From an Objects Point of View

5/52 - Reaching for a Cold One, a photo by Wayne-K on Flickr.

The theme for my Project 52 this week is "from an objects point of view." I had a number of ideas for this theme, like an ant getting stepped on, a bowl looking up at a cereal box with cereal being poured into it, or dishes in the sink seeing water from the faucet descending upon it (the last two ideas would have required Saran Wrap on the camera, obviously). Unfortunately, all of these required a super wide-angle lens for the cool perspective I was going after…and my brother has my 12-24mm f/4 lens on semi-permanent loan. I decided to use my manual focus, 24mm f/2.8 AI-S lens (it actually balances on Tupperware containers in the refrigerator much better than the longer, heavier zoom lens). The 24mm offers the equivalent angle of view of a 35mm when used on my Nikon D80 (APS-C sensor). It’s not super wide (like when used on a film camera), but wide enough to provide context. Since the theme was “from an objects point of view,” I wanted to make sure the top and sides of the refrigerator were in the frame, so the viewer would know it was me reaching into a refrigerator. Without context, the viewer may have thought it was a photo of me reaching to choke someone’s neck…definitely not the intent of the photo, although sometimes desirable, especially in the office.

The lighting was tricky because the inside of the refrigerator was lit with an incandescent bulb and the kitchen was lit with CFL bulbs from the ceiling and natural light from the window in the background. Adjusting the white balance for the warm incandescent light would have turned the light from the window blue. Setting the white balance for the window would have turned the light from the refrigerator orange. Rather than deal with the white balance science project in post-processing, I decided before I snapped the photo that this would be a B&W. That’s the beauty of B&W, funky colors and white balance challenges magically disappear!

I’m five weeks into my 52 week project and I’m having fun. I enjoy the themes and how they force me to dig deep into the creativity cookie jar. It’s also forcing me to use my DSLR. After a year of shooting film, finding my way through the DSLR’s menu system and settings have become a bit more of a challenge.

Okay, now that I've gotten the digital photo out of the way this week, here are a few film photos from my walk around Pleasanton.