52+ Photos: Week 1 & 2

Okay, internet, let’s do this thing!

For 2014, I’m gonna make an effort to post a photo a week, and I will get better. Or I won’t. This may not be one of my skills, but I WILL give it a try.

The Rules (such as they are:)

1. One a week. If the week comes and goes without photos, and I don’t have a damn good reason…um…we’ll figure something out. (Posting late is fine, though. Let’s not go crazy.)

1a. If I get more than one photo a week I like, I’ll post it.

2. They do not have to be good photos. Which is good, because many of them won’t be. For every staged thing I spend two hours setting up, there will probably be a cat photo. And that’s okay.

3. I retain the right to use horrible filters akin to Photoshop lens flare because this is how we learn.  I will also crop, maul, fiddle and abuse, because I can.

4. There will be cat photos.

5. My camera of choice is currently an iPhone 5s, because that’s the only way I’m actually going to do this. The best camera is the one you have with you, etc. I have a DSLR somewhere, but I’d need to order new thingies and I don’t love it the way I love my iPhone.

Since the year is marching on already, here are the photos from weeks 1 & 2:

Week 1:

Thrush-Bob!  Taken with an Ollioclip telephoto lens clipped to my phone and the basic Camera app, and subjected to a white grunge frame because I wanted to see how they looked. (Answer: Meh. Suspect this is the photographic equivalent of licking your knife at the table.)

I photoshopped out some, but not all, of the thrush turds.

Week 2:

Taken with the Camera+ app and subjected to some filter or other. Also photoshopped out a couple sauce stains on the stove.

If I was trying to do this again, I think I’d move the black spoon rest so that the outline of the pot was clean, and change the angle so that the handle is actually overlapping the circle of the lefthand burner, rather than touching it. (Just barely touching, or almost-but-not-quite touching, activates a space visually and makes you stare at it for no damn reason.) Might also crop out the oven hood, since I don’t think it adds anything up there.

Angus the cat. Not quite enough light on this one, so tweaking made him rather more two-tone and orange than he really is. The filter adds some purple, which compositionally is a good thing, although there are undoubtedly more elegant ways to do it if I wanted to take the time.

And that’s weeks 1 & 2! Tune in…eventually…for more!