The Pre-Birthday Catch-up!

Dear Diary,

     Its been a while since I’ve last written to you…. I’m so sorry for waiting this long but life has just been a little crazy lately! hahahaha It looks like I’ve missed almost two full weeks of updates if not more, but not too worry, I surely never stopped shooting. I’ve gotten in a shot every single day except for one and, well, I kinda had a pretty decent excuse for that one! 😉 So lets jump right in, and since it’s a catch up post… I won’t do every single shot from the past 2 and half weeks, just the highlights. For the full set of all the shots, you’ll have to jump over to the gallery.

     Well start off with a bang this time and go out-of-order, since how I got here didn’t create nearly as nice a set of shots as after I was already in trouble. So for those of you who haven’t heard already, I had a liiiiiiiiiittle trouble with the law regarding my car and wound up having to take the metro for about a week or so. Granted it was a major pain in the ass, and i LOVE driving, but it did result in some really awesome shots. The DC Metro is probably was of the nicest, most architecturally interesting public transit systems in the US. Check it out:

     This first shot was after walking back from the tow yard in Southwest, DC…. it’s in the Waterfront Metro Station. First it was cropped in Snapseed, saved and pulled into PhotoSplash to the color highlight, the back into Snapseed for the tilt-shift to draw additional focus to the platform edge and tunnel entrance. Honestly, there isn’t much you have to do with shots of these metro stations. They’re pretty damn neat lookin’ on their own.

For public transportation the #DCMetro is pretty neat lookin!
For public transportation the #DCMetro is pretty neat lookin!

     The next shot from the metro is on my way back from returning a rental car on M. St. in DC. This is the Farragut North metro station. Again the shot was pulled in to PhotoSplash to have the color highlight on the metro schedule sign and nothing else was done. It was cropped and posted as is from there:

"Are ya gonna go my way!?" Nope.
“Are ya gonna go my way!?” Nope.

     Last from the “Underground Metro Series” of this particular week we have a shot from the Ballston metro station while I was waiting to head home from work one day. Pretty simple, just lined it up and shot from across the platform. This shot was really more about lining up the ceiling in the shot than any real editing. I was able to get it pretty close just from standing on the platform, but before cropping in Snapseed I did still have to use the “Straighten” tool to get everything to work out properly. Then it was cropped, a slight elliptical tilt-shift and pulled the saturation down to zero for the black and white effect.

Commuting these last few days sure has been pretty! #dcmetro #dc
Commuting these last few days sure has been pretty! #dcmetro #dc

     Finally I had to get myself above ground and unwind a little bit. So last Saturday night a friend of mine got us tickets to see Jim Gaffigan at the Warner Theatre taping for his new special. HILARIOUS!!! As I was walking up I took a quick minute to snap a shot that turned out to be a little harder to get than I had originally thought. The camera app on the iPhone 4s just didn’t have the HDR range to get the whole thing in. So I had to use a new app I downloaded a few weeks ago and have playing with a bit: Pro-HDR. I was able to get it by using Pro-HDR in manual mode and using the “WARNER THEATRE” sign up top as one focal point, the the light up “JIM GAFFIGAN” sign as the other. Pro-HDR set the right white-balance and exposure for both light ranges, took 2 shots and combined them for me. From there, I pulled it into Snapseed for cropping, upped the contract a bit and again used the tilt-shift to pull focus into the sign and away from the overly busy lower crowd portion of the image.

Jim Gaffigan DVD taping.... Hell yes!!!
Jim Gaffigan DVD taping…. Hell yes!!!

     After a night like that, what better way to continue the relaxation through Sunday Funday than lounging around all evening and watching the Oscars while eating solid Chinese food!! I was a little distracted at the time and needed a quick shot here to make my photo-a-day quota, so extreme close-ups with an iPhone usually come out pretty decent. I didn’t have to do much, took the shot, upped the sharpness and ambiance in Snapseed a bit, cropped, applied the frame and posted!

Sunday afternoon catching up on movies for the #Oscars tonight!!
Sunday afternoon catching up on movies for the #Oscars tonight!!

     Last for this post, I’ll put up a little preview of things to come. At the end of March I’ll be traveling to Houston, TX for a friend’s wedding… so I’m sure they’ll be TONS of pictures from that and probably a special post to go along with it. For this shot I purposefully shot it with low light in my living room on a dark bridge table, nice and close with the invitation angled away so the depth of field you’re seeing is actually not my typical use of the tilt-shift filter in Snapseed, but here its the actual real depth-of-field from the iPhone 4s camera itself. Basically I just tool the shot, pulled it into Snapseed and applied the Dramatic filter, upped the saturation to give it that nice deep textured warm tone, applied the framed after cropping and that was it.

I mean.... Who doesn't love weddings!? #hangoverpart3
I mean…. Who doesn’t love weddings!? #hangoverpart3

     As always, I hope you enjoy the shots as much as I enjoy walking around taking them. I love the comments on Facebook twitter and the blog, keep them coming! Almost exactly 2 months into my Project i365 and I still 100% absolutely LOVE doing it!! As for the title of the post…. yes, it is my birthday this coming weekend, so I’ll try to special birthday shots to mark the occasion! 🙂

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