The indoor clothesline

WHAT
This shot was taken in my lounge room and is a close up view of the pegs and washing on the clothes rack we've been forced to set up in an attempt to dry the ever- increasing piles of washing.

This shot was day 8 of my 365 project (see link at the top of this blog for more info)


WHY
The immense ammount of rain we've had lately is still heavily making its impact felt on my life - it's nearly impossible to get any clothes dry!

Originally I had intended to use a photograph of my friends and their baby who were coming over to visit that night as my shot of the day. But when I walked past this now common-place sight in my lounge, the bright multi-coloured pegs were just begging me to photograph them.

I figured it was a fitting shot for my 365 photo as it told some more of the story of my life lately :) ie. a frustrated woman with limited clean underwear remaining!


HOW
I used a large aperture (f/4.5 - as low as my lens would go) in order to get a shallow depth of field. I focused on the yellow peg right of centre. Shot on a tripod in aperture priority mode, with a 1.0s shutter, ISO 250.

POST PRODUCTION
I played with it a bit in photoshop to get the grainy/slightly 'hipstamatic' look :) (increased black point, upped the exposure level, reduced contrast, increased clarity, increased highlights then added a noise filter to get the grainy look.)

365 Project update

So far so good with the 365 Project! I've only missed one day (January 3rd) and my excuse is that I hadn't decided to do the project until the 4th of Jan and alas, I hadn't taken a photo on the 3rd.

(To see the progress thus far, click the link at the top of the blog page entitled "365 Project-A photo a day")

I've decided that I'm going to try and either make each photo like a little story of what a particular day entailed for me, or what was the most interesting/significant/annoying thing I experienced about that day.

For example on day 7, it rained extremely heavily for about an hour this morning causing flash flooding across the city. But in the afternoon, the sun came out. I was therefore able to take my dog walking for the first time in days. Therefore the photo for January 7 shows my dog, Nelson, on our walk looking at a flooded creek near my house.

I used a shallow depth of field (5/f) to make Nelson the main focus of this image, resulting in the slightly blurred bridge/water. I shot in Aperture priority mode which resulted in the camera selecting a shutter speed of 1/500s. ISO was 200.

Because it was quite dull, the sky unfortunately isn't all that interesting and the brown muddy water is a bit yuck too. But, the whole point of this photo wasn't to take a landscape masterpiece, it was to document my day.

In photoshop, I increased the clarity, black point and upped the luminance/saturation of the red lead/collar to make it stand out and bring a splash of colour.

After publishing today's shot, I've also learnt that I will have to keep in mind the previous photos I've taken in this project - it's only day 7 and already I've included two of Nelson! I don't want one particular person/animal/type of shot to dominate my project. I realise there will be some recurring themes throughout the year but I will try and mix it up.