I’m writing this post on December 23, 2024 near Boston Harbor. It’s … very cold today. Like, 11 degrees Fahrenheit cold. And at 8:20 AM EST, as I write this, it’s much warmer than when I was out snapping photos of the sunrise.
I took around 125 photos this morning, and from just about 6:56 AM to 7:20 AM. I’m happy I went out, but my lesson learned is I need to prepare adequately for all phases of the game.
Mostly, I got the shots I intended, but I had to cut my session short. Despite heavy gloves, I lost the feeling in my right thumb, index and middle fingers, and began to lose sensation in my left hand when that started compensating for the loss of my right side. Partly, I think what did me in was working with an aluminum tripod and carrying it with the camera attached to various locations along the harbor. I remember from my manual labor days working with metal can sap the heat from your body, but moreso, I think I just failed to take the temperature into account to my field workflow. I have heavier gloves, and can buy photography gloves, but I used some regular old 2021 Costco winter gloves that are fine if you’re commuting, but not fine if you’re, say, skiing.
So I probably cost myself 15 minutes there, just due to a lack of planning. I also lost time due to the TYPE of gloves I had. Some activities were more difficult – removing the lens cap, (dropping the lens cap), focusing on a single point, and manipulating the tripod ball head.
At the end of the photo walk, a little sparrow came up to me as I closed my bag up on a nearby park bench. He stayed long enough for me to unpack and snap a few close-up photos, and I think I can consider those my first wildlife shots of this project. Mr. Sparrow stayed through my final re-packing, and we both flew back home. I’m glad I got those shots, and I hope we’re both equally warm.
A couple other observations, now that my hands and brain are a little warmer.
- Weather is important, and preparing adequately is important, obviously. But not so obviously:
- Weather and clothing impact ergonomics. My gloves caused me to drop my lens cap once in the snow, right after these bird photos were taken. So I packed my camera one last time with the lens open in the bag (it was fine, my bag is clean, the lining is super soft), and as I jogged home, I didn’t remember if I packed the cap or not because I had left it on the top of my backpack, in order to keep the bag pristine. I ended up having it in my pocket, but this is what I mean about adequate prep. I ended the shoot in a hurry because my shooting hand was losing feeling.
- I need to really understand my tripod inside and out. For example, there is a point past which the panning head disconnects. Is it clockwise, or counter-clockwise? What types of movements induce the thread becoming undone? Need to get a handle on that before an emergency happens. And, as a newbie, I need to know if all similar tripods have the same behavior or if this is a design shortcoming of just mine. I also struggled initially with the quick connect and L bracket.
- Pre-planning your vantage points matters, especially with subjects in motion. Today, I just wanted to catch blue- and golden-hour shots of the harbor, some docks, and Logan in the distance. But I forgot that there were commuter boats, and tankers, and some of them caught the light really nicely today. One tanker is stationary for now, so I should have recalled that. I ended up moving spots a few times. Moreover, in this location, some of the docks have really tall wooden posts, and man oh man do they get in the way of a good shot. Composition here is not easy, and it is easier in other places, so mental note for next time.
- Camera, lens, menus. I know in time I’ll understand this Nikon better, but I think I need to study up on Autofocus and the different types of focus available for this system. I lost a few shots of a plane overhead because the camera refused to release the shutter due to focus issues. No huge deal, I just have to understand that for next time.
- A couple design-related thoughts:
- WordPress: Can I tag things in this site’s posts, so I can recall that specific thing later, easily? For example, in 6 months I want to review these types of thoughts and make sure I addressed a goal or concern. There’ll be a lot of these!
- Posting and images: How do I design my photo workflow, not for post processing, but for easy recall, like in the sparrow photos. These aren’t fine art, and more just contextual, so I want to make sure if I want to add photos to a story to give it life, I can get to them quickly and repeatably. Also image storage – Flickr? How to I post groups of photos and identify them easily, so as to associate them with a post or a particular photo walk or practice scheme. I think that organization will come in time, as this content matures.
- Workflow and storage:
- What’s the best way to name files?
- Can I keep a tally on certain statistics effectively?
- For now, I’m taking JPEGs and RAW side-by-side, named the same, but is there an optimal choice here? For example, if I find out how the JPEGs are being processed in-camera, does that mean I can just take RAWs, and if I want a ‘Nikon jpg’ an I save a preset somewhere and batch process a session’s photos to derive those JPEGs?
- How do I name sessions, folders, where do I store photos, and how do I back them up reliably, predictably?
- What’s my criteria for photo deletion? If I take 100k photos in 2025, I can’t keep all of them. But I’d like to be able to generate a pie chart of percentages that say Keep, Discard, Archive, Display, or say, Sold, Printed, etc.
- I don’t want to use excel, but I will if I have to. Sigh.
- Lastly, let’s go back to ‘time.’
- Today’s photo walk, commute time, and website-related work took about 2.25 hours. There was no image editing, no formal workflow, no process that I mapped out, so I have to get to thinking about that. And I have to formalize where I store my photos, how I name them, etc.
- Once that plan, and curriculum, is developed, I need to time block accordingly because I have other things in my life, too.
Ok that’s all for today!