Dedicated photo time is a rare and beautiful thing in my busy life. As it turned out I got lucky Saturday and got some time behind the viewfinder. I had to take my car in for some warranty service, expecting it to take 20-30 minutes I really didn't think about taking any camera stuff along until I was running out the door and grabbed my older camera body with the lens that was on it. My 200mm f2.5 prime lens. This is not what I usually would take with me for a walkabout. The field of view is narrow, it only focuses down to 5 feet and you have to be careful with the light because you can get some pretty bad Chromatic Aberration at the larger apertures. But it is what I had, and ya dance with who ya brung.
This was right across from the dealership, a warm up shot as it were. There is a different discipline to shooting manual focus, especially with a prime. You have to try to "See" the focal length you are shooting. This is hard with a telephoto lens, your eye doesn't see that way naturally.
I almost deleted this one, I wasn't enamored of the depth of focus, I shot at f4 of 5.6 when I should have been at f11...ish... I kept it because it conveys the cluttery setting of that part of State Street. It is a street of contrasts, parts are very nice and almost ritzy and others are, um, less so.
This is purely about texture, shot from across the street, if I had my 24mm on, this shot would not have been anywhere near the same no matter how close I got.
I'm not sure why these windows were filled in, I would love to have seen the building when they were there.
I have wanted to shoot this painted wall for YEARS! The juxtaposition of the differing ages and styles of buildings was icing on the cake.
The further I walked, the more I saw that "fit" the lens. It is different to see in telephoto, when your eye naturally sees in wider angle. This is why I like to shoot primes, it forces me to look more closely. And the more closely I looked the more I saw. The little bits and pieces that together make the stuff around us, isolated and beautiful in their isolation.
On a Saturday? REALLY? Don't want anybody washing my windows on a Sat. A.M. when I am sitting around in my jammies...
This shot is why I LOVE the rendering of this lens, viewed full size, it is crisp and the textures of the statue just look... 3D. There is just something special, this focal length, and distance to subject.
I almost never take photos with people in them, but I couldn't resist. Something about his contemplative pose and the reflection tugged at me.
Again, details, details, Isolating small parts of the whole, allowing you to see the world in a new way. The symbolism of the carving on the outside of the Salt Lake Temple is always fun to look at. They took their time and paid attention to their craftsmanship.
Nothing special here, except my first flowers of spring. YAY!!!!!
Two shots stitched together, it is my wallpaper at this moment. For some reason it looks cockeyed but I swear it is straight.
Just down from Temple Square is the old ZCMI building, it is some other gosh awful big box retailers home now, but shall remain ZCMI. I have fond memories of the gingerbread houses on display every year at Christmas as a teenaged Choir Boy performing at Temple Square, then wandering downtown, singing Spike Jones inspired versions of Christmas Carols in fabulous harmony.
Need to take a tele on walkabout more often.
