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".

Chairs - 050608

Chairs 050608, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Yawn.

I love the pattern here, but the lighting is flat and boring. It was much cooler in my head.

Liberty Hotel - 050508

Liberty Hotel 050508, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

I had to speak at a Mobile Monday event in Boston on this night. The event was held at the Liberty Hotel, which in the 19th century was a prison. In this picture you can see that walkways between the different cell blocks. Odd that Prisons and Hotels are so similar architecturally.

It would have been nice to be able to take this picture again about 90 minutes later. There's a bit too much light and too much direct glare.

Why?

Because I take a decent picture and I can get better.

And I don't mean I'm a decent photographer like everyone thinks they are a better than average driver or 80% of people say they have a good sense of humor. I have a little bit of skill with a camera (but just enough to know that I'm really not very good at all).

Suprisingly enough, thinking about photography and reading about photography wasn't making me substantially better. And the reason I wasn't taking photographs was that I wasn't carrying my camera around with me. So now I do and now I use it. So here are the self-imposed rules (subject to self-interpretation):

1) Take at least one picture every day. More is fine, but at least one.
2) Use only point-and-shoot cameras or a cameraphone. I can only upgrade my gear after I upgrade my game.
3) Upload all photos to the Bostonaday Flickr photostream.
4) At least once a week update this blog with the best picture from each day. Include a little description.

That's it.

I've already taken three days worth of pictures and hopefully will come up with something inspiring for day four.