Penning Photography Daily

Two and a half inches of rain in little more than an hours time produced this gusher that greeted me just outside my building this evening. It was spouting upwards of about 8-10 inches in a constant flow from the earlier heavy downpour.

Of course, I had a camera with me, like always. A quick composition and snap of the shutter on my Panasonic LX3 and I got it. what’s interesting is the fact that there are building facilities just underneath of this gusher. The parking garage in which this was taken, is right over rooms that house equipment and where folks work. How they stay dry, is an engineering marvel to me.

I did a bit of purple tang processing on the out of the camera print, just because I felt moved to do so. Sometimes the documentary mood is upon me and I try to accurately depict the colors and lighting that both I and the camera saw. Other times. I get a bit crazy like this. Artistic license, I believe that is called.

The evening rains are slowly pushing off to the east. The lightning and thunder have passed. Time for some rest and reflection,and thankfulness for staying dry

I’ve always loved this modern slab of a building. I believe that the exterior is some sort of stainless steel alloy. I recall when it was built, seeing the sections being bolted on with a plastic covering such as you get over a new TV screen or cell phone. After they were completed, the blue plastic was stripped away, revealing this monolithic gray with black windows.

It’s great for reflecting the sunset, seen here.

I’ve punched up the color vibrancy, but you get what I mean about the walls reflecting the colors of the sky. Not a perfect reflection, but that gray takes on a muted echo of the sunset colors. I increased the blacks so that the gray stripes would stand out.

It was a magnificent sunset that night. One that had me with my pocket wonder, the Panasonic LX3, in hand and at the ready, the whole way home. I head west, directly into the setting sun at this time of year. There are times that I keep on heading west, in search of the perfect vantage point for the spectacle of the sun.

There’s always something memorable just around the corner. Having a camera at the ready, makes memories easy to catch and keep.

Point a lens at the sun, and you get some lens flare. Artifacts of how the light interacts between all the elements and surfaces in the camera’s lens.

Some flare is beautiful, some is downright ugly. I’ll put this in the either/or category. It depends on why the flare is there.

I intended for the flare to be there. That’s why I put this in the keeper pile. If I was taking a portrait, I’d put it in the pitch pile. That bit just above and to the right of the car? That’s the downright ugly part. The hexagons and circles usually can be controlled and can be used to create an artistic look. The orange with the flame, not so good.

In this case, I was wanting to get as much flare as possible out of that bit of sun peeking over the building. A salute to the end of one business day, a send-off to the beginning of another business evening. The cross-processing, selecting once color for the highlights and another color for the shadows, that’s an artists madness coming out. The regular color was OK, but this is very nice – to my point of view.

A flare for the dramatic.

Up close on a bit of grass going to seed.

I never noticed the purple bits before I looked at this macro photograph I took the other day. Just a simple patch of grass, with the bushy pads of yellow, swaying in the wind. A challenge to get a good picture of, but life’s full of daily challenges. Seeing the purple bits in and among the yellow stems, has me wondering what those purple bits are.

Life up close is different than my everyday look at it.

Taking time to stop and soak in the world around me. That always brings rewards. Like these tiny purple bits.

The late afternoon light called my name again.

I saw the shadows and light, playing on the table, floor and sofa of the sun room. That had me up and grabbing my Pentax K20D once more. I have been exploring the range of the dream-like Vivitar 28mm f2 Close Focus. This light was made for it.

At one point, as I was composing and photographing things in the room, I checked the distance I had set for focus by pointing the lens at myself, then bringing it closer until the catch-in-focus triggered the shutter. Seeing results, had me looking for the light, falling on my hand, and then capturing it. A bit of conversion to black & white and here you are.

Something about this composition tugs at me. I purposefully opened my hand and relaxed it in the light. Part in the light and much in shadow. The aperture is wide open, leaving a thin slice of focus in the light, with the shadows out of focus.

I do things like this and I have no idea why I do it this way.

I’m learning to trust the instinct which pulled me to explore the light and shadow, and had me put my hand into the frame. Whatever the cause, the photo moves me. That’s what matters.

Exploring the light.

A fresh Gala apple, recently picked from the local orchards. Basking in the early evening sunlight on a table in our sun room, split by a knife.

My point here, is the thin slice of the photograph that is in focus.

Note the handle and point of the knife are both way out of focus. Only the top of the apple, with a drop of apple juice just above the top of the knife, and everything in that same vertical plane is in focus. I had the aperture wide open at F2, capturing just a thin slice of the apple and table in focus.

I almost never use a knife on an apple when eating one. I eat the whole apple, core and seeds included, with the exception of the stem. I get much more of the apple flesh that way. Yum!

The way the light was coming in and casting shadows had me getting my camera out and taking pictures of the shadows everywhere. Then I thought about the apples we just got from a local orchard. The knife and this scene just popped into my creative head, and here you are.

There are photographs to be seen everywhere I look.

Sometimes, I see the light and it turns on the creative urge.

That’s a whole lot of fun.

Smokey, checking out something to my right, poised to pounce.

We were on the bed, playing a bit. Her, after a long day with just her companion cat Sissy for company, likely getting many of the 14-16 hours of sleep per day that a cat manages to fit in. Me, after a long day of wrangling computers, people and plans. We both needed the activity and friendly wrestling.

I had my camera, the Pentax K20D, fitted with the dream-like Vivitar 28mm f2 Close Focus lens, with the aperture wide open. It was just sitting on the bed, prepared for a moment such as this. I knew that I needed to give Smokey some time to play. Time to chase, wrestle, lick and have some kitty fun before I would get anything like a still moment to photograph.

The lens is full manual. One nice option on my camera is the Catch-In-Focus setting, which allows me to be able to use a manual focus lens and simply get it to the right focus point, and the camera will automatically activate the shutter without me having to be behind the viewfinder. So with this, I had it set to focus as close as possible, about 3 inches from Smokey’s eye. I then kept my finger on the shutter as i brought the camera closer to Smokey, just eye-balling the composition without looking through the lens. I’ve been doing this for a while, and have developed decent guessing skills at what I’m pointing at.

When I reviewed what I had taken, I was stunned at how good it came out.

Smokey is a beautiful cat. That makes any photo I take of her a cut above the ordinary. Being able to get this particular view of her eyes, that’s a special treat for me.

A nice end to a busy day for both of us.