2007 December Archive - byteful project

Two Sundays ago, I took a short jaunt back to the dam – the same dam that I photographed earlier this year. One can always learn by returning to a place one has photographed before because so much has changed. With its fresh blanket of snow and sub-freezing temperatures, winter had definitely changed the feeling of this place.

The water raging out of the bottom of the dam seemed fiercer, wilder. Strange things can happen below freezing, such as the downright weird ice formations on some of the rocks in shallow water. In general, the water held uncountable photographic opportunities. Ice fragments on the surface reminded me of lily pads as they swirled above the deep blue. Heading back up the steps to leave, I snapped a photo of my footsteps in the snow on the narrow wooden stairs. Check out The Dam Ice and Snow album to see.

Then yesterday, I was experimenting (playing around) with the cutout filter in Photoshop. The cutout filter, for those who haven’t used it before, makes an image look more basic and angular, almost animated. For a time, I was satisfied with IMG1337 (I hadn’t named it yet), but I wondered what it would look like merged with my favorite christmas background, Snowy Sight.

After some more experimentation (see a pattern here?), I was pleasantly surprised with the result. This new wallpaper is more dynamic and visually interesting than the old Snowy Sight versions. The angular shapes in the background mesh well with the snowflake shapes. I call this new wallpaper Snowy Sight Iceflow, and it’s available in widescreen, fullscreen, and mobile sizes.

Enjoy, and Happy Festivus.

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Photos from this trip are in the Byteful Gallery > Photography > Walks album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just as the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers are.

On a spur-of-the-moment decision, I went outside to photograph the moon a few weeks ago. Alas the low temperature of the air prevented me from taking as many pictures as I would have liked.

The 10x optical zoom on my FujiFilm s6000FD came in handy, though, revealing many of the moon’s surface features. At first I thought it was even capable of beholding Mars, but the zoom magnification power proved too small. In order to photograph the small red dot, the camera had to be slightly out of focus. At least I was able to capture the dot of Mars. (I’ll take what I can get.)

A few things I learned about night astronomical photography:

Get a tripod. Use it! This is very important.
Buy a zoom lens if you want planetary detail
Low ISO speed is actually preferable for a Full Moon

Amazing what one can find in the tiny details of nature.
Enjoy.

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Photos from this trip are in the Byteful Gallery. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just as the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers are.