Day 110

10/28/10

"Urban Bokeh"

This was a fun shot taken outside of the Urban Outfitters on State Street. They had multi-colored Christmas lights and I just cranked the lens out of focus and shot a few frames.

Day 49

8/28/10

"Light Reading"

Nothing too interesting to photograph today, so I decided to take a picture of what I was reading today for fun. A couple Foreign Affairs journals and some old text books on my favorite subjects.

Day 42

8/21/10

"Jazz Box"

Another day of moving, another day of laziness, another picture from my room. This time, a little selective focus manually for a picture of my guitar and amp set up.

Day 19

7/29/10

"Petunias on Library Mall"

Today I kept with my work to try to use selective artistic focus (bokeh) on objects, particularly close up, where its most effective.  I had an idea to try to take photos of the beautiful flowers around campus, and while I was down at Library Mall with the fire dancers last night, these beautiful petunias were overshadowed by the fire and I totally didn't know. When I stumbled upon them today, it was just what I was looking for. Again, this would have been great with the prime lens I've been looking at. Someday, maybe soon.

Click for a larger photo.

Day 17

7/27/10

"Not Playing with a Full Deck"

Today, my goal was to try to play a little bit with bokeh. Bokeh, for those not in with photography terms is playing with focus to create an aesthetic blur. Higher end, higher aperture lenses will perform this aesthetic blur nicer than the lens that I have, one of my motivations to get a 35mm prime lens with a f/1.8. That, and the aperture allows pictures at much lower light levels with higher shutter speeds so there is less blur. But back to the picture, I just laid out a partial deck of cards and focused near the center, but closer to the 3 of diamonds, for no real reason. It was just the card where I was trying to focus.

So, mark me down for a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 AF-S lens if anyone wants to buy me a present. That is on the list with a Nikkor 10-24mm AF-S and a Nikkor 70-300, or a 70-200 if  people are feeling really generous (at $2400, I would be surprised to have such wealthy and generous friends).