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Ok, so I fell off the wagon for a while.

A long, long while.

But I hadn't really forgotten about this blog. Real life ran over me a bit during the double move from KC to Boston and then from Back Bay to South End. Follow that with some intense home improvement projects and a little bit of travel and I lost the habit.

But there were some other issues, too. I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the picture-a-day project. I mean, I learned a lot, but the returns were starting to diminish and it began to feel like a burden rather than a joy.

I found myself gaming the system. I'd see a great shot and think to myself, "I already have a picture for today...I need to save something to shoot later in the week." I was focusing on quantity instead of quality: taking pictures on days when there were few options (other than planes) and only taking one picture on days that were full of options.

And I know a craftsman never blames his tools, but my Point-and-shoot camera wasn't cutting it. It is a great camera and I was very pleased with many of my results, but I just couldn't control things that I wanted to control (aperture, shutter speed, and depth of field to name a few).

So I was thinking about revamping the project and starting again in January when I got a most surprising offer from my mother-in-law Judith. She sold me her DSLR, lenses and accessories at a generous price. She's always been supportive of my photography and I'm very grateful for that support and for the new equipment.

So we begin again on January 1st. Or more accurately the first week of January, since I'm ditching the "daily" requirement. I'm still sorting out the details, but I expect the new challenge to have requirements like these:

Focus on quality over quantity
Multiple posts per week
A monthly theme (possibly associated with amateur photography contests)

What are your suggestions?

Wing - 062008

Wing - 062008, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Travel much?

This plane picture is special, though. It was taken while I was on my way from Detroit to KC to pack up the house and move my wife and kitties to Boston. Hurray!

Dead Bodies - 062008

Dead Bodies - 062008, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

The street outside the apartment was shut down for a movie shoot the morning this was taken. There were two funny moments. The first was when they came and towed all the cars parked on the street, and then towed in new cars so the street wouldn't look empty. The other was when they dropped off the dummies that eventually got put into the cars. This was after they had emptied the cars.

Celtics Police - 061908

Celtics Police - 061908, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

The Celtics won banner number 17, and the parade is getting set up. We saw ticker tape fluttering in the air in the courtyard at my office, and it was half a mile from the parade route. On my way into work i saw all the police in their yellow vests relaxing before things got underway. The background is too busy and I should have taken some more time walking around to find a more interesting shot.

Another Plane - 061808

Another Plane - 061808, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Another trip to Dulles, another delay, another airport bar, another plane.

Taken while I was delayed after a violent pop-up thunderstorm, this three exposure HDR shows the leftover clouds.

T Driver - 061708

T Driver - 061708, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I'd seen this shot in my head dozens of times before, but never had the right seat on an uncrowded train. I sat in the very front seat and placed the camera on the divider between the front seat and doorway/stairwell. Holding the camera firmly to the divider kept everything inside the car in sharp focus and blurred everything outside of the car. This is a 1s plus exposure, which is why you can't make out the train speeding by outside, and the car in front of this one is shaky.

Concerned Passengers - 061608

Concerned Passengers - 061608, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

To the left of this picture someone is hurt. There were EMTs and T officials huddled around. It was hard to tell if they were really hurt or slightly hurt and looking around for a lawyer. I saw lots of rolling eyes so I suspect the latter.

Anyway, I tried to capture some of the curiousity of the crowd, but I don't think I framed it up as well as I could have. I like some aspects of the shot, but I needed to get more people and less ceiling.

Ceiling Details - 061508

Celing Details - 061508, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

You know how when you're on vacation you give yourself a break from your diet? You make a deal with yourself that vacation is a special event and should be exempt from the rules. Well, moving is sort of like that, only not quite a fun as a vacation.

So I'm really far behind on my posting. And possibly I haven't been completely faithful on taking a picture every day. But now that we're all in Boston (yeah!) I'll be getting back on my picture taking plan (and on my diet).

This pic was taken well before the move. I've always liked the cove ceiling in the apartment and the lighting really brought out the details. This picture required almost no touch-up, which made me happy.

Planes - 061408

Planes - 061408, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I really like the near/far composition of this picture. I just read a photography tip that basically said that your pictures will never be any better than your lighting. In that case, I think I got the most out of this picture that was possible. The sun was directly overhead and the sky was very hazy and dull. It helps the white planes pop off the background.

Tower - 061308

Tower - 061308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

This may be one of my favorite pictures from the trip. This was also taken on my walk back from dinner. The sun was starting the set and it had been raining off and on all afternoon. And then there's this tower. I have no idea why there's so much building associated with this tower, but I really liked the light on the enclosed spiral staircase.

Headstones - 061308

Headstones - 061308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I walked past a cemetary on my way back to the hotel from dinner, and to the side was this small shop. I couldn't tell if they carved the headstones there, or just received them, but it was a very interesting scene.

German Office Building - 061308

German Office Building - 061308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

This is the office building that I visited while I was in Frankfurt. I thought it was quintesential european design. The things I like about this picture. First, that you can see all the way through one of the windows. And then there's the little sunflare in the middle of the image.

It's a little cluttered. I like the reflections in the windows, but they also add to the clutter. Still, it's bright and crisp and I think that works with the subject matter.

Clouds - 061208

Clouds - 061208, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I wish I had something interested to put in the foreground, but these clouds were really exceptional. I loved the pink notes of the sunrise on clouds.

Big, Bigger, Biggest - 061108

Big, Bigger, Biggest - 061108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Let this be a lesson to me, always watch my background. The full picture had an even longer row of bright yellow snow removal equipment, but the background looked even worse than it does in this close cropped picture. Ordinarily I wouldn't have posted this, but I owed some extra pictures.

Traffic - 061108

Traffic - 061108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

So I like the subject matter and the basic composition, but the picture suffers from a few flaws. First, it was crazy humid and hazy. I was able to punch up the contrast and take out the haze. But then there was still the scratchy window and too slow shutter speed for being hand-held at 10,000 feet.

But still...quite the iconic picture of New York.

Chairs - 061008

Chairs - 061008, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Ok, so I got a little bit off pace with my picture taking over the last five or six days. While I didn't exactly take one picture each day, I took more than enough pictures over the week. So there will be a few extra pictures on some days as penence.

This pic is a great example of why you compose on site instead of trying to crop down later. I wasn't paying attention to my background and had to crop down too tight on the chairs. You still get the repitition of form, but the composition is all wonky.

Old and New - 060908

Old and New - 060908, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

That's no Moon!

Ok, it is, but just barely. I really didn't think it would show up in the picture, but there it is. Or there was some dust on my lens...probably a moon though...yeah.

This is a five exposure HDR, and it's one of the few I've dones that didn't end up looking too weird. It really helped pull other the slightly different colors in the buildings and helped even out the exposure across the shaded building and the glass building.

I was about to give up on HDR, but this will have me hooked for a little while longer. Sort of like hitting a nice golf shot...just enough success to keep me coming back.

Air Conditioner! - 060808

Air Conditioner! - 060808, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

See the heavenly light coming from behind the air conditioner. See it!

Kids in a Fountain - 060708

Kids in a Fountain - 060708, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

It was really freakin hot yesterday. And humid. And if I haven't mentioned the heat yet, it was hot. Tomorrow's picture may be of my new air conditioner, but today's picture is some kids beating the heat in the Christian Science Church Park.

This wasn't the picture that I planned to take. I've noticed in the evenings that as it gets darker the fountain almost looks like it's lit (it's not, but compared to the surroundings it's quite bright). I thought it would be neat to "backlight" some of the kids playing near the fountain. It was too light out for that shot and they turn the fountain off before it gets dark. I'll either have to wait for an overcast day or until the days get shorter, but I'm proud of myself for recognizing that given the lighting conditions the better shot was to move around the pool and use the trees as background.

News - 060608

News - 060608, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

This is the second post of this batch where I almost started to whine about my camera. You see, I can't really "set" the aperture on my camera. I can trick, cajole, and otherwise encourage the camera to choose a specific-ish aperture, but I can't just make it shoot wide open to create the narrow depth of field that I wanted here.

So if the news boxes pop so much they almost don't look real, it's because the picture's not real. I blurred the background to create the illusion of a narrow depth of field. I probably should have blurred the building on the right a little bit less than the rest of the background to give the picture some more depth and make it seem more plausible.

But enough whining about the photoshop, I want to go back to me whining about my camera. I need to stop. Now that I'm looking at the results I thought of two or three more things I could have done to make the picture better. Back up and zoom in to alter the perspective. Knock the ISO down even farther. Force the shutter speed up. These things aren't necessarily easy adjustments on my camera (which is probably why I didn't think of them at the end of a long day at work), but they are possible. And the point is to learn new things, which I did because I had to really think about what went wrong. Things I wouldn't have learned if all I had to do was crank the aperture around until I reached the end.

Fire Escape - 060508

Fire Escape - 060508, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I know, we've seen this fire escape before. It's still incredibly cool and deserved another look from another angle.

I really, really pulled the perspective on this one because the alley was narrow and there was lots of clutter at the edges of the frame. When I composed onsite, I thought I would frame the spiral staircase with all the other stuff and it would work out ok. It didn't.

So I cropped the picture down to the essential element of the staircase and took it from there.

NBA Finals - 060408

NBA Finals - 060408, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

So in case you don't follow the NBA, the Celtics are playing the Lakers in the finals. It's a big damn deal on many levels. Even more so here in Boston because the Celtics have been awful for so long.

Which is why I really love this photo. They were trying to set up the NBA experience when a big storm blew through. I have some shots of just the scene, but it's even better with the loan man trudging through the frame.

Fisheye - 060308

Fisheye - 060308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

At the risk of re-starting the "Kent likes fish" craze of the late 90s, I saw this gigantic fish at Government Center and I had to take a picture of it. I'm not exactly sure why it was there, but it was gone the next day. And I have no idea why the sign was there or what it means, but it was the most absurd part of seeing a large fish in downtown Boston, which is saying something.

Here's the whole scene.

Gov't Clouds - 060208

Gov't Clouds - 060208, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I didn't have a lot of hope for this picture when I took it, and it lived up to its promise.

The clouds are the most interesting thing in the picture, so I tarted them up real nice. Maybe the best thing I learned here is that by micro-managing levels using curves I was able to give a little bit of depth to the buildings that were really flat with this exposure (+2EV).

Dirty Plane Window - 060108

Dirty Plane Window - 060108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Somewhere between Minneapolis and Boston the sun was setting and I snapped this picture through my dirty, scratched up plane window.

I started composing the picture without the engine, but I think the picture is a lot more interesting with it.

Best Friends - 053108

Best Friends - 053108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Meet Chloe and Wally.

To fully appreciate this picture you need to understand that of all the possible combinations of kitties in our house, this is the least likely. We see grey kitties sleeping together, and boy kitties sleeping together, but not this pair. I really like that they were together, but still back-to-back. Learn more about the kitties and the crazy cat lady who adores them here.

Wally is a bit annoyed because i moved the pillow shams together to clean up the background a little bit. Another natural light picture on a bright but overcast day.

Purse - 053008

Purse - 053008, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Ok, so I cheated a little bit with this picture. It didn't actually get taken on 5/30. I was traveling stand-by and spent the day running from one place to the next. I'd say I won't let it happen again, but who would I be kidding.

Anyway, to make up for it, I took two very different pictures on the following day. I set up a small "studio" next to a window for natural light, angled the purse to catch the highlights, and started shooting. It took a bit to get the angle and the exposure right, but it turned out pretty well. I didn't have my tripod with me, which would have helped with the sharpness.

Sailboats on a Plane - 052908

Sailboats on a Plane - 052908, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Recently I was reading some Photography magazine and they were being very snooty about how Photoshop has ruined photography. I see their point about people overusing Photoshop and underusing their camera. They practically took the position that if the picture didn't come out of the camera ready to print it wasn't true photography, which is absurd because photographers have been hiding sins in processing and printing for decades.

At least I felt that way until this picture came tumbling out of my camera. Taken from my plane seat as I landed at Logan. I stopped down a little bit since I was shooting into the sun, and I had to hold the camera upside down to align the lens with the one unscratched part of my window. But when it came time to tweak the picture I didn't have much work to do. I flipped the picture and made some very modest exposure adjustments.

I still think that it's the results that count, and that the picture would have been just as valid if I had cranked up the saturation to make it more sunsetty. But I have to admit, I got a lot more satisfaction out of getting it right in the camera than I would have expected.

Train to Wonderland - 052808

Train to Wonderland - 052808, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Ok, so I'm running a bit behind on my posting.

I snapped this one in the subway on my way home from work. I nearly got trampled because I was crouched down to get a better angle for the shot. I wanted to move about three feet to my left to get the other side of the escalator in the shot, but there was a crowd of people there and they weren't moving.

I wish I were better at GIMP, because I think this picture would be more interesting with a 70s era desaturated color look (like an old Polaroid picture), but I couldn't figure out how to get there exactly.

Raindrops - 052708

Raindrops - 052708, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Raindrops on the screen...something nice to photograph that keeps me indoors in the rain. Only one of the drops got the fun inverted focus in the drop thing going on. Was fun playing with Macro focus for a while. Let's see if I remember to change that setting before taking more pictures.

Fire Escape - 052608

Fire Escape 052608, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Aside from being charming and lovely and the best thing that ever happened to me, my wife has a great eye. She saw this interesting fire escape between the buildings on a side street in downtown (we were just feet away from the site of the Boston Massacre and the first reading of the Declaration of Indepence in Massachusetts).

Trinity Church - 052508

Trinity Church - 052508, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Photoshop skilz to the rescue!

Well, at least it fixed some of my concerns like the annoying flagpole (what flagpole?). This wasn't the perfect composition for these elements, but getting everything lined up perfectly would have meant standing in the middle of a busy street.

Best Buy - 052408

Best Buy - 052408, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Elizabeth noticed this building and thought that it looked like one of my pictures, and she was right. This photo probably needs some more photoshopping to remove some of the clutter at the bottom, but I like the result.

Adjusted three versions of the same exposure to create the HDR. I really like how it brings out the reflected sky in the glass.

Clock Tower - 0052308

Clock Tower - 0052308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Another pic where I thought HDR would make for an interesting picture, but just didn't come through for me. Tripod and correct ISO settings probably would have made a huge difference.

Ok, definitely would have made a big difference.

Tweaked the exposure quite a bit and adjusted perspective. Unsharp mask doesn't completely hide the ISO issue, but it does help.

Pops - 052208

Pops - 052208, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Here's another photo subject that you can expect to see again. I really like the red "POPS" sign on the symphony building. Maybe next time I'll have the correct ISO settings. Grrr.

Alley - 052108

Alley - 052108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Ok, so this is why we shoot a picture every day...to learn important lessons when the cost is cheap.

Like learning the lesson to check your ISO settings before taking pictures. When playing around with the silk curtain pictures, I shot at a bunch of different ISO settings. The last one was 1600, which you'll get to enjoy for the next several days. Bleh.

Also, composition here was not nearly as interesting in camera as it was in my head.

Silk Curtains - 052008

Silk Curtains - 052008, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I wanted to try taking a picture that had a really wide range of light values, so I shot the silk curtains in my apt. I thought that HDR would be the salvation, but it just made a big mess. I much prefer this slightly corrected version of the original exposure.

Public Gardens - 051908

Public Gardens - 051908, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Walked through the park on my way home from work and took this backlit photograph because that's a situation that I struggle with (the lighting situation, not walking through the park after work).

Cars on Street - 051808

Cars on Street - 051808, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

This was really a technical exercise comparing RAW to JPG. In theory, RAW should be much better, but...well, let's just say I apparently have some more learning ahead of me. This is the JPG I shot for comparison. I put in some more practice on HDR and GIMP, so it wasn't a total loss.

Cloudy Skyline - 051708

Cloudy Skyline - 051808, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Prudential Building and the Church of Christ, Scientist Buildings in the foreground. Nothing spectacular here (unless you like your buildings curvy). Another equipment check lesson for me though. I remembered to take the good camera this time, but the memory card was still in the computer from downloading a bunch of images that morning.

St. Botolph at night - 051608

St. Botolph at night - 051608, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I thought this picture would turn our well in color, but I liked it even more in b/w. In the color picture the street lamp casts a cool greenish color, but the windows are a very warm orange. But the noise and grain really detract from the color picture and I think they make the b/w version interesting.

TWT - 051508

TWT - 051508, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I don't think you can have a blog featuring Boston as the backdrop without a tunnel picture. This is the Ted Williams Tunnel at 50 mph (though you can't fully appreciate that the cab driver is taking up a lane and a half). Actually I think the cab being out of the lane helps this picture since you get a little perspective instead of a massive wall of tile.

New York at night - 051408

New York at night - 051408, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

The glow you see in the background is Times Square reflecting off of another building. I like the way it leads the eye back into the picture (and away from all the noise...grr). Shifted this picture a bit to correct perspective and cropped some distractions out of the frame.

Subway Exit - 051308

Subway Exit - 051308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I told you we'd see this material again...

I like the composition of this much better. The grainy flourescent photo is a bit of a cliche, but I like it here. I think there's room still to improve this, but I'm not up to speed on GIMP yet

Exit to Street - 051208

Exit to Street - 051308, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I wanted to take a couple of different takes at exposing and composing, but then the train showed up. I expect that we'll see this shot again before too long.

Bathroom Tile - 051108

Bathroom Tile 051108, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I've always liked the pink deco tile in my bathroom and I thought today would be a good day to play with Macro focus on my new camera.

It wound up being serendipity with Photomatix. As i was processing the HDR I got a variation on this image. The emphasis on the flecks and the shine of the highlights made the image look other-worldly. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out that the gamma being cranked down was the primary reason for the effect. A little tweaking later and this is the result.

Church and Sky - 051008

Church and Sky, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

So as I head out the door I think, "no sense bringing the 'good' camera...it's so overcast and flat there won't be any good picture opportunities."

Of course a block away from the apartment the clouds part and the sun comes through. It was a touch hazy when I took this picture, but I could have really made the clouds pop with the better camera. Lesson learned.

Rainy Milk Street - 050908

Rainy Milk Street 050908, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

My first HDR picture (which is why you see the lovely Photomatix tags from the trial). The weather was nice earlier in the day, but by the time I was able to take this pic it had been raining. The HDR processing seems to make the rain both more and less interesting.

Work Courtyard - 050808

050808 Work Courtyard 3, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

What I wanted was to capture the texture of the bricks and different effects of the light (shadow, overhead, reflected). May be fixable with some cropping, but probably the wrong camera and the wrong lighting conditions. Although with this narrow, deep courtyard there are only a few hours aday when the light gets this far down.

Flowers Post Office Square - 050708

Flowers Post Office Square 2 050708, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

For a cameraphone with a dirty lens, this turned out ok. The sun was slightly behind the tulips which makes them glow.

One positive so far from the daily picture taking...I walked past these tulips twice thinking they were interesting before I made the leap from "interesting" to "interesting picture" to "I'm carrying a camera and I should take a picture".