04 January 2011

Day 4

012dTwo nights ago, my coworker’s house caught fire while she and her husband were at work.  Fortunately their 2 kids, who were home on winter break, escaped unharmed along with the their pets.  In the aftermath, the family has been staying at a local hotel while they find a place to rent until they can rebuild.  Sadly, the family has very few possessions on hand now.  The son was left with no shoes and the rest of the family really only have the clothes they were wearing.  My fellow coworkers have been organizing a collection of clothing and shoes for the family, as well as gathering monetary donations and the outpouring of generosity brings tears to my eyes.  I can’t imagine having to go through what this family is going through. 

Ever since I found out, I’ve been thinking about what I would hate to lose the most in my home.  For me, as I suspect it is with most people, the pictures would be the hardest loss to bear, and I would take that a step further and include my scrapbooks as well.  Perhaps I’ve become even more aware of this in the past few weeks as we’ve been going through old photographic slides (remember these?!!!) as part of my continued efforts to improve the organization in this house.  On Christmas Day, we had the best time looking at the slides from when my brother and I were young.  Our kids really enjoyed seeing pictures of their mom & dad at the age the kids are now, especially when we were dressed in some very fashionable out-of-style outfits.  Then tonight, my husband and I went through slides he had from the 3 summers he spent working in Alaska when we first started dating, right out of high school. 

Sure, all my more recent photos (from 2005 through present) are digital and I have back-ups as well as online back-up via Carbonite, so they are fairly secure.  But the photos and slides taken prior to that are irreplaceable in most cases.  Thus, I’m taking steps now to sort through them and have the ones we keep converted to digital files.  Maybe I’ll even get to scrapbook them one day!

So, following tonight’s review of some slides, I had to snap a few photos.  I’m pretty pleased with the way this shot turned out, though I wish I’d taken the photo with the elements on a different surface as everything seems a little monotone (shades of beige).  In my defense, my Photoshop version of this photo has a warmer cast on the surface, but it looks more subdued when saved and brought into this post.  Perhaps a darker surface would have really made the slides & carousel “pop”.  I could do more editing in Photoshop but it’s already super late, so I’ll leave it as is.  I do love the bit of bokah I captured on the slide carousel & the farthest loose slides.

Editing: vertical cropping & some slight adjustments (white balance, color balance, exposure).
f/2.8
1/60 sec
800 ISO 
28mm

Post addition on 1/5/11:

012f
I thought a lot about my photo last night and the monotone look was sort of bugging me.  While I feel that it’s a pretty good photo, nothing about it really pops.  So I began wondering how it would look in black & white.  Turns out it looks good.  The slides seem to stand out a little more in black & white format.  What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. I like both, but I think you are right. With the black and white the white on the slide really pops out at you more! It also looks a little crisper maybe? Sharper on the lines of the slide?

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