Sat. 08.11.18 – Every time I have been to Disneyland in recent years, I stand by the Mad Hatter Tea Cup ride trying to get a good colorful, blurred photo of the madness that is the spinning. This time, I was fairly successful.
Embrace the blur. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Lumia 950 camera phone.
05.27.18 – The Persian restaurant, Hafez, on Hereford Rd in the border-land that could be Bayswater or it could be Notting Hill, has a rather wondrous approach to interior restaurant decor. There are cookbooks everywhere, the walls and ceilings are festooned with antique and vintage silver and brass culinary and serving implements. Hafez is a delight to not only eat really good food but also a delight for the eyes.
This was directly above our seats this evening. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Lumia 950 camera phone.
A london plane tree to be exact…
Today, Saturday, March 31, 2018, I was exploring the back by-ways that would allow me to arrive at my favorite gluten-free bakery in London all the while avoiding the mess of Oxford Street when I found this new post-modern contemporary contemporary building in Fitzrovia with a poor, pre-leafed out London plane tree standing bravely in the rain defending the neighborhood from the Borg.
Good job, Plane Tree. I still have my own mind and life.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her camera phone type object.
* Photo and text originally posted as a Early Access post at my Patreon.
This was originally posted as Early Access at my Patreon account.
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Feb. 12, 2018 – I am finding that the differences between the photos that my camera phone, the Lumia 950, and the new Olympus micro 4/3rds Pen E-PL8 mirrorless camera are both evident and very subtle.
As my previous post states, I had hoped to replace a camera phone photo practice with a very small mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses. The transition is coming along in fits and starts.
The immediate difference between the two example photos taken yesterday while on a hike to Palm Canyon in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is the way that the cameras handle color. The Lumia 950 is rather famous for its yellow-tinted take on the world and the Olympus Pen E-PL8 for its lack of neon saturation.
My eyes have become so used to the vivid to neon saturation that most camera phones produce that the subtler colors and tones of the Olympus Pen appear almost desaturated (top photo) until I look at the Pen’s photo carefully – wherein a world of beautiful tones opens up – esp. at the dusty horizon.
In the Lumia 950 photo (directly above), the sky, plants and rocks are much more cheerful in color and the horizon is just a few volcanic cones peeping up from the dusty, windy day.
For what the Lumia photo lacks in contrast and strong shadows, it makes up for in bright color. For what the Pen photo lacks in saturated color, it more than makes up for in mood, contrast, contour edges, and shadows.
What do you think?
Fri. 11.04.16 – In 2015, I ventured into the One Camera : One Lens photo project with my Nikon FM3a film camera and a Nikon AIS 50mm f/1.8 manual lens. I tried to use a new film every month, alternating black & white film with color, to explore all the 35mm film that is currently available for sale – either at my local Samy’s or online. I still had quite a few rolls of film leftover from the 2015 project and continued to shoot into 2016, albeit a bit slower.
To help with a time stamp & GPS, I take a photo with my camera phone each time I take a film photo. The above two photos were taken on February 3, 2016 in Havasu Heights, Arizona, of my favorite ocotillo. The photo on the left was taken with Ilford HP5 Plus 400 black & white film and the photo on the right is with my trusty Nokia 808 PureView camera phone.
Click on the photos for the larger versions and enjoy.
Tues. 11.01.16 – Today is the first day of November and it has been a big few days for folks who celebrate Diwali/Deepavalli, Halloween, All Saints Day and/or Dia de Muertos.
This is my favorite time of the year, not for the holidays but for the change of the light and weather. Given that I have the opposite of SAD and that my migraines tend to be worse with too much bright sunlight, I am usually ecstatic when this darker, cooler time of year rolls around.
The sunlight is soft from now until mid-January. The light is short. And blessedly, the next six weeks will be the only time all year that I will move out of short sleeve shirts and may possibly put a light long sleeve shirt on.
I really need to move to a place with colder weather.
My one festive nod to the start of the dark season was going to the Throw Rag show on Fri. 10.18.16 at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach. The show was delightful, lots of folks showed up in costume, and I got to talk to friends I have not seen in a good, long while. The best costumes of the night were definitively the gentlemen of Throw Rag, particularly Franco’s 1960s groovy matron outfit, wig, and shoes. As for Dino’s amusing rainbow raver meets glam rocker, in the pink foreground in the above photo, well…
Happy All Saints Day! Celebrate your favorite saint, but don’t lose your head over it.
Photo of Throw Rag taken by Ms. Jen.
Just when one goes and makes a big pronouncement on the camera phone front, ASUS goes and makes a January 2016 release that makes the camera phone space interesting again.
Hello, ASUS Zenfone Zoom, you may be the size of a wheelbarrow, but that Hoya lens system of yours with optical zoom is intriguing. I will wait for Gavin to take lots of photos and write his review before I wonder much farther…
Look what we have here. #Asus #Zenfone #Zoom pic.twitter.com/GC01HjAzcD
— Gavin Fabiani-Laymon (@gavinfabiani) January 13, 2016
