I went out yesterday for a walk, as I am trying to do daily just to get the hell out of the apartment, and brought my camera along thinking that if nothing else I could post pictures of my journey and have something pretty to look at on this post-Cinco de Mayo, post-Lost analysis, Doldrum Thursday. [see also: attempt to write and post something, anything, every day.]
I’d heard of a nifty-sounding public art project called the Myrtle Avenue Bird Town — a collection of birdhouses made with recycled materials hanging from the trees in two different locations on Myrtle Avenue (note to brain: please stop making me type “Myrtal.” What’s wrong with you?) — and thought it would make a good subject for photo taking, but I’m not very happy with the way these pictures came out. They don’t do justice to the work created by local artists Daniel Goers and Jennifer Wong.
Out of 12 photos, this is the only decent one. It was a gorgeous sunny cloudless day but the light wasn’t right or something, no matter how I tinkered with the white balance. Dumb trees with their shade-providing leaf-things. I may go back another day — the exhibit is running through December — and experiment more with framing and zooming, and set the size to something higher than 640×480.
Because the birdhouses are cool. One is a repurposed tea kettle, one was made of mirrors, and one looked like it had once been a circuit board. When I arrived at the Carlton Triangle, it was full of birds I could hear but not see, and their songs muffled all the street noise around me. It was delightful.
Alas, my bad photo mojo carried over to Fort Greene Park, where I wanted to capture these amazing tree blossoms that I’d noticed on my cab ride home the night before. In the dark all I could see were pink and white cones peeping out from giant frond-like leaves, but in the day . . .
Bleh. No amount of iPhoto adjusting made these shots look good. They’re just bad. Bad photos. (Though I do sorta like the way the sunlight is streaming in on the bottom. That was a fluke.)
I fared better with this squirrel.
Look at the scrappy guy, already gathering nuts for next winter. Or maybe for now, since he looks like he could use a sandwich.
I also like this photo of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument
but not as much as I like the one I took with my iPhone, using the Hipstamatic app:
(Goddamn, but I love this app. This photo was taken with the John S lens, using a standard flash and Float film.)
And these irises cheer me up some.
And I’m OK with the badness of the photos I took yesterday, I guess. It’s not what I wanted to show you, but as you know I’m trying to get better about not meeting my own ridiculously high standards. And I’m not a professional photographer, and I’m using a relatively simple point-and-shoot. If nothing else, this should remind me that when I want high-quality photos, I should make damn sure that everything is correctly set up first.
And also maybe I shouldn’t combine walking-as-exercise with photo shooting, because the two are often at odds.
(Note to self: you don’t like this theme. Fix it. Soon. Thx.)
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