May 17, 2008

Aubades

This morning I woke up ridiculously early for a Saturday morning: 5.47. That's the approximate time most week days find me stumbling around for my glasses to go take a shower, not a glorious chilly Saturday morning with the crisp air coming in and Craig the Human Space Heater snoozing away nearby. But last night was lazy and early to bed for us - I made Penne with Vodka, which I'm gradually mastering over time (Gristedes did not carry Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes, so I went with Contadina Roasted Garlic instead, and I think it contributed just the right touch) and garlic bread and asparagus, and we watched Cloverfield (I fell asleep most of the way through) and since we're altogether exhausted through the week, I guess by Saturday a.m. I'm ready for the weekend to begin. Hence, up early. Additionally, Monday night began the Craig~Kristin spring/summer concert-going series, and we kicked it off with Tegan & Sara at Terminal 5. Beforehand we ducked into a little wine and cheese cafe where Craig ordered what is named the Pig's Ass Sandwich (I took a bite and it was delicious) and I ate their gourmet mac and cheese with carmelized onions and we shared a cheese plate, which was the highlight for me. I should invest in a cheese class so that I know more about what I like. Anyway, the week dragged on and I rarely got to play with the Nikon, so this morning I wanted to experiment. I read a lot of literature through the week on controls and getting creative with it, but I have a long way to go before I begin to actually like the images I'm capturing. Nevertheless, I'm attempting different combinations of aperture openings and it's fun. So this morning I shot a series of photographs which I am naming Evidence of a Dead Jade. The unfortunate thing about these photographs is that the lighting inside the room from which I shot the photographs is miserably dim compared to the bright light against the exterior wall facing the courtyard, which is its backdrop. If I had any amount of decent light from behind, the images may have come out better. But our overhead light in this room stinks and that's one thing I look very forward to in our new apartment: light. Let the light pour in. So, I'm rather of the thinking that an image should
be captured in the frame of the camera, through the view finder. I've never been a fan of doctoring photos - cropping them, enhancing them - it shows my age, perhaps, from an art perspective. Or that was how I was taught at IU, anyway. I'm not talking snapshots where that person's head happens to be filling some of an otherwise-attractive couples shot of Craig and me, and cropping that head out betters the snapshot. Oh, and I'm not claiming to be an artistic photographer by any means, as well! But with this new device of mine, I'd like to learn and improve upon my ability (if existing) to get a picture properly framed the first time. See above, there is the slightest white edge of window sill on the right that I didn't intend to be there. I didn't frame it adequately, I guess. Still learning. Plus, my eyesight sucks and I wear my glasses in the morning - yeah, blame that, KB!

So in the spirit of not wanting to adjust photographs after they've traveled from the camera to the computer, I went ahead and defied my principles and brightened this image and threw a sepia adjustment to it! Still not satisfied with the boring morning still life photo shoot, I decided to throw open the window and try placing the Dead Jade on the fire escape. This yielded better lighting results while I poked my whole head out the window and snapped away.

So, Nikon experimentation continues. Craig finally rose up from the mess of the bed and he has headed out for our Saturday morning bagel ritual. We're going to catch up on some recorded tv with bagels and coffee and then he's headed out for a haircut and to pick up our signed lease for the new place. While he does that, I'm gearing up to drag the Nikon somewhere in the City to capture my New York. Keeping in mind that this could possibly be our last whole year in this brilliant and powerful geography, since jobs dictate what we do in this age, I want to be sure to have as much visual New York tucked under my arm as I can, so that if we wind up somewhere else someday, I can always come back...to my New York, not to some other better photographer's New York, not to another blogger's New York or to another writer's New York, but to mine as I want to always remember it.

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