before: Comprehension
50%
33%
100%
100%
67%
67%
67%
After: Speed
505 WMP
453 WMP
472 WMP
429 WMP
590 WMP
604 WMP
467 WMP (482 WMP)
After: Comprehension
75%
100%
67%
100%
100%
67%
33% (100%)
First, let me explain an oddity in the results. For the last day, there are two “after” results displayed. This is because the first one I got was a much longer text than usual, and I figured the added stress impacted my results, and thus decided to run a second one.
So, what are some of the result. First of all, my baseline seems to have been increased from what it was the first day, although it’s hard to tell how much of an outlier my first test could have been.
Next, while there is a lot of fluctuation from day to day, it seems like after the exercise, I was always reading significantly faster, without really sacrificing comprehension.
Based on this, what are my thoughts? Well, I think that while it did increase my baseline a bit, it doesn’t seem to be a “permanent” fix. Thus, I think this might be a valuable exercise to do before a reading session, when intending to speed read. Call it a “primer” of sorts.
However, I probably wouldn’t do the entire exercise as is, especially since I’m not really doing any perceptual expansion anymore. Instead, I would probably do 2 minutes quickly (~1sec per line), and two minutes even faster (~1/2sec per line). (Also note that this speed metric is fairly arbitrary, since it depends a lot on the font). Moreover, I don’t think speed reading is something I want to bring to all of my reading. I think there are times where it’s reasonable for me to slow down, and either enjoy or think a bit more deeply about what I’m reading. However, I do think there are still some good uses to speed reading, such as a quick overview of an article or paper, or going more quickly through a boring or annoying section of a book/article. But as the exercise’s blog post itself highlighted, when using speed reading for studying, it’s better to read multiple times for added exposure and recall improvement.
For day 29, I went for a walk in the city during the afternoon. I had to run an errand, so I figured I should use the travel time to take pictures. However, there were a lot of duds on that day.
Buildings
Prompted by my previous day’s venture, I was interested in taking more pictures of buildings.
Building f/4.0 – 1/1000sec – 30.0mm – ISO 3200Building f/4.0 – 1/500sec – 18.0mm – ISO 3200Building f/5.6 – 1/500sec – 20.0mm – ISO 3200Building f/5.6 – 1/250sec – 18.0mm – ISO 6400
I think some of these aren’t too bad, although I think I should have focused on the aperture instead of the shutter speed, maybe using f/8.0 or f/11.0. There was no reason to go for f/4.0 or f/5.6 here, since nothing needed to be “isolated”.
Otherwise, I think these aren’t too bad, albeit maybe a bit bland. I will say that I much prefer the darker exposure on these, making them feel a little more ominous against the looming gray sky.
Building f/5.6 – 1/500sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400
I think this picture showcases an interesting aspect of framing I should take into consideration from now on. This specific picture doesn’t look “straight” to me, it looks askew. However, there are some elements that do appear fairly straight, such as the signs on the left. Then, why does this look so askew? I think it has to do with the “focus” of the picture (the central element). The thing that’s meant to draw the eye here would be the building in the back, taking center-place. And this building is not framed at a straight angle.
Buildings f/5.6 – 1/500sec – 39.0mm – ISO 6400
With this picture I tried to capture multiple buildings. However, I think I over-committed on the building in the top-left. Because it’s along an edge instead of the center, the top of the frame feels rather empty, with the sky taking most of the top-right. (And I didn’t even fully capture the building in question).
I think there are two things I could have taken tried to improve this one:
Framed the picture differently so that the building is in the center.
Zoomed in a bit and lower the angle, such that the frame contains less of the sky. It’s ok to only partially capture the building (especially while in the background) and leave its potential height to the imagination.
Building f/5.6 – 1/1000sec – 18.0mm – ISO 6400
There’s a lot I really like in this picture. I enjoy the reflections of another building, along with the exposure of the gray sky, granting this picture a darker atmosphere. However, while I thought I’d like the trees in this one, I’m not convinced about their role here, especially with their exposure. I’m also not sure about the framing itself. Despite how much I like this gray sky, I’m skeptical about its position in relation to the other elements. It might be worth trying to crop this image and see what can come out of it (In particular, the bottom and the left side are ripe for a good crop). Maybe the sky would feel better then, its proportion within the overall picture modified.
Building f/5.6 – 1/500sec – 39.0mm – ISO 6400
In person, I thought this one might be special, since the color of the building seemed such an interesting shade. However, the framing is not great, and once again, this gray sky is a little too bright. Also, that lamppost on the left really should be there, and I likely could have gotten rid of it simply by moving a little bit. It might be possible to rescue it with post-processing and cropping, but I haven’t started dabbling with those yet.
Building f/5.6 – 1/500sec – 43.0mm – ISO 6400
I think this one isn’t too bad, and I’m somewhat happy with the end result. I think the banners on the left make it look like an old webpage, with ad-banners and pop-up ads. It’s a different aesthetic, and I enjoy that.
Building f/8.0 – 1/500sec – 18.0mm – ISO 12800Building f/8.0 – 1/500sec – 18.0mm – ISO 12800
I think these two pictures help showcase that sometimes, less is more. Despite the fact that the second picture technically contains the interesting aspects of the first one, I think the first one works much better. The side that’s not lit by incandescent lights feels very bland in comparison, and takes a bigger portion of the picture. Meanwhile, the first picture is very focused on that specific part of the building, and the atmosphere it provides. The bright pastel colors being de-saturated and the orange tint on the intermediate floors gives this what I consider an interesting vibe. My only gripe is, as usual, with the lights that are captured as part of the picture.
Reflections
Building Reflection f/5.6 – 1/250sec – 35.0mm – ISO 6400
I really enjoy this picture, though that’s in part because I find reflections in photographs rather interesting. I think the focus is reasonable, and I particularly like how the windows break the reflection and make it a little distorted. I also find that the bottom of the building brings an interesting contrast here. If there’s one thing I would change, it would probably be to remove the overexposed gray sky from the background.
Building f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800
There are a few things I enjoy about this picture. The reflection is really nice and highlights a dark evening. I also enjoy transition between the reflection and the office, which a gradual dimming of the reflection in favor of the indoor brightness. However, I do think the lights were overexposed here. I also probably should have tried to move aside and reframe this picture a bit in order to avoid some of those lights.
Figurines
Competition Poster f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 41.0mm – ISO 12800
At the end of the day, I saw a display of figurines for a creative composition. I figured that would make for great subjects. However, I unfortunately rushed through it, and thus, a lot of the pictures were duds, whether from the poor lighting, terrible focus, exposure issues, or just dirty tables. Here are some of the ones I liked.
Figurine f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800
I found this little one very cute and festive. I think there’s reasonable focus on the figurine, and the background is adequately unfocused. However, the background is uninteresting, yet draws attention away from the figurine. Maybe I should have carried a blank sheet of black paper with me to serve as a supplemental background (Although whether it would have been acceptable to do so in this scenario is questionable).
Figurine f/11.0 – 1/1000sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800
Let’s continue with this one, not because I particularly like it over the others, but because of the lighting. While the figurine itself might feel a little underexposed (although it still has decent contrast), I like how little the background is present, and how it affects this picture. It looks like a toy left in a somewhat dark room.
Figurine f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800Figurine f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800
I really enjoy this guy, and the pose from the side gives me strong vibes of the “cool (anti-)hero” in video games or cartoons/anime, especially in the 90s. I also enjoy how much of a difference the two angles make, despite the fact the figurine itself did not change.
Figurine f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800Figurine f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 48.0mm – ISO 12800
Another figurine I really enjoyed, the outside appearance reminiscent to a mythical Chinese creature, blended into a costume for this human character, and that confident/cocky smile. Great style! Once again, I’m happy with the differences the two angles bring to this picture. I also enjoy the reflection on the surface of the figurine’s stand.
Favorite Picture of the Day
Building Reflection f/5.6 – 1/250sec – 35.0mm – ISO 6400
Yup, on this day, the big reflection takes the cake, although one of the figurines got really close to getting the top spot.
Dishonorable Mentions
While successes are important, I think failures are equally, if not more, important when it comes to learning and progressing. Thus, here are some of the underwhelming pictures I took. Enjoy.
Nature in the City
While walking in the streets, I stumbled upon a nice area where there were a lot of trees in close proximity of buildings, and I liked this contrast. However, in most of these pictures, the plants aren’t really sharp, which diminishes the results. Also, the gray sky offers a really poor background here.
Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/180sec – 55.0mm – ISO 3200Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/250sec – 55.0mm – ISO 3200
I think these two pictures suffer from my main issue in this section, a lack of sharpness in the vegetation. And it’s pretty disheartening! I think the framing here was pretty good, and I like how the building creeps up in the background. As a smaller-sized picture, I think it isn’t too bad, but the second you try to look closer, the sharpness takes away from these pictures.
*As an aside, you might notice that the second picture is less exposed than the first one, and might be wondering why. Looking at the numbers, I believe I realized that my shutter-speed wasn’t on a full-stop, but a half-stop (1/180sec instead of either 1/125sec or 1/250sec). Since I’m trying to limit myself to full-stops (at least at my current stage of learning), I probably opted to fix the shutter-speed, and go for under-exposure as opposed to over-exposure, thus lowering it to 1/250sec.
Nature in the City f/4.5 – 1/250sec – 35.0mm – ISO 3200Nature in the City f/4.0 – 1/125sec – 30.0mm – ISO 3200
The exposure of the first picture isn’t too bad, although there’s a very bright electronic board at the bottom right. However, there is a definite issue with the sharpness of the trees. I think the first reason for this is my point of focus, it seems like I’m focus on the foreground and the street lights. Moreover, for some reasons, I was focusing on the shutter speed instead of the aperture, for no good reason. It’s not like there’s any important movement in the picture that I’d want to freeze, and even if there was wind, it wouldn’t be that bad. I should probably have gone for an aperture size of f1/8.0 or f1/11.0 instead, and adjusted the shutter speed accordingly.
The second picture, however, takes the cake. For some reason, I both increased the aperture size by half a stop, and lowered the shutter speed by a full stop. This means I increased the exposure by a stop and a half! When the exposure was already pretty good. And on top of the overexposure, the focus is pretty bad, with everything you’d want to pay attention to blurry.
Nature in the City f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 35.0mm – ISO 12800
Here, I spotted a nice bright-colored pattern on a building, juxtaposed with dark-green trees, and thought it might make for an interesting contrast. Unfortunately, it seems to really fall flat. I think part of it is the fact that I tried to fully capture the building and the trees, simultaneously capturing the gray sky. It might have worked much better with a blue sky providing an extra bright color. The other reason I believe this might be falling flat is that there’s nothing to draw the eyes to the contrast. There’s a building, and it’s partially obscured by trees. Maybe if I’d zoomed much more, losing the context of the building and the tree, things would have appeared more appealing visually.
Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 37.0mm – ISO 6400Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 37.0mm – ISO 6400
If it weren’t for the overly bright cloudy sky, these two pictures wouldn’t look too bad as thumbnails. However, once you make them bigger, the lack of sharpness comes back in full swing, and negatively affects these pictures.
Tree Against Buildings f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 23.0mm – ISO 12800Tree Against Buildings f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 24.0mm – ISO 12800
Once again, the tree isn’t sharp at all (Which is likely partially to blame on the extremely high ISO), and doesn’t look lively. However, in this case, I think it could have worked. It has a role to play in this context, juxtaposing a surreal feeling of nature with the busy life of the city. I also really enjoy the reflection effect from the windows on the right, and the people relaxing at the bottom, somewhat pushing the narrative of the nature helping escape the business of modern life.
However, while I did adjust the exposure between shots, and I think the second one is decent for the tree and the building on the right, the left building had way too much light coming from it, and is way over exposed. There’s also a similar issue with the ground-floor room on the right. Ideally, I could and should have fixed this by changing angles, moving aside and trying to frame the tree against a single building.
Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400Nature in the City f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 44.0mm – ISO 6400
Amongst all of these pictures of nature juxtaposed against the city, I think the first one here has the most potential. The lack of sharpness from the trees in this frame, along with the distant building in the fog, play well against this city street. However, I think that a lower shutter speed might actually have been better here, giving the flag a sense of movement. Unfortunately, the street itself has a lot of noise, likely due to my use of ISO 6400, which I think is ridiculously high for daytime photography.
Between these two pictures, I honestly think I prefer the first one, and I think it’s important to look into it and try to figure out why. The first reason, I think, is that the second picture is too empty. The gray sky has too big of a presence. Next, I also think the building being closer to the center of the frame (yet still being on the left side, representing the “back” of this picture) helps focus things. Finally, as stated above, I do think the lack of sharpness in the first picture gives it a certain style and helps create a more significant contrast. On the second pictures, the trees are a little sharper, but not that sharp, and don’t look alive.
I took a lot more such pictures, but I think this should be sufficient to illustrate my points. I should probably eventually conduct more experiments to determine the real cause of these issues:
A lack of proper focus with the lens?
Too high of an ISO? (At least for my sensor)
The aperture size used?
The presence of a gray sky?
The foggy air?
Exposure issues
Building Reflection f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400Building Reflection f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400
I think these two images are perfect to showcase one of the woes I’ve had with exposure. In the first image, the top half of the picture, with the sky and the buildings, seem to have a reasonable exposure. However, the trees are definitely underexposed. Meanwhile, in the second picture, the trees have a good exposure, but the buildings and sky are overexposed.
One of the potential solutions for this would be, I believe, to use a graduated ND filter. However, I currently do not have one, and it seems like they might be expensive, so I likely won’t be getting one any time soon.
Building f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 39.0mm – ISO 12800Building f/8.0 – 1/250sec – 40.0mm – ISO 12800
Here’s another example of this issue. I only changed the exposition by a full-stop (in this case the shutter speed). The trees and the building/sky can’t seem to simultaneously be properly exposed. While it’s not as drastic as the previous case, it’s still fairly bad. Unfortunately, due to the placement of the different elements, this isn’t something I could as easily fix with a graduated ND filter. Biting the bullet and accepting to use half-stops or third-stops might make it slightly more balanced, though it clearly wouldn’t fully fix it.
Happy New Year everyone! Today marks a very special day for me. I have officially been, for 2 full years, reading books every single day (No, not an entire book every single day). Whether it be fiction or not, it doesn’t matter. But this has been an important habit for me, and reaching 2 years without a miss feels like an important milestone to me. (It should have been longer, but unfortunately I got really sick two years ago on New Year’s Eve and couldn’t manage to read on that day).
So, why am I bringing this up? Well, I figured some of you might wonder if I’ll keep up with my photography challenge and keep taking pictures daily. Unfortunately, this is the end of that one for now, although I’ve definitely learned a lot from it (more posts to come regarding that). I’m still planning to take pictures on my own time, and maybe share them here, but I won’t continue with the daily challenge for now. In particular, I feel like it’s been negatively affecting my eyesight, likely due to my use of manual focus, thus often looking at an unfocused scene (whether or not I was aware of it).
But while I might not go on with the daily photography challenge, I’m still planning to have a daily challenge. For a while, I’ve been wanting to learn speed reading, and today feels like an appropriate day for this. I’m planning to spend some time everyday for the next few weeks following the guidelines of Tim Ferriss’ blog post on speed reading and see how I progress (Disclaimer, I know nothing of Tim Ferriss. This blog post was simply recommended to me as a good resource for speed reading). My daily plan is to:
Measure and record my reading speed/comprehension with a site like swiftread.com
Go through the 20 minutes exercise to practice speed reading
However, I don’t expect to need to make daily progress updates on this challenge, since it’ll mostly about gathering statistics. It might be a weekly update instead, giving me some time to catch up a bit with my December in Photography posts.
This article was written December 30/31 2023 While this post is for the 28th day, it is actually the first post I wrote.
For day 28, it was already 7pm when I decided to take pictures. Thus, it was already dark, so I decided to go back to a mall where I’d taken pictures on Day 03. However, as I was walking outside, I got distracted by a few Christmas decorations, and ended up only taking outdoor pictures instead.
Static Illuminated Buildings
To start with, a few pictures of illuminated buildings:
Eslite Mall f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 24.0 mm – ISO 12800Two malls f/5.6 – 1/60 sec – 45.0 mm – ISO 12800
The first thing to notice about both of these images is that I had to use an extremely high ISO: 12800. My camera actually doesn’t offer it by default (I had to go through the settings to enable it). And despite this ISO, I still had to use a small aperture of f/5.6, and a fairly low (at least when not using a tripod) shutter speed (1/60sec). This is one of my main main challenges when taking pictures after dark, I either need to use a tripod for very low shutter speeds, or have more limited options.
Next, you might also notice that these images have a grainy texture to them. That seems to be fairly common with dark pictures on this camera. I have yet to determine whether it’s related to the high ISO, the camera’s sensor itself, or a property of such photographs (Although I have read that more modern cameras have lower noise on high ISO). This grainy texture will definitely be a common theme for this day.
Moving Traffic Against Static Building
I also tried to play with a lower shutter speed, capturing both a static background and some moving traffic. The lowest I was willing to go without a tripod (for this shot) was 1/30sec, so I went for this, and adjusted my ISO to be a little lower.
Mall front with moving car f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 3200Mall front with moving vehicles f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 3200Mall front with moving vehicles f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 3200
For the first two, I used an aperture of f/5.6, whereas for the last one, I tried an aperture of f/8.0, a “who cares” aperture as per Bryan Peterson in his book Understanding Exposure. Unfortunately, everything looks a little darker in this one, so I wonder if it might be underexposed (Although it could also be a matter of post-processing, which I haven’t started digging into yet). As is, I think my favorite is the second one, with the captured motion of the motorcycle, and the reflections in the mall’s glass windows. However, I do wish I would have captured more traffic, or maybe even had my tripod to get a longer exposure, maybe as high as 1sec.
Distant Buildings in the Dark
The highlight of this evening might have been to take pictures of buildings in the dark. Not something I’ve done much of before, in part due to the need for a slower shutter speed, and I tend to not be the steadiest of person. However, while I usually struggle at 1/30sec with my 18-55mm lens, it seemed to go fine this time.
Building in the distance f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 28.0mm – ISO 3200Building in the distance f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 24.0mm – ISO 3200Building in the distance f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 24.0mm – ISO 12800
Here, we can see a progression of clarity as I played with the ISO and the shutter speed. I did decide to hold an aperture of f/8.0 though. I’m relatively happy with the exposure of the last picture, although I’m not sure about the framing of the other two rooftops at the bottom. I was hoping it would make for an entertaining foreground, but I’m not convinced with the result.
Next, I captured these twin buildings.
Twin Buildings f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 25.0mm – ISO 12800Twin Buildings f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 21.0mm – ISO 12800
With this second picture, I was hoping that adding the top of the other building with the tree would help bring some good contrast, but I honestly think the first one works much better. The focus is clear, and there’s a grandeur to it. While the framing isn’t perfect (With that other cropped building to the right), I do like the color of the sky in the background.
Meanwhile, the second picture has a bunch of glare from different light sources, along with a surreal one on the top right corner.
An extra burst of buildings. This time, I’ll skip the gradual exposure attempts.
Building f/5.6 – 1/15sec – 42.0mm – ISO 12800Building f/5.6 – 1/15sec – 32.0mm – ISO 6400
For both of these pictures, I used a shutter speed of 1/15sec. I’m honestly shocked they came out as sharp as they did with such a slow shutter speed. My main complaint with both are the bright lights in some locations.
For the first picture, I think if I’d framed it slightly higher, such that the bottom light wasn’t present, it would have been a much better picture (Cropping might yet save it).
For the second picture, I also tried to use an ISO of 6400 instead of 12800 to see if that would affect the graininess. I honestly cannot notice a difference. Otherwise, I think the building is unfortunately simultaneously too bright and too dark. The lights on the side are overexposed, and the front of the building is, in some places, underexposed. I think having a sensor that can handle more full-stops might be what I need to make such pictures viable.
Building f/4.0 – 1/30sec – 28.0mm – ISO 12800
This one is ok, but I do have a few qualms with it. Obviously, the lights at the top gave me some exposure grief. But I think my biggest concern is the asymmetry between both sides, especially apparent at the bottom of the picture. And while the viewfinder having a 95% coverage does complicate framing ever-so-slightly, this can still be double-checked on the display after taking a picture.
One unexpected aspect of the picture I enjoy are the contrasts between different levels being either lighted or not. I especially enjoy the one with the plants on it.
Building f/4.0 – 1/15sec – 18.0mm – ISO 6400Building f/4.0 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 12800
There are two differences between these pictures:
The framing
The Exposure exchanged Shutter Speed for ISO, keeping the same “light meter” reading (Both were changed by one full f-stop)
First, regarding the change in ISO, I now notice a clear difference in graininess, ISO 12800 definitely feels grainier here. Thus, I might need to start looking into using a smaller ISO when taking pictures at night, possibly carrying my tripod more often (although that’s quite the chore).
Next, regarding the framing. While I thought it would feel “cleaner” to align the building roughly with the frame of the picture in the second one, I think I prefer the first picture. There’s a better sense of symmetry, and the continuous sky helps elevate the sensation of vertigo, enhancing the perspective.
Decorations
Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 18.0mm – ISO 3200
These Christmas decorations looked cute, so I wanted to shoot them. Unfortunately, while in person they were nice looking, I don’t think the venue was conducive to good pictures, at least from this angle. The windows showing the inside of the building are a little underwhelming, and this background wall is a little drab when contrasted with such decorations. Everything else is also too bright to allow the decorations to shine through. There might be a way to deal with it for the photographer, but unfortunately, I currently cannot manage it.
Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 55.0mm – ISO 3200
I decided to try to isolate the reindeer, which I kind of like. Unfortunately, some of the problems are still present. I should probably have tried to take the picture from a higher angle, such that the window wouldn’t be in the frame.
Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 400Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 800Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 55.0mm – ISO 800Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 55.0mm – ISO 1600
I kind of like the charm of the first two pictures, where the background is almost completely dark, with just some very dark patterns in the background. However, not as much of a fan of the last two, where the background starts appearing, although it kind of still works. On the last one, however, I think the flare on the lights is becoming a little too distracting.
Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 42.0mm – ISO 1600Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 41.0mm – ISO 3200 – Flash onChristmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 48.0mm – ISO 3200Christmas Decorations f/8.0 – 1/125sec – 49.0mm – ISO 400 – Flash on
On these pictures, I tried to see the difference using the flash would make. I personally don’t like it at all with these light decorations. I think it completely ruins their magic. If I wanted them to have a brighter background, I should have gone for a longer exposure instead. (I really should have brought my tripod)
Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 39.0mm – ISO 1600Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 39.0mm – ISO 3200Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 36.0mm – ISO 3200Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 36.0mm – ISO 3200Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 36.0mm – ISO 3200Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/90sec – 36.0mm – ISO 3200
First of all, I’d like to point out that the last three pictures I took were all blurry. Just a reminder that sometimes, you get so focused on something that you miss out on the most important of details. I focused so much on the exposure that I missed something as simple as the focus.
Next, while the first picture might be considered less well exposed than the other ones, I think it’s still my favorite of the bunch. I think exposing for the street here is wrong. My impression is that a much darker street makes the decorations stand out more, which should definitely be my goal here. (Although I’m sure that’s something I could fix in post-processing with the other pictures). It’s also, for some reason, the picture I feel is best framed amongst the bunch. The only thing I would consider fixing on this picture would be to crop out the top of it, removing a chunk of the dark sky and the street lamp on the right. Although even then, I think I still enjoy the presence of this dark sky, showing how this warmth “pierces through the cold night”.
Reindeer Decoration f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 30.0mm – ISO 3200
I kind of like this picture. I’m happy with the framing and relatively happy with the exposure. My main complaints would be:
I think the focus isn’t that great, although that could be a personal stabilization issue, considering this was at a 1/30sec shutter speed. I probably should have used a larger aperture as well, either f/8 or f/11 (If I could afford to do it).
The warmth of the picture changes from the left to the right, with the right side being colder. Maybe I should have used the Tungsten white balance instead of cloudy, though apparently that can be fixed in post-processing.
That sign above the main reindeer is a little distracting, although at least it isn’t extremely overexposed.
Low traffic
Low Traffic f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 47.0mm – ISO 1600Low Traffic f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 47.0mm – ISO 3200Low Traffic f/5.6 – 1/15sec – 47.0mm – ISO 1600Low Traffic f/5.6 – 1/15sec – 47.0mm – ISO 1600
For these pictures, we can see a progression towards the kind of effect I was looking for. On the first picture, I was not impressed with the exposure, so I adjusted it.
From the second picture onward, I’m generally happy with the exposure. I really like the effect it has on the trees for instance. Obviously, I’m disappointed about the store-fronts, but I’m a little limited on that front currently.
Then, from the second to the third picture, I kept the same level of exposure, but lowered the shutter speed (adjusting both the shutter speed and ISO by a full f-stop). The effect of movement from the vehicles is much more pronounced and satisfying now.
Finally, the third picture was poorly timed, with the moving vehicle barely in frame, whereas the last picture has it properly in the foreground.
Busy Street
Busy Street f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400Busy Street f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 1600Busy Street f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 1600Busy Street f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 1600Busy Street f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 1600
Here, we have a busy street that I wanted to capture, to show the liveliness of Taipei. (An annoyance with these pictures is that I went in and manually tried to crop out license plates).
The first picture feels a little overexposed, which is fixed on subsequent pictures. Meanwhile, I was trying something “innovative” with the second picture, but that fell flat. I wanted to capture less of the immediate street, and more of the storefront and buildings. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really a good option considering the contrast in brightness.
I think my favorite of these is the fourth picture (the penultimate one). The traffic feels more linear and directed on this one. In the third picture, the scooter in the foreground, and the distance in traffic, break that continuity. Meanwhile, in the last picture, the foreground feels too vacant. I really feel like the fourth picture strikes a nice balance here.
Food
Finally, a few food-related pictures, from a street vendor selling duck. For our vegetarian and vegan friends, I apologize and suggest scrolling ahead.
While I didn’t add them here, a lot of my pictures had a focus issue. I think part of this is excitedly trying to get action live, and also the use of f/5.6 aperture. I should probably have gone for f/8.0 or f/11.0.
Duck Street Food f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 47.0mm – ISO 1600Duck Street Food f/5.6 – 1/60sec – 47.0mm – ISO 3200]
Now, the pictures I actually kept. First, I’m really happy with the pictures of the hanging ducks. I think there’s a really nice contrast and reflection to it, and the warmth is really nice. Though I definitely prefer the first of the two pictures.
Duck Street Food f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 3200Duck Street Food f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400
The two pictures where the duck is being blow-torched are decent, though I think the second one is better exposed. I do like how the details of the flame are present here, in different colors. It might be worth cropping the second one to only show the duck and the flames.
Duck Street Food f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400
The first picture is fairly standard with a clear framing. It might still be worth cropping it to drop unimportant details. As for the second picture, I feel like there’s too much verticality to it, both elements of focus being too spread apart. It’s also not really meant to exist in a vacuum, but as part of a continuation with the previous images, creating a “story”. But for any of you who enjoy this kind of food, I hope it’s making you hungry.
A final note about these picture, they do have an orange tint to them, likely due to the kind of White Balance I used. I personally like it, especially on the hanging ducks pictures. However, it might be more professional to change it, which should be doable in post-processing.
Favorite Picture of the Day
Love Christmas Decorations f/5.6 – 1/125sec – 39.0mm – ISO 1600
Amongst all of the pictures I’ve taken on this day, I think the above one might be my favorite. It might not be the best objectively or from a technical point of view, but I think it has a sense of serenity to it that I really enjoy.
Dishonorable Mentions
While successes are important, I think failures are equally, if not more, important when it comes to learning and progressing. Thus, here are some of the underwhelming pictures I took. Enjoy.
Illuminated trees
Around the beginning, there were a few illuminated trees I tried to photograph. Unfortunately, trying not to have their lights overexposed meant the trees they were attached to were underexposed, giving a less than desirable result.
Lighted Trees f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 45.0mm – ISO 3200
The exposure on this one is awful. The trees are underexposed, and the background light is overexposed. Overall, fairly disappointing.
Lighted Trees in front of a Starbucks f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 37.0mm – ISO 3200
In this photo, the trees are once again underexposed, the starbucks logo overexposed, and the framing is bad. The left half of the frame serves no purpose.
Illuminated Trees in front of a Starbucks f/8.0 – f/60sec – 25.0mm – ISO 6400
This is probably the best picture of the bunch. The restaurant feels warm and the lights on the trees offer an interesting contrast. The main issue is with the framing. It should be more focused on the restaurant.
Illuminated Trees in front of Starbucks – Vertical f/8.0 – 1/60sec – 34.0 mm – ISO 6400
It seems like I noticed the framing issues and tried to adjust by going vertical. Unfortunately, even here there are framing issues. I should have pointed a little more to the left (Both to capture more of the window, and avoid the sign on the right), and the top part of the picture serves no purpose, distracting from the overall picture. Though I suppose this part could always be cropped.
Illuminated Trees in Front of a Mall f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 18.0 mm – ISO 6400
This one has, in my opinion, too may bright spots to draw your attention, and yet a huge dark spot around the top. The street lamp is also undesirable. The framing should probably be more focused on the trees themselves, but even then, there are some overexposed lights behind the trees.
Awkward Timing with Dynamic Lights f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 6400
On this one, my timing with the lights was awful. These are dynamic lights meant to represent movement, and thus aren’t always on. Despite the 1/30sec shutter speed, I managed to barely get any light from them. But it’s an important reminder of the importance of timing with a picture.
Lighted Trees on the Street f/8.0 – 1/20sec – 43mm – ISO 6400
This one once again had issues with overexposure, especially with the cars and storefronts. Too much bright light. However, the trees themselves have a nice exposure.
Illuminated Trees on the Street – Blurry f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 6400
And the final picture of those illuminated trees. It’s a shame, this one has blur issues, because otherwise I think there’s a lot of good going for it. Though once again, there are a lot of bright spots.
And with this, I didn’t manage to get any picture of those trees that I was satisfied with.
Street Traffic
Busy street f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 29.0mm – ISO 12800 Edited to remove license platesBusy street f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 37.0mm – ISO 12800 Edited to remove license platesBusy street – Vertical f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 18.0mm – ISO 12800
These pictures have clear light flares, which is not that great, but does give it a nightly-style. The first one in particular, with moving heads in the foreground has an interesting look to it. However, the framing isn’t great. There’s too much emptiness from the sky and dark buildings. And somehow, on that last picture, I decided to double down on it, presumably to give it a sense of grandeur. While it doesn’t work that well, I will admit that doubling down on it lends a better result, since there’s a clear purpose to that “emptiness”, now taking most of the picture, instead of just drawing the eye away. Proportions definitely have an impact on intent.
Traffic against distant building
City Street Against Building f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 30.0mm – ISO 12800City Street Against Building f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 30.0mm – ISO 12800City Street Against Building f/8.0 – 1/30sec – 45.0mm – ISO 12800
First of all, let’s start with the first picture. It is clearly askew, which was somewhat corrected in the next two pictures. While holding the camera for a shot, I sometimes find it difficult to evaluate the angle, especially when going for a portrait orientation.
Beyond that, the exposure for this one is wrong. Not so much because a perfect exposure would exist, but the darker parts of the picture seem under-exposed, and the street itself has lights that are overexposed. Whereas for the car lights and street lamps, this feels almost artistic (a tad less exposed would be almost perfect), for the store fronts it feels all wrong. Unfortunately, I think I would need either a camera with a sensor offering a better dynamic range, or possibly a graduated ND filter, which would allow less light to go for some parts of the image, and not for others, hopefully resulting in a more even exposure. (My understanding is that this type of filter is usually used to help exposure when a bright sky is part of the photo, compensating for it’s added brightness. However, I don’t see why it couldn’t be used for the opposite effect, such as for this sort of picture.)
Building with tree
Building f/5.6 – 1/30sec – 55.0mm – ISO 12800
I think there’s a lot wrong with this picture. Everything is out of focus and the tree isn’t sharp. The lighting of the tree is also off. But if I’d zoomed in a little more to avoid the weird lighting of the tree, and properly focused on the building, I think this could have had potential.
