Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: lawn

Last St. Patrick's Day was hot-- shorts and tank top weather . Joan and I took in the parade at Grand Ledge, then wandered around downtown--both of us snapping away with our new Nikon 1s. This house is right in GL's heart, overlooking Island Park. The first days with a new camera are about learning the controls. What do you have to do to change the exposure? What does this dial do? What should the standard setup be? How hard are the menus to navigate? What's the best way to hold the camera? On this day, those questions were more important to me than the photographs. The electronic viewfinder, in particular, was proving troublesome. Its delays cost me most of my attempted parade shots. I'd see something worth shooting and move my camera to my face. 3 long seconds later the camera would show me the view--after everyone had moved two steps down the road. I'd eventually learn to turn off the V1's screen and use the EVF exclusively, which removes the wait. Eventually. Not on March 17. I did get some fine pix, though, and learned enough to justify the effort. This photo especially pleases me . ========== I started the day with a baker's dozen 366 Snaps shots. They were uniformly dull. While none were technically bad, they were more documentary than interesting. The Village Hall shot really was my best choice. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . (Well, it would be more accurately described as a photo I took the same day, since it was taken hours after I posted the project shot to Flickr. I'll get back to real outtakes tomorrow.) Number of project photos taken: 13 Title of " roll :" Home and Downtown Other photos taken on 3/17/2012: 240 photographs, mostly in downtown Grand Ledge, using the brand-new Nikon 1. About half were of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

A year ago things froze up for the first time. So the birdbath became my 366 Snaps subject. Later in the day I tried again to photograph the Pine Siskins. These pix were better, but still nothing to publish. Photographing birds really isn't a job for a 50mm lens. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 30 Title of " roll :" Ice on the Birdbath Other photos taken on 10/16/2012: none.

Only took eight 366 Snaps photos a year ago. But the light was great, and the pix were all keepers. My notion was to photograph a combine harvester chewing through a soybean field. That didn't work out--the 50mm's really not the right lens for that job, unless you get lucky--but I did manage the fine photo below. The photo above is from our yard, looking north. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 8 Title of " roll :" Around Roxand Other photos taken on 10/12/2012: none.

Light is your friend, but sometimes he's oddly behaved. A year ago was one of his odder days, and I devoted the 366 Snaps session mainly to documenting that oddity. The leaves pic I posted to 366 Snaps came out nicely, don't you think? ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 21 Title of " roll :" Around the Yard Other photos taken on 9/10/2012: Birds. Mostly baby goldfinches .

This guy's opinion is that he owns the front yard, and I'm an intruder. Little does he know that I planted his tree. Doubt he cares, either. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . 366 Snaps project discussion for May 18 .

This is another view of the farmyard I photographed on November 29 . I don't remember ever seeing a silo knocked on its side quite like this; if they're not deliberately taken down they usually outlast everything else, or rot away from the top. ========== Purchased a shirt at Gander Mountain a year ago, then bought m'self breakfast. On my way home I took Eaton Highway out of Grand Ledge, something I'd not done in years. As I discussed in a comment under the November 29 photo , things had changed since my last venture down this road. Like the Sebewa trip a couple days before, this was a conscious scouting trip. One of the challenges facing a photo-a-day photographer is boredom. Shooting the same subject-- or even the same photo --every day is an option, of course, but most of us grow stale without some variety. I was seeking some new photographs, not just for this day but prospects for other days. I imagine I'll be discussing this right to the end of the year. ========== "We've straightened the creeks and call 'em drains." So I labelled my 366 Snaps photo. This is generally true hereabouts--the local stream's called "The Mulliken Drain"--but I need to confess that the drain in the photo goes by Freyer Creek. I've long wondered who decided to rationalize Eaton County's drainage system, when they did it, and how they funded it. Doubtless he was a county drain commissioner. Mayhap someday I'll check into it. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 17 Title of " roll :" Eaton Highway, mostly Other photos taken on 4/4/2012: Joan called me when she got to work, reporting turkeys courting in a field on Cochran. Then I spent the morning shooting pix of birds in the yard . All in all, over three hundred photos, all with the V1. This time I used the long lens.

Last March was just plain different .... This is the same shed as this photo . Can't say I'm real proud of either pic. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 23 [most were quite bad] Title of " roll :" Around Home Other photos taken on 3/29/2012: none.

Hmmm. Not much to say about the 366 project today.... Some days you know exactly what photograph you want to take. You take that pic, and a few insurance shots, then post the original. Last January 10 was like that. Never left my front yard for this shoot, which consisted of just five photographs. Two of 'em tried to capture the morning sun on the neighbors' mailboxes; they're pretty much identical and are (disappointingly) much better in color than black & white. (The boxes showed up again, very differently , a few days later.) ========== The posted daily shot (it's below) captured the sheds and silos beyond the houses across the street, and was exactly the photo I intended. (There's a problem with that, as Windsor Di pointed out: Since I knew there was a small tree in the foreground, it didn't register as an undifferentiated blob when I looked. Expectations can blind folks to obvious problems. Should have moved and re-composed the shot.) ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 5 Title of " roll :" Potterstreet Other photos taken on 1/10/2012: none.