Frame-A-Day: Bibi

12. Bibi, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

Bibi used to work at the same studio as I do until she moved on to greener pastures in fall 2010. It was a real treat to be able to get together with her and catch up last month.

Bibi's photostream

Frame-A-Day: Mercury

11. Mercury, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

Ah, the Saint Louis Science Center, "playground for your head." It's a pretty nifty place- but it is sorely lacking in dinosaurs especially compared to museums such as the Field Museum in Chicago or the American Natural History Museum in New York City.

Saint Louis Science Center

Frame-A-Day 10: Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas., originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

Stage one is becoming open to the possibilities of interesting photographic subjects that surround us in everyday life. You need to learn to see what's there all the time in front of you.

That's the easy part,

Stage two is being able to translate that quality which catches your attention into a compelling image. I'm still working on that one.

Frame-A-Day 9: The Awakening

9. The Awakening, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

For the most part, the photos I take for the project will be snapshots made during my normal day-to-day activities. But every now and again, I like to go out of my way to shoot something specifically for my frame.

Case in point: The Awakening, by J. Seward Johnson. 70 feet long, 17 feet high, it really is a massive piece of outdoor art (although the Chesterfield casting is slightly smaller than the one located in Maryland near Washington D.C.)

 J. Seward Johnson's website 

Frame-A-Day 8: Family Get-Together

8. Family Get-Together, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

My family will use any excuse to gather to eat and drink and be merry. Anything from the Super Bowl (regardless of who's playing) to a new couch becomes reason to celebrate together. In particular case, it's a three-way birthday celebration for my dad, sister-in-law and myself.

Technically, the focus is a bit off- I focused to far forward and didn't have enough depth-of-field to reach all the way to the back of the table. This is a result from being a 'ninja' shot- most of my siblings are notoriously camera-shy and it's hard to get them in a picture when they're aware. So, popping out from around a corner, focusing the ae-1 correctly, and getting the shot off without alerting anyone is a feat I have yet to master.

Frame-A-Day: Carving the Turkey

7. Carving the Turkey, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

Back to the 24mm lens!

Frame-A-Day #6: Headlight

6. Headlight, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

Remember how I had said that I would take one picture a day, every day for this project? Well I broke that rule rather early. There have been days I didn't take any pictures, and days I took several. I think it all balances out in the end, and I am trying to tighten my discipline up a bit more.

The other thing worth noting about this image is that I did not shoot it with the 24mm lens. Rather I used my 100mm lens- the better for getting in tight and picking out the detail.

Frame-A-Day: Scavenger Hunt

5. Scavenger Hunt, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

I mentioned the detailed dioramas at the Botanical Garden's train display yesterday. They also hand out a checklist to kids who then can try to find the various items tucked away throughout the exhibit. One of the items was an ostrich, which as everyone knows, is native to the Appalachian region of the United States.

Frame-A-Day: Christmas Train

4. Christmas Train, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

The Missouri Botanical Gardens puts up a huge display of model train sets every year for the holiday season. It's fantastic- a large room with around a half-dozen extraordinarily detailed dioramas, each with one or two model trains chugging around them.

Their "Gardenland Express" displays run through Jan 2.. It tends to get really crowded as Christmas approaches.

http://www.mobot.org/

Frame-A-Day Tech Notes

Readng to Grandpa, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

I've got a Canon AE-1, loaded with Kodak Tri-X film and equipped with a 24mm lens set aside for this project.

Tri-X is normally rated at ISO 400, but after reading about how far that film can be pushed, I thought I'd give it a whirl myself. So, I'm rating it at 3200 (that's 3 stops underexposed).

I'm developing it in Rodinal, diluted to 1:100, using semi-stand development; that is, pouring the developer into the tank and letting the film sit there for 120 minutes (that's the 'stand' part). I do slowly invert the tank once every 30 minutes, otherwise I tend to get uneven development across the negative (the 'semi-' part).

The negatives come out of the soup looking rather thin, but my scanner can pull a surprising amount of detail out of them.

New Project: Frame-A-Day

11-17-10 Coffee!, originally uploaded by jeffrey_knight.

I've always felt the middle of November was a perfect time of year to start things, so I've started a new project. Basically the idea is that, using one camera and one lens and one type of film, I would photograph one, and only one, photograph each day for as long as I can stand it (typically these sorts of things are also known as 365 projects, because they're supposed to last a full year).

In addition to shooting the photos, I would also, quite naturally, post them online as they were developed and scanned, and then blog about them.

Now, that was my intention. What actually has happened so far has proven a little different.

As it turns out, I'm terrible at both the 'take a photo every day' and the 'only take one photo' aspects of the project. I'm still trying to get my rhythm down as well as developing the discipline needed to make sure I take at least one picture every day.

But projects like this are all about challenging oneself, right?