Day 12: Lines and Balls and Balls In a Line

Good evening (day, night, morning, weekend, whatever time period you're celebrating when you read this). Another day at work today means another day of thrilling pictures. Or rather, another day of getting creative with what constitutes a picture. This is the end of the introduction for today.

This first photo was taken in the back of the store, or what we in the biz refer to as The Kitchen Store. It's full of wire-rack shelves with plexiglass for kitchen gadgets to rest on. That's what this is a photo of. I did my best to guesstimate (haha, good rhyme) what the focus and zoom should be, then held it under one of the shelves and pointed up. This is actually the first photo that I took this way, and oddly enough it's also the best one. The rest didn't come out nearly as good; they all felt less abstract and more just photos of some wire shelves.

1/40 sec. exposure at F/5. ISO 400.
Click image for larger version.

I shot in RAW today (yes, I know. I said yesterday that I was going to stop that, but I wasn't entirely thrilled with how the images came out yesterday, so I figured I could shoot in RAW and if something needs tweaked I can choose to do so, but will try and leave things alone for the most part). The only thing that I changed in Aperture was a little White Balance (altered the "Temperature") and a slight change under Curves. Other than that, this is pretty much how it came out. Kind of cool, I guess.

Today's second photograph comes to us courtesy of our little hamster friend's grooming room (see Day 3's  post). I took the little mirror that we have and set it down on the counter. I took a couple of other photos with it of light fixtures/the ceiling, things of that nature, but then I swung around to the other end of the counter to try and get the giant, colored ornaments that we have hanging from the ceiling as decoration into the mirror shot. Well, as it turns out, when you look at this mirror from a certain angle, it actually makes the view distorted like so:

1/5 sec. exposure at F/6.3. ISO 400.
Click image for larger version.

I am going to try and take this shot again the next time I'm at work using a tripod. I think it would have been a much cooler shot if the edges of the mirror were less blurred (it was hard to hold the camera still with the angle I was shooting at). I got one to come out with a sharper mirror, but the colored balls didn't look as good. But it reminded me of when they put down a black circle in cartoons and it makes an instant hole to fall into.

Anyway, kind of cool I think. I don't know if all mirrors would do this, or if it's just this one because it's cheap. Either way, I do enjoy reflective photography. You can take the same types of photos, but doing it through a mirror always seems to make it a smidge better. Agreed?

Well, the roomie just put on Family Guy's "It's a Trap", which I've already watched, but want to watch again because it makes me chuckle. Seriously, this one made me look at Ewoks completely differently. Those are actually some really crazy little dudes. Ok. May the Force be with you. Always.