Winter Fog

Winter Fog, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

We had an excellent fog day earlier this week. Well, excellent for photographic purposes, if not much else (driving, flying, not bumping into things or falling into ditches).

Anyway, I was driving around and saw this stand of trees just off the road. It's a road I've driven down hundreds of times, as it's close to work, and I'd never really paid much attention to the trees and surroundings - mostly it's new buildings tied in to a shopping center and hospital complex. But on a deeply foggy afternoon, they just floated out of the mist. I pulled a sharp Uey and parked illegally just to get this shot - pretty minor in the grand scheme of photographic things.

Buzz

Buzz, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

I don't think I quite got the bee in focus here. Not surprising. It's hard to shoot a camera while flailing madly.

Fresh Snow and Monochrome

Winter Quiet, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

I'm about to institute iPhone Wednesdays around here. I seem to be doing more phoneography than usual. Anyway, this is the Japanese garden at the Fabyan Forest Preserve in Batavia, Illinois. Fresh snow and monochrome!

Cloud Cover

Cloud Cover, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

An Adams-esque view of some clouds. This is another one of those times where you just have to stop and shoot-I'd not seen clouds that dark outside of a thunderstorm. And there's no trickery going on here either, they were genuinely dark, just floating serenely among some much brighter, happier looking friends.

Anyway, if you see it, stop and look. You may not see it again, ever.

Tree

Tree, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Hang around with a certain sort of photog long enough, and you hear about something called a Diana. The Diana camera is a cheap, plastic camera, with a plastic meniscus lens, a leaf shutter, and zone focusing via little icons on the lens barrel. They were originally made in Hong Kong in the sixties, and were usually imported as giveaways for raffles and opening bank accounts, that sort of thing. The are really distinct looking, black plastic with a turquoise top and a shiny lens barrel with DIANA writ large across the front.

Dianas take medium format 120 film, and their lenses have a peculiar, lo-fi effect that's usually called "dreamy" but is sometimes just called "fuzzy" or "not really sharp at all". Between the artifacts and stuff like vignettes and light leaks, Diana cameras have a unique fingerprint.

Anyway, the Diana camera became beloved for it's uniquely flawed prints, and eventually went back into production, in various formats and with different lenses available, just like a real camera. You can even get Diana lenses with adapters for your fancypants DSLR. Which is exactly what I did here, since I haven't got a darkroom and am tired of sending 120 film away and waiting two weeks.

TL;DR, I took this picture of a tree with a cheap plastic lens.

Summertime

A breezy, sunny afternoon in the yard. 'Nuff said.