Monday, February 26, 2007

Impressionist Monday

I am pleased to report that I accomplished exactly nothing today. I needed a break and I took one.

Aside from little spurts of wakefulness, I slept until I would have been leaving work. Guess I needed that.

This evening, I hauled out the new camera and played with it a little. It is astoundingly clear to me that I need to purchase a faster lens and a tripod. The sensitivity of the new camera is such that, standing on the porch to capture some similar shots to last night's, the shutter remained open sometimes for half a minute or more. There is no way for me to not shake the camera slightly and ruin the shot in that amount of time. I like nighttime and hate using a flash, so I'm gonna have to see what's out there that might help me.

I figured I might as well try to create some beautiful mistakes, and a couple samples are on my Flickr page. The two currently at the top (one of which heads this post) felt about right for me today. Dark and swirly, a little chaotic.

There are also some pictures of my cats, who had agreed to serve as models for portraits, but ultimately could not hold still long enough. They continue to disappoint me in many ways—they're incredibly lazy, for one thing—but I thought they could at least handle a simple photo session. Instead I had to follow them all over the place and make little clucking sounds to try to trick them into looking at the camera. The black and white double exposure (one-and-a-half exposure, really) to the left is kind of nice, though.

I'm feeling a bit better than I did last night, and I want to thank all those who left such friendly and supportive comments. Not feeling funny, but not feeling all that bad, either. Thanks again for your kind thoughts.

7 comments:

Chris said...

Play around with manually adjusting your exposure to a shorter time. That's my trick when trying to take concert shots when I don't have a tripod. But having said that, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Still it's fun trying.

Caroline said...

I hope that GT gave you either a hug or chocolate. Enjoy your camera.
x

The Periodic Englishman said...

Morning Moon. Taking pictures of pets (esp. cats) is horribly difficult. They just don't get it, do they? A croquet hoop and a mallet hammer will usually solve the problem, however, and tends to keep them nicely fixed in place. Sometimes indefinitely.

Whilst Chris (hello again, Chris) is undoubtedly technically gifted and all that, my preferred method for outside shots is to rock gently back and forth and scream at the world to stay still. Over and over and over again. I can't help feeling that this method will chime more sympathetically with your current mood.

Actually, seeing your cat pictures makes me a wee bit sad for my own cat (now long dead) - she was a nightmare to photograph, certainly, but it was exasperatingly funny trying to do so.

And looking into to your Flickr collection, I have to say that there is something mildly unsettling about the "hallway" pictures. Prickly skin time. They creep me out a bit. That's not bad - don't get me wrong - just interesting to note the effect they have.

Good to see you're feeling mildly better today.

Kind regards and greetings from Ireland (to both you and your inconsiderate cats)...

TPE

Julia Buckley said...

oh oh oh - more cat pics please!

nmj said...

Mr Moon, I hope you are feeling less dark & swirly & chaotic, I think you need some sun. I love the cat pic! I took a black & white photo of a cat about 20 yrs ago when I was dabbling in photography: it was cleaning itself and looked like bagpipes the way it had its leg in the air. It was a crappy camera, a Praktika (?), but I loved it and I still have the photo on the wall.

The Moon Topples said...

Chris: I've tried this, but get black pictures. I'd rather have the chaos.

Caroline: He gave me neither, but I haven't seen him yet. He claims there is chocolate.

PE: Yeah, I have some nice pictures of some of my former pets, but lost the pets in the process. I like the camera tip, and will try it tonight. I suspect I can only try this technique for a few minutes before I start to get complaints.

Sorry to hear about your furry friend. At least you got some pictures to help remember.

And I refer you to my post from Feb 18 for more on those hallways, which maybe will make them a little less scary. I'm not trying to give you bad dreams.

Julia: I cannot promise more cat pictures, as I tend to find a lot of pictures of cats to be a little creepy. It's not like there's stuff on my cat or anything. Now there's a site with some quality cat pics.

NMJ: The bagpipe reference isn't one that would have sprang naturally to my mind, but it is utterly perfect. I had a chuckle about that. Glad you still have the picture.

Marie said...

What a gorgeous cat! I find taking photos of cats quite easy actually. I just wait until they're sitting or standing still(which is what cats do most of the time anyway). Usually I can get them to do what I want.