L0n3Gr3yW0lf

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Location
Somerset, UK
Name
Ovi
"That" time or the year is approaching, for some it's already here, the weather is cold and/or wet, the clouds are grey most days, the light is getting shorter every day. For some winter can be difficult to go through (I am affect by depression of winter season).

So, the question is What is your fun side of photography or projects to get you through the winter?

Sharing might inspire othere to give it a try, share any ideas, working/ongoing projects, text or pictures as well, anything to be honest.

(I, for one, am thinking of doing indoor macro/still life photography to keep my moral up and motivation going. I think one of the issues I have been dealing with for the last year and a half is that I lost the fun I have for photography.
I might start building a mini studio set on my desk and share it in a different thread step by step how I wil do it. Going to try and keep the budget as low as possible, mixing household items and improvising solutions before I resorte to purchasing new items).
 
I'm a crazy one. I hike with my dog every day 3-5 miles. Unless the weather is truly gnarly, we are out in it. We've even been out in it during snow storms and light rains.

Really, not a whole lot changes. We still do some street and check for new murals. Hit some of the parks. Once the snow hits, it is nice to get some of those landscape or city scapes that include the elements of the season.
I try and get more people to do portraits during the gray days, as the natural soft light is much easier to work with than the direct sunlight.

Since there are more non-shooting days, I often spend the time between December and February culling images from the prior year and making sure my keywords in my Lightroom catalog are accurate.
 
The fun side of winter and darkness and 4 PM sunsets:

  • Convenient "night time" photography that I don't have to wait until 11 PM to do...
  • ...with the previous comes the appreciation of playing with artificial urban lights, mixing and matching the different white balances. I have apparently carved myself quite a niche from this, as very few other see the appeal.
  • Whenever the sun is up (and clouds permit), the light is very good and comes in at attractive angles.
And that's just the dark winter period (around here we're talking November-December-January). Then the really attractive February light hits and usually there's snow on the ground by then. That light is really good.
 
Winter is a good time for B&W. I live in a more rural area surrounding a small college town, and winter provides sweeping stark landscapes that are fairly devoid of color. One reason we had the Singles in January Challenge for so long was to provide a common experience of shooting in the "less light" time of year, especially during January and February when the winter holidays and their festive lights and decorations are gone.
 
I like the shorter days because I too find it easier to get the night shots that I like and want with the earlier sunset. I also don’t mind the wet and cold as long as it isn’t bitter cold. The starkness of landscapes in the winter months is also appealing and as been mentioned, it is a great time for B&W. I’ve never been a project sort of photographer, more of I see something interesting and I try to capture it. Here is a recent shot in London on a nasty night, I had a great time 😃
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Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
 
Well off the top of my head, in this scenario the basics include:
  1. Macro; there's always macro. The ability to make something as mundane as a household plug in a socket look cool always amazes me.
  2. Night time. Pouring rain. A light source, for example a street lamp. Ingredients for fantastic images. Who cares if the camera has no weather sealing, take an umbrella.
  3. Fish eye. Great fun. Just as much fun is the PP afterwards. Do you keep the fish eye image as-is or do you de-fish and if so, which de-fishing profile is most apt? And so on.
  4. Manual focus lens. The reward you feel upon a satisfactory image is great. You made that image, not the computer inside the camera. This takes time, but to me it's quality time.
  5. When you see a half hour or even 10 minute window of sun breaking through the clouds before it gets dark at 4.30pm, head out with any gear that you have (two minutes could be enough) and make use of that light in taking a picture of, well, anything. You may not get that same light for say another month, who knows, so enjoy the fact that you got it as an achievement. That's how I view it in the grim winter months. But even in those grim winter months, there wil always at some point be light to be taken advantage of. We've paid for our gear, better make usre we use it when we can.
 
I wouldnt go so far as to say its a fun winter task, but I am trying to get over the dreaded procrastination and get cracking on digitizing the families analog photo collections, stemming back to somewhere around the early 1900s.

All sorts of work in regards of slides, negatives, direct copying from glued in albums etcetera, etcetera.

Other than that, I have much the same possibilities as Mike3996, being somewhat in the same general neck of the woods, I have some sort of an idea for shooting winter seascapes, but with the travelling expenses these days, I am not sure if that will be a priority even if I cover much in a 300 km round trip.
 
I'm a crazy one. I hike with my dog every day 3-5 miles. Unless the weather is truly gnarly, we are out in it. We've even been out in it during snow storms and light rains.
Do it while you can, Andrew!
Since there are more non-shooting days, I often spend the time between December and February culling images from the prior year and making sure my keywords in my Lightroom catalog are accurate.
Yeah.

When my brother in law died about 7 years ago, he left his affairs in a dreadful mess. It's taken me many years and much frustration to get his financial affairs into a condition where I could tell my wife (his executrix) that it was safe to hand it all off to his existing tax accountant and the solicitor. Nothing disappears quite so quickly as assets that are not known about ... I found over $200K worth of them, and set up audit controls that hopefully ensure that none of this goes missing (I'm a CPA and forensic accountant).

My keywords and Bridge? Let's just say that they are a little behind ...

At least my new PC will make that job much faster and simpler.
 
Cold, I don't mind.
Wet, I have an incredible "backlog" of culling and processing.
Since I have a preference for b&w anyway, and had vacation days this week and more coming up the days before Christmas and up to New Year, I can happily add to the backlog 😁
The countryside and the - hopefully - deserted beach are always inviting and close by.
 
I have hard months coming ahead. Working over 250 hours this month and next month I won't have time to go out or take advantage of late sunrises and early sunsets. I am hoping to build a mini macro Studio with wooden frames from a pallet and cover them with velvet blanket on own side to absorbe light and white sheet on the other side to act as a light defuser.
To help with that I just bought 3 mini tripods and I chose the flexible GorillaPods because they are very easy to manipulate and get different angles for the lights and because I fou d them dirt cheap at CEX.
1667582344186.png

For lights I found very cheap Ulanzi LED lights that have white and warm options, the RGB one has selectable color spectrum (if I want to go more creative and artsy), the 96 model runs on 4x AA batteries (which I have loads of rechargeables) and VL49 has internal battery and can be powered by USB C (sweet for travel and at home).

I'm hoping that, for now, I can make due with 2 lights setup but I have desk lamps and flashlights I can add to the setup.
I will dedicate 1/3rd of my desk as a permanent set for the winter. I am looking forward to trying different rocks and minerals, mushrooms, flowers, objects to photograph. Might try a stab at water drops but I will need a dedicated flash for that (don't know if I can afford one). I would be very excited to try colouring the water for some interesting landscapes.

One issue I will have to address is if I need a macro lens or if I can get away with my Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 G2. Or if I can add the Raynox DC-250 or an Apocromatic Close Up lens as a cheaper option.
The cheapest macro lens I can get is the Minolta AF 50mm f 2.8 Macro at 68 £ but it's not cheap to get a A Mount to Sony E Mount adapter that has electronic contacts to be able to close down the aperture. The Sony LA-EA3 used is 100 £ so I would need a minimum of 170 £.

I am hoping that the macro projects will keep me busy and having fun through the winter as on some days I have less then a couple of hours free time and for myself.
I do have a huge backlog of pictures I still need to sort through but my catalogue and storing system is completely messed up and I have yet to sort out how to fix it and organise it. Things were so much simpler when all I did was landscape pictures and I had less then 5.000 pictures. ( Now I do landscapes, street photography, portraits, wildlife, macro, pet photography, birds in flight ... I can get 5.000 pictures out of just one outing for wildlife and birds in flight).
 
So, the question is What is your fun side of photography or projects to get you through the winter?
Our winter average was much higher, wetter and more had more extremes than usual so if I am not doing macro, I am doing night photography and, recently, doing photos in the rain.

My default is always getting that maximum satisfaction through hard publication like printing, which I publish 90% of my photos with. 10% are shared online because they look good still in 100 sRGB. The other 90% just tell a different story after printing.
(I, for one, am thinking of doing indoor macro/still life photography to keep my moral up and motivation going. I think one of the issues I have been dealing with for the last year and a half is that I lost the fun I have for photography.
I might start building a mini studio set on my desk and share it in a different thread step by step how I wil do it. Going to try and keep the budget as low as possible, mixing household items and improvising solutions before I resorte to purchasing new items).
Sad to hear that, mate. Maybe Alex Kilbee can help you with the W.A.K.E. system. If you haven't encountered the channel yet, it's one that is purely centred in true photography not photography related to gear.

I watch his channel in my spare time and it's good to know that there are still people like him on YT where the philosophies of photography are still being talked about, not just how much IQ one can extract from this newer sensor vs the older one.
 
Our winter average was much higher, wetter and more had more extremes than usual so if I am not doing macro, I am doing night photography and, recently, doing photos in the rain.

My default is always getting that maximum satisfaction through hard publication like printing, which I publish 90% of my photos with. 10% are shared online because they look good still in 100 sRGB. The other 90% just tell a different story after printing.

Sad to hear that, mate. Maybe Alex Kilbee can help you with the W.A.K.E. system. If you haven't encountered the channel yet, it's one that is purely centred in true photography not photography related to gear.

I watch his channel in my spare time and it's good to know that there are still people like him on YT where the philosophies of photography are still being talked about, not just how much IQ one can extract from this newer sensor vs the older one.
Thank you for the videos, they were very educational. I didn't feel that I was struggling with a creative block BUT it did help me with some of my own self-doubts (my therapist was mentioning it as well). My relationship, interest and love for photography have changed so much and so many times in the last 2 years that I feel lost and even detached from it. I really hope I can find a spark of fire and interest, something to find myself in it so deeply that it inflames what started my journey into photography. (I am secretly hoping it's printing :p)
 
I used to hate the winter time because I had to work during daylight hours, but now that I'm retired I don't mind as much. The muted light and the low sun make for nice opportunities and these days it's not a big challenge to make photos with these cameras with great high-ISO performance and image stabilization, enabling me to leave the tripod at home. Only when temperatures approach 0º C, I tend to pare down on going out, I just hate the cold.
 
Doesn't get too cold here in SE Arizona, some occasional snow. Not much change for me.

Hopefully all the other stuff that's been keeping me busy will be done before the end of this month and I'll get to do more than a little tabletop stuff here and there.

Some health things have improved enough I'm able to be a bit more active, now I need to work on getting better conditioned for the airshow in March. Providing it doesn't get cancelled, or my health stuff goes sideways again.

I have a lot of stuff I want to get out to see and photo here in the desert SW, but gas and other prices have put the squash on that for now.
 
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