I think I know why I am always surprised by the junk that shows up in my photos. I don’t have ADHD (I don’t quite fit all the criteria), yet I tend to see the world the way they often do: Either I notice all the details, or I don’t notice them (or at least not the ones other people notice) at all. I’m probably just your garden variety scatter-brained, but this tendency to latch onto to the stuff nobody else does, while missing some pretty glaringly obvious things, is something I’ve always done. I’ve become far more aware of it in later years because I finally figured out that it influences how I do housework. Or rather how I don’t.
Today it is sunny, breezy and a balmy 10 Celsius (that’s an even 50 Fahrenheit) so off with the long johns and on with the sneakers and out with the Powershot S2, which has basically been in hibernation all winter, not being a camera I can easily hide under my coat to keep dry between snapping pictures. So the camera and I took a slow walk around Ortuvann, looking for something different to point and shoot at.
Some of the photos I thought would be wonderful, weren’t. One had a distracting limb in the foreground (I was so focused on framing and focusing I never saw it), another had a bright blue house showing between the branches of the tree I wanted in the foreground I discovered once I downloaded the picture at home. I may be able to photoshop that out. And I need to learn how to focus. I am so tired of taking pictures like this:
And they were some really pretty cherry buds, too. I’d also like to do things like blurry foreground and background with focus on the middle range. (Could somebody tell me where I stashed the manual to my camera? Thanks.) On the other hand, I did manage to get some other pictures that turned out well using my usual method of just zooming in. These pictures have texture if not depth, and I’m actually quite happy with them. So enjoy a tree silhouette, a smorgasbord of moss, lichen and fungus on a dead tree, and the typical peeling behavior of birch bark.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
A Roll in the Universe 
6 replies on “I think I’ve discovered something”
Problemet med fokus på bakgrunnen i stedet for det egentlige motivet helt foran – kan det komme av at du står for nærme? Med mitt EOS400D kan jeg ikke være nærmere enn 28 cm (tror jeg), uten at jeg har en makro-linse, da. Og det har jeg ikke. Har hørt rykter om at det blir ganske dyrt om man vil ha sånn linse.Derimot, på mitt noe mindre Olympus kompaktkamera har jeg en nærgrense på 1-2 cm i makromodus. Litt morsommere det…!I det store og hele – det er en del ekstra muligheter med speilrefleks, men hittil har jeg hatt den morsomste fotograferingen med kompakt. Men så er kompaktkameraet mitt ett av de bedre også.
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I love the mossy lichen/fungus tree trunk picture. Very very nice!I think the problem is knowing what your autofocus is choosing to focus on. Lots of cameras allow you to focus on something, 1/2 click the shutter button, then re-frame your pic and take the picture with the proper focus. Not sure if your camera does that…Sravana
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Hei, Hanne! Jeg sliter faktisk med nærbilder der jeg står fra 0,5-3 meter ifra. S2-en har samme nærgrense i makromodus som Olympusen din, men jeg har glemt hvordan jeg bruker det. Jeg bare må finne manualen! Eller kanskje et nettsted for S2-brukere.Thanks, Sravana! I discovered that there was more going on than the obvious fungus and moss after I downloaded the picture. I wonder how many species are growing there?My camera\’s supposed to let me choose my focus, but it still does a few things I don\’t understand. I\’ll admit that I learned how to point and shoot with it, use a few of the pre-installed settings and that has served me well for most things. But there\’s more the camera (and its user) can do and now I want to pick up where I left off in the manual and learn that.
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I love moss. I once read a sci-fi book set on a Moss Planet, where all the life forms were mosses or lichens. They even had intelligence. But our plain old Earth moss is beautiful enough for me.
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Those unexpectedly bad shots are why I have 10,000 monkeys… I have to take a lot of pictures to get a few good ones! 😉
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Spark, I\’ve seen some boulders that had been left in one place for so long they were completely covered in multi-colored lichen. It\’s both subtle and beautiful.Alice, that\’s a typical photographer for ya (and finally I now know what what the 10K really is). 🙂 Let\’s hear it for digital which makes those monkeys affordable!
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