Almost Made It Photos #3

This is likely my last batch of "almost made it" photos - though I may post one or two that I uncover in the coming months.

I've started thinking about a new photo project, but haven't made any decisions.  I think it is going to take a while to find the "right" thing.  It definitely won't be a "picture a day for a year" project, though!

Here's the latest (and last) batch:

A Day At The Beach

Delicate

Solo Flower

Boston Reflections

"I'm King of the World!"

Karen

Yellow Cap

Almost Made It Photos #2

Here's another batch of photos that I really liked, but didn't make it for their respective "day".  Not surprising is that 4 of the 7 are Martha's Vineyard-related!

Tree-Line Sunset

What Being At Work Is Like

Golden Dawn

Dawn of the Derby

Coming and Going

Summer on South Beach

Ocean Park, Oak Bluffs

Almost Made It Photos #1

Through the course of my 366 days project often I had a tough time choosing between several photos for a single "photo of the day" slot.  It helped me "edit", certainly, and when I made my choice, I didn't second guess.  What I did do, though, was save off my tough choices for the future.  Well, now that the project is over I went through my 2nd place photos - about 40 of them in total.

Here's 7 of them.  I may post more periodically.  

Fishing Plug Bokeh

John Belushi Gravestone

Mad Martha's Ice Cream Cones

Floating Flower

John Copley Statue

Orange and Black

Purple Haze

Thoughts, Tips, Lesson's Learned

Here are my random thoughts, gathered along my 356 (actually 366) photos project.

Collage of all 366 photos

Equipment at the end of this project:

Cameras:

• Nikon D7000 (NEW)
• Nikon CoolPix S70 
• iPhone 4

 Lenses:

• Nikkor 18-200mm VR 3.5-5.6G
• Nikkor 50mm 1.8D
• Nikkor 35mm 1.8D  [NEW]
• Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 [NEW]
• Nikkor 24-70mm 2.8 [NEW]
• Nikkor 105mm [NEW]

   Misc:

• Tripod [NEW]
• Lightbox [NEW]
• 2 Light stands [NEW]
• Camera bag [NEW]

Taking pictures while driving in a car, "just to get a photo", results in poor quality photos.

Take your camera everywhere.  Use an iPhone camera as a backup.

Taking photos every day becomes habit-forming, just like running or working out every day.  Once the activity becomes a habit, actually doing the task every day becomes almost routine/easy.

After about 200 days, I started really, really caring about each photo of the day.  The set of 7 photos (the week - I published weekly), became my "children" and I found myself looking at and appreciating them as the week progressed.

It is ok to re-take shots you took in the past.   Monet painted the same water lily pads umpteen times.   Plus, each day you take the same photo will undoubtedly have different light.

I've taken situational photos one day, and they didn't make the cut.  I've then revisited the situation several times, ultimately garnering a "photo of the day".

I didn't do a lot of reading/training, but rather explored the camera and situations ahead of reading photography books.  My mind seems to work that way - thinking of situations first, then reading some time later.

I still don't like using a flash.

High-ISO in the newer Nikons is AWESOME.  I love the D7000 and took many pictures at ISO 6500.  Many made the daily cut.

I avoided dog/puppy/kitten shots.

Dawn and Dusk - most inspirational times to take photos. If I took photos then, I usually knew that I had a "photo of the day".

I love Adobe Lightroom.  I only shoot in RAW now - Lightroom makes most things easy (except sending email copies of photos to friends/family).

I enjoyed the journey.

Week 51 - Water

5 of the 7 photos this week had water, either ocean or pond.  I'm frequently drawn to these areas and these types of photos.  I may count them up and see how many over the past year I took.  Over 100?  We'll see in just over a week when this project is over.  Yup, 9 days remaining, can you believe it?

Day 354 is my favorite photo this week.

Here's the 7 photos for this week, the 2nd to last week of this project:

Day 357/April 7 -  Early Spring

Day 356/April 6 -  Morning Reflections

Day 355/April 5 -  Mason Pearson Brush

Day 354/April 4 -  Calm Pond Dawn

Day 353/April 3 -  Toothpick Reflections

Day 352/April 2 -  The Sun

Day 351/April 1 -  Turn to Clear Vision #4

Week 50 - Concert and Lottery Tickets

Another odd and eclectic week - Springsteen show #55, and the world's largest lottery drawing (no, we did not win).  Spent a day on Martha's Vineyard and got inspired by the weather and beach, as usual.  I also took a request to heart this week: A close friend, you know who you are, suggested I take a dog photo, which I did.

Here's the 7.  Enjoy:

Day 350/March 31 -  South Beach Storm Front

Day 349/March 30 -  Hope and Change

Day 348/March 29 -  The March Blahs

Day 347/March 28 -  Pattern & Color

Day 346/March 27 -  Why Won't Anyone Pet Me?

Day 345/March 26 -  Springsteen Show #55

Day 344/March 25 -  White Birch Tree Forest

Week 42 - Pre-Vacation Build-up

Short week this week - 6 days of photos.  Heading to St. John, USVI to take some beach photos, oh and I may do some fly fishing.

This week's photos are a colorful bunch.  I enjoyed taking them!

Day 293/February 3 - MIT Stata Center

Day 292/February 2 - Breakfast Berry Bokeh

Day 291/February 1 - Vacation Daydreams

Day 290/January 31 - MarkOne Workout

Day 289/January 30 - Morning Beverages

Day 288/January 29 - The Bamford Preserve

Week 41 - Superbowl Fever

The week started with the Patriots winning the AFC Championship!  The week ended with us visiting Martha's Vineyard for the MV Surfcasters Banquet.  The Vineyard was like a ghost town, with hardly any restaurants open.  Still it was relaxing and rejuvenating and with sunny days and Spring-like temperatures, plenty of opportunity for photographs (of course I was in a Church basement for all of the afternoon!).

Also, no flower shots this week.  Several of my readers were getting tired of them - so instead, I included a picture of my new generator!  Enjoy...

Day 287/January 28 - Sunset over Katama Farm

Day 286/January 27 - Steering Wheel Bokeh

Day 285/January 26 - Can't Count on National Grid

Day 284/January 25 - Downtown Lowell

Day 283/January 24 - January Thaw

Day 282/January 23 - Twenty Pounds of Twix

Day 281/January 22 - Patriots Touchdown!

Week 35 - Christmas and Tebowing, Go figure!

Lots of holiday photos this week.  I'm still loving colorful shots, and holiday decorations and lights are a welcome change from the many flower photos I've taken during this project.

The week ended with a bit of Tebow-mania hitting the E-Streeters Running Club.  Looking forward to the Patriots crushing the Broncos tomorrow.

Here's this week's 7:

Day 245/December 17 - E-Streeter Tebowing

Day 244/December 16 - Ornament Bokeh

Day 243/December 15 - Rocky 

Day 242/December 14 - Ornaments

Day 241/December 13 - Pond Dawn #4

Day 240/December 12 - Westford Common Christmas

Day 239/December 11 -  Sorry We're Closed