Day 5

In the evening

The Moon rise. 


The purpose of this shot was to try to get the changing colors of the horizon as well as the rising moon. This was a very easy shot. I used my Nikon D3000 with the 18-55mm lens zoomed in to 42mm. The shutter speed was 1/25 @ F10, ISO 100. 


This isn't a technical shot, nor is it extremely brilliant. However, I couldn't help but feel that there is a uniqueness to the shot. I find it fascinating how the shot focuses on two objects with hundreds of thousands of miles between them.


It's photos like this that makes me wish I had a telephoto lens. I would have liked to have had the tree slightly out of focus with the moon behind the tree in sharp focus. I could get closer to the moon but if I zoomed in any further the colors of the horizon wouldn't show as well.


I promise that every photo won't be of celestial objects! I want to show pictures that give an emotional response, to me at least. I believe that a photographer shouldn't just try to take pictures  that they anticipate many viewers will connect with. It seems fake to me. I believe you can only do what is meaningful to you and hope that it resonates with others.

Day 4

The North Star

Icy. Cold. Space


The idea for this shot was to take a star trail photo and hopefully capture a nice, bright meteorite from the Quadrantids that came through last night. Unfortantely I was unable to capture a shooting star but I did capture short star trails, swirling around Polaris.

As usual, I used my Nikon D3000 with 18-55mm kit lens, zoomed out to 18mm. Unlike my other photos thusfar, I didn't use any lens filters. The shot was trigged remotely with my ML-L3 remote shutter release in order to avoid introducing any camera shake. The shutter was open for a little over 15 minutes; officially it was 924.6 seconds @ F8. I kept the ISO at 100 due to more than distracting noise that occurred when I used anything higher than 100.

This was by far my most "involved" shot. Primarily, I wanted to view the meteor shower, but that soon became less important as I had a tough time getting the star trail shot I wanted for this post. It was 24 degrees at the time and I had already been outside for about an hour. Luckily, I have a +15 degree Marmot sleeping bag and it kept me nice and warm through the night. Without the shutter remote and my sleeping bag, this photo would never have happened! I was hoping to get more shots but keeping the shutter open for 10+ minutes is a real battery killer. I do hope to do more astrophotography in the future and so I now know that I will need a few extra batteries.

This shot in particular wasn't my first choice, to be honest. I had hoped to see much longer star trails, but by the time I dialed in the angle and avoided the annoying street lights, my battery was in its death throws. That's not to say that I don't like this photo. I'm very pleased to have captured the North Star with all of the other stars seemingly rotating around it. I did try to get the shot I was hoping for tonight, which is why I'm so late in posting this, but the moon is just over 1/2 full and would be too high in the sky to be able to capture as many stars as I had in this photo. So even though I settled, the shot is still an good memory of the experience of sitting out in the cool winter air and viewing some amazing meteorites.

Stargazing can be a very rewarding way to relax, so long as you are nice and warm! The meteor shower was short but entertaining. The quiet night air really gave me a chance to relect on things and to appreciate on just how small we really are in the universe. I hope every one gets the same chance.

Day 3

My morning coffee

Good morning, gradient!

This picture was taken with my Nikon D3000 with the 18-55mm lens and a 4x closeup lens. The purpose of this shot was to show the gradient that developed after I poured milk into my morning coffee. I had an issue while shooting this that I wasn't able to overcome, though, I would later figure out how I could have fixed the problem. The kitchen window was giving me an excellent source of natural light as it faces slightly southeast. However, there is an obvious and distracting glare on the glass. I tried angling the glass this way and that, standing in front of the window and triggering the shot remotely, and even trying to use white t-shirt to diffuse the light. None of this seemed to work very well. By this time, the milk was already settled in the glass and the mixture wasn't as graduated. 

I shot this at 1/4th of a second at F4.5. I wanted to blur out the background slightly more than this aperture was giving me so that's why I attached the 4x closeup lens. I'm finding that the decreased focal length caused by the closeup lenses can come in handy. The lens was set at 18mm in order to get the vignetting from the 4x lens. 

There are many things that I don't like about this shot but they just weren't enough to dissuade me from using this particular photo. I was very interested in the usual gradient and loved the effect it had on (digital) film. I did try to recreate this shot later in the day when I realized I could have eliminated the glare by using a piece of white printer paper, but I just couldn't recreate the very distinct gradient. 

Although the major glare from the kitchen window kept the photo from being really great, I just couldn't pass up this unique shot. I'm a little irritated with myself that I couldn't have thought of a way to fix it before the milk settled but, hey, I hadn't had my coffee yet!

Day 2

MSR Pocket Rocket camp stove

Macro Monday!


The goal of this shot was to get a unique shot of my camp stove out in natural sunlight. I'm using my Nikon D3000 and 18-55mm lens with an additional 10x closeup lens. This was shot in manual mode, 1/125 shutter speed @ F8, ISO 100. This shot was not very technical. I just positioned the stove, then positioned the camera below and angled up in order to use the tree in the background as a dark backdrop. I tried using the bright blue sky but I found that there was not nearly enough contrast in the shot. After I repositioned the stove, and used the tree as the backdrop, I was rewarded with a great new angle of light that brought out these beautiful colors in the metal.


This shot is very interesting to me. The swooping angles of the stove head mixed with the vibrant colors of the metal creates the illusion of dripping paint. It's almost as if you can imagine lighting the stove and heating the metal to the point that it melts and drips to the ground. The bright colors contrast with the dull metal in a very captivating way. This juxtaposition is set in focus just left of center and draws the eye to it, but the composition is completed by the negative space, right of center, that creates a mirror of the stove head.


I am fairly happy with this shot in both its composition as well as its technical execution. The photo, if blown up, will show that the letters are actually not in sharp focus. I do not have the correct equipment to do professional level macro photography. The closeup lenses are a fun way to get closer to the subject and bring out some great detail. However, I will need more specialized equipment to fully explore the macro world. I doubt that I will have the capital to invest in a dedicated macro lens, but I hope that I can soon invest in a good set of extension tubes. Despite my lack of a dedicated macro setup, I am fairly pleased with this shot and believe that it is worthy of the Day 2 post.


Macro Monday! I thought that it was a pretty catchy phrase. I do believe that I will dedicate Mondays to macro photography from here on out. Too bad I don't have a telephoto lens for Telephoto Tuesdays! Wide Angle Wednesdays? I got nothing for Thursday and Friday...

Day 1

This is my daughter Maddy, and she's rollin' into the new year in style!

Happy New Year!


My goal with this shot was to blur out the background while keeping my beautiful daughter and her sweet ride in focus to give the illusion that she had the pedal to the metal! I might have had less trouble getting this shot had I done a little research but I like to experiment on my own. I feel as though I learn things better this way. I had experimented with a shot similar to this the day before with decent results and so I knew going into it I was going to need a fairly slow shutter speed.


 I started off at 1/20 (I forget what I set the aperture to). The shot was lit properly but I didn't get as much blurring of the background as I had wished. I found that going any slower than this introduced too much light, even with my aperture set to F36. I was a little perplexed at what to try next. Fortunately I remembered that I had a neutral density filter (0.9) sitting very lonely in my gear bag. I promptly screwed that on and went to work.


It took a little experimenting with the shutter speed and aperture but I finally settled on 1/6th of second @ F22. I had my 18-55mm lens set at 40mm. It wasn't until writing this info down tonight that I realized I had the ISO set at 100. I'm thinking I should have set it just a little higher but I don't believe it affected the shot too much. I could be wrong, though.


I knew from the very beginning that I wanted my daughter to be the main subject in my first photo of this blog. She is an amazing inspiration to me and every time I see her I want to just start snapping photos! Sometimes I wish I had a camera in my glasses and I could just record every moment of her life. I imagine these fleeting moments are what makes life so special.


This photo is very much bittersweet. On one hand I love seeing her growing up and explore the world. On the other hand, this photo reminds me just how much she is growing up. Normally I will walk around with her while she is "driving" and make sure she doesn't run into anything or drive out into the road. I'm right by her side to keep her safe. I do know that one day, too soon, she will be driving a real car and I won't be able to be right next to her to make sure she's safe. It's a slightly terrifying thought, but I know we all grow up and have to leave the nest. For now, though, I'm going to hold my little girl as close as I can.

New Year's Resolution

Welcome to Snap 365! My name is Jonathan and this is my New Year's resolution: take at least one photo every day for an entire year. I believe that by resolving to do this, my photography will improve and I should see a noticeable change from Day 1 to Day 365. If I don't see an improvement over a period of one year then... oh well! It should be fun anyway!

I am relatively new to photography, having only devoted a small amount of time doing anything more than pointing and clicking. I hope that over the period of these 365 days I will start to develop a real style in my work, which I hope the readers of this blog will be able to recognize. Though the main goal of this project is to complete it (I have never completed any New Year's resolution), I believe in time that will actually become a secondary or even a tertiary goal. Ideally, the need to improve and the need to develop a recognizable style will become my primary and secondary goals. Whatever my priorities, keeping it fun has to be at the top. If I don't enjoy it, then really, what's the point?

As I just mentioned I am new to photography, but I do have a predetermined philosophy: photography is photography and digital art is digital art. I believe there is a certain point where a photo can become overly processed and it transforms into digital art. I am here for photography, not digital art. As an artist of a few other mediums (including digital art), I believe that you should trust the tools you have to get the job done. My camera is a tool just like a paintbrush or pencil. If I can't get the job done, for the most part, with my camera then I scrap the shot. I do not believe in spending hours and hours processing a photo. Although I have no problem with photographers that do spend more time processing than shooting, personally, I would like to keep things as organic as possible.

Accompanying each photo in the blog will be a technical summary of how I achieved the shot as well as some personal thoughts of the experience. Photos can bring out strong emotions and ideas and I do plan on sharing my views with each photo. I will be keeping the outline of each blog consistent, so if you just want to see the photo and technical data, then the first half of the blog will be important to you. Likewise, if you care more about my views and experience in taking the photo, then feel free to skip the first paragraph or two to get to the "good stuff".

January 1, 2012, is in two more days, so I have a little bit of planning to do and work to complete on the blog, but my next post will be my first photo so please remember to check back! I do hope that everyone who reads this blog enjoys it and follows it throughout its entirety. Please feel free to comment, critique (politely), and share with anyone whom you believe may enjoy it. Your advice and questions are always welcome. You can leave them in the comments section or you can email me directly at jphoto365@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!