I guess we can call this an upside of digital vs film. I don’t have to wait to see that this morning’s sunrise pics look like shit. I’m not sure what the deal was, meteorologically/atmospherically speaking.
The sky was super hazy. Everything looked like it took a bath in white out. I was expecting that the sun wouldn’t break through. I took a couple of long exposures and ended up with blank white images. I don’t know. I’m just glad I didn’t waste any film. If I had a film camera with me I wouldn’t have used it. I knew these were going to suck.
The good part was that the waves were much bigger than I usually see. The additional bad news was that there were WAY more people than I usually see. The metal detector dudes kept getting in the shots.
Fortunately the sun did break through the haze, even if nothing else did.
I kept fighting the urge to switch back to Auto mode to see if it made any difference. I also kept turning around and shooting stuff behind me and to the sides.
I said I was going to take a couple of pics of the surrounding area, and given the number of people I tried to take a weird, winding, stealthy route back to the car.
10/365
After I left the beach I went to Lowell and spent half an hour or so walking around Market Street. Those pics are coming soon. I think I’ll have some breakfast first though.
I took the cameras out today. I left the house at about 6:50, which was about half an hour later than I expected, and got home about 8:15. I made two stops. First, I finally went to downtown Andover (where parking is free on Sundays, woohoo!) and then I went to the smokestacks in Lawrence. There are shit tons of smokestacks in Lawrence, but the two I’m talking about are the sort of iconic pair you can see from route 495.
I learned two lessons about using my Nikon D90, that expect apply to any cameras. Well, one only applies to digital, but the other applies to all.
I shot in RAW format. I got sick of every website and youtube channel telling me to stop shooting JPGs and start shooting RAW. Also, I found out that Apple’s Photos app can edit and convert RAW files, so it seemed like the time to give it a shot.
The first (digital only) lesson I learned was… the Vivid and Monochrome settings on my camera do not apply to RAW format. Who knew? I took two pictures of everything, one set to Vivid and one set to Mono, and when I viewed them in the Photos app they were the same. Oh well. So I guess that means I’ve reached the end of that little experiment, though I did convert one of each pair of shots to monochrome just for old time’s sake.
We start in Andover at the spiral fire escape that I really couldn’t stop thinking about.
I think I saw three or four restaurants with outdoor dining. Thanks, Andover. Our health appreciates your efforts.
Andover’s post office is cooler than Methuens.
Park Benches Alert… I tried to get a blurry background but it really didn’t work. I should have been closer.
Jen and I ate at Casa Blanca once, many years ago. I think it was good, but there wasn’t much on the menu that appealed to me. That’s my problem, not theirs.
Look, a thrift shop! Think they have some lenses for me?
Now we move to Lawrence where we learned our second lesson. This gives a hint, but I’ll detail it later.
Say hello to the Merrimack River.
Okay, the second lesson I learned was how to use exposure compensation for reals. Note that when I say I learned something about it, that does not mean I used it well. The pics I got are pretty terrible, but I’m pleased because they did the thing I wanted them to do.
This clock tower is just down the street from the mill buildings with the smoke stacks. I think it’s the New Balance building, but I could be wrong. See how the bright sky makes the clock look pretty dark?
It’s actually not as bad as I expected it to be when I saw the image on my little LCD screen. I set the exposure compensation to -2 (I think… or was it positive two? I think it was negative, but just because I said I learned something doesn’t mean I learned it well… as the next two images will prove), then adjusted my shutter speed to account, and then snapped…
Do you see that? The clock looks lighter now! It did what I hoped it would do! Of course the sky is a horrid, white washed disaster now, but I don’t care! The foreground is lighter! It worked (poorly)! WOOHOO!
So all in all it was a successful morning of camera nerdness. While I was in Andover I also finished off the current roll of film in the Ebay Nikon. I now have two rolls to develop. I’ll send those out this week and see how they come out. The first roll was shot entirely in the Aperture priority mode. I really hope they come out. Fingers crossed. After that I am taking a break from film for a while. I’m thinking of trying to get some cheap black and white film by Thanksgiving. I also still need to score a few more rolls for the Disney trip. Until then though, I am digital only.
I stopped at the river on my way to visit mom today and took a few pictures. I got a few on film and then switched to the same ol’ digital black and white vs vivid mode again. Here’s a few black and whites…
The Loop in Methuen, MA. It’s an outdoor walking mall. I like this spot. There’s usually too many people around for me to feel comfortable with the camera. I was here before anything opened today.
Another couple of looks at the old gate to the Tewksbury State Hospital.
Here’s one that I think I prefer the black and white version.
For the record, you can probably tell this on your own, I am not just taking a color picture and then editing it to black and white. They are both separate pictures of the same thing because I am one thorough nerd, you know?
These are from the Tewksbury State Hospital Cemetery in Tewksbury, MA. All of these graves are nameless. People who weren’t important enough to include their names on the grave markers. It is soul crushingly sad. I used to think this was the saddest place I’d ever been. Now it’s the second saddest place.
It’s also the first time I tried messing with black and white where the color pics are unquestionably better. Oh well. I’m curious how the film will look.
The weight loss clinic is 21 minutes from my house, according to Google Maps.
21 minutes there, a few minutes to drop off the paperwork I need them to fill out and fax to the insurance company, and 21 minutes back. I should be able to do that in less than an hour with ease, right?
I did it in 59 minutes. Not bad, but there was a hiccup I didn’t consider. I would have seen it coming light years away if we were still in the office every day.
It’s Friday… in June… Beach/NH lakes traffic. It was starting to build up on route 495 North at the big interchanges (routes 3 and 93) on my way there. We’re talking about 1:15pm and already there was traffic.
Yup. That’s normal on Fridays in the summer. The traffic heading North is brutal all day long. Fortunately it wasn’t too bad for me this time.
Oh the things you forget about when you’re working from home every day instead of commuting to the office.
Inside the Red Head's Head 