Weekly Photo Challenge – Scott Fillmer

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

Sun Rise on St George Island, FL — Sun Rise over the Gulf of Mexico on St George Island, FL

It didn’t take me as long to come up with an image for “merge” this week as a part of the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge (Merge), but it also looks like one of the more popular posts from the traffic as well. A sunrise might be a little more cliché than my previous posts, but we just got back from the beach, and this is what you shoot at the beach. I also have an extreme fondness for sunrises and sunsets. Twice a day we get such a unique view of God’s creation, and no two are ever the same. Last year I watched two sunrises and almost three sunsets in about a 24-36 hour period when I flew from Atlanta to Africa (which I actually don’t think I have posted yet).

I love the topic of photographically showing merge. There is no better way (to me) to photographically exhibit the topic of merge than a sunrise or sunset over the ocean, except perhaps a heavy fog. The night merging into the day. All the colors merging and blending all into one. Then the horizon disappearing or reappearing, marking a change in time from one day to the next. This shot was taken yesterday looking out over the Gulf of Mexico from St. George Island, FL just about 30-45 minutes after sunrise, just about the time all the color in the sky and water faded into dull blues. It was just as peaceful in person as it looks in the photo above.

I’m going to do another post later with just photos from St. George, so for now, here is my version of “merge” for this week. Be sure to check out some of the other entries below.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

This was another very difficult topic this week from the Weekly Photo Challenge over at WordPress, and I decided to completely forgo the theological “wrong” since I covered one of those last week, and besides that topic is just too enormous to narrow down for this post. Since I’m such a huge fan of semiotics (not to be confused with the nonexistent signology, or the non-theological Sinology), I thought this whole week I would post one of the many “wrong” signs I came across. There were so many possibilities, like the photo of what to do when you get locked in a restaurant bathroom, or the creative porta-potty business owners here in Auburn, but I thought those just too tacky for the sophistication of this series.

If you are wondering why I’m even doing this Daily Post series called the Weekly Photo Challenge (which is actually part of the larger WordPress series called the Post a Day series), it is because it makes me think outside the box, and that helps me with almost everything I do. When doing some photographic research for an artistic interpretation of “wrong” you get some really weird stuff, like this not-so-innocent looking cat. That really makes a true photographic interpretation of wrong open to almost anything the heart desires, emulating our world today I might add.

In keeping with my desire to photograph something unique amongst all the other posts I tried to figure out what the stereotype photo of what “wrong” would be, and I have concluded there isn’t one. So instead, I chose the ultimate wrong of our technology culture today by using my iPad as an example, but it’s more like a Where’s Waldo wrong than a smack you in the face wrong.

It’s probably overly obvious to some, but I’m sure not to all. Anyone… ?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

Project 365 [Day 253] God Gave the Growth — 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 :: God Gave the Growth

This is part of the WordPress weekly photo challenge, on growth, and as with each week, I try to figure out what 95% of everyone else will be photographing, and I eliminate those as possibilities. This time it took me almost a week to find some unique way to photograph “growth” in a way that wasn’t a plant growing or a flower blooming. It’s like trying to photograph a concept, and was actually much more difficult than I anticipated. The word growth has some type of organic regenerative something, like the process of photosynthesis or a child growing into a teenager and the like. So, instead of an example of growth as seen in the form of life, I give you the concept of growth, as explained by Paul’s letter via 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. One of my favorite pieces of wisdom from Paul, and one that really shows a unique perspective true growth.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

The word growth in this context is a Greek word used here by Paul, αὐξάνω, which is a phrase that roughly translates “to make” or “to cause growth.” It can be used as a noun or verb meaning multiplication or growth, primarily the term involved the natural reproduction, but always under God’s direction and control (Lv. 26:4; Dt. 7:13; Ps. 67:6).¹That’s sort of a long explanation for a photo, but so be it, what’s a good blog post without a little bit of etymology.

Below are some other examples of this week’s photo challenge of growth. There are some great examples there as well, if you did the weekly post, leave a comment, I would love to check out your post as well.

¹P. A. Blair, “Increase” In , in New Bible Dictionary, ed. D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard et al., 3rd ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 505.

August 7, 2012September 5, 2012 by Scott Fillmer Categories: PhotographyTags: 1 corinthians, Apollos, challenge, christianity, DailyPost, Etymology, god, Greek, growth, paul, Photography, postaday, Weekly Photo Challenge 8 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple, Oil and Water

This is for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge of Purple. I hate posting the same old thing, and trying to find unique and creative ways to do things is just one thing I love about photography. The photo above happens to also serve as my Project 365 photo for Day 243, getting closer and closer to that 300 day mark. If you are wondering how I did this, great, because it’s not that hard, but does take some patience and a bit of prep work. Every time I do this kind of photography it always turns out different, which makes it a unique technique to try.

The image above, and the other below, are simply a mixing of ordinary cooking oil, and tap water, placed together in a glass cooking bowl or cake pan. Making the colors is the fun part, you can be creative here, use food coloring, fabrics, a colored bowl, or like I did here, just different colors of copy paper. Here I used two yellow and two purple pieces of paper off-set with each other where they all came together in the center. That is how you get that the bubbles with a mix of different colors. To use paper, you just place is under a clear glass bowl, to use food coloring, just place a white piece of paper under a clear bowl.

The hard part is getting the focus to work because there are several different focal points, like the bottom of the bowl, the water, the bubbles, and paper under the bowl and so on. In this case, I used a Nikon D7000 camera body, a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens, mounted on a Nikon PK-13 (27.5mm) extension tube (extension tubes are really cheap if you have a DSLR). Using an extension tube is a way to do macro photography without having to buy an expensive macro lens. If you try to use an extension tube, just keep in mind the lens will have no aperture value, especially if you are using a newer lens with no aperture ring. You will only have the ability to change the shutter speed to gain the proper exposure, and the focus will be very very narrow.

I will say that purple is one of the most difficult colors to shoot photographically in the digital age. The color tone always wants to shift blue, so getting a true purple is actually very difficult. I did try this out last year, and got totally different results, but you can see those at Testing the Oil and Water Theory Close Up. So this is my interpretation of “purple” for this week. See you here again next week with whatever the theme happens to be next week.

Extension Tubes: Close Up Photography Lesson #2

(digital-photography-school.com)

July 28, 2012September 5, 2012 by Scott Fillmer Categories: PhotographyTags: 365project, 50mm, d7000, DailyPost, Flickr, how to, macro, oil, p365, Photography, postaday, project 365, water, Weekly Photo Challenge 21 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside, a MacBook 5,1

Project 365 [Day 239] Inside Look at the Mother Board of a MacBook 5,1

This post serves a few different purposes, like Day 239 of my Project 365, but once in a while I like to get something up there for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, and since this week’s theme was inside, I thought this would make a great shot. I don’t spend all of my days inside one of these, but at least some part of each week is spent messing around on the inside of one of these machines. This one is the first generation aluminum MacBook 5,1 (before the MBP version). This is the entire mother board here, RAM at the top and most of the guts on the flip side of the circuit board. The MacBook5,1 as it is known was one of the first unibody frames, and made a great laptop for several years, and in the very center of this mother board you can see the words “Apple ©2008.” Things move fast in the world of laptops and tablets, and this machine is now almost a relic of its day, now designated as a “streaming machine” for videos.

I was trying to think back at how many laptops and desktop computers I have had over the past 20 years (including an actual IBM 5150 from the 1980’s), but there is just no way in the world to know. My first computers weren’t Gateway or Dell, but were hand built IBM machines where I picked out each RAM chip, video card, modem, the CPU chip and so on, each separately. Wow those were the days

You can get a lot of life out of old machines for secondary purposes, and sites like iFixit with their step by step teardown of almost every single Mac ever made is a great place for do easy repairs, even iFixit on this old MacBook5,1. More and more these once great laptops are being replaced by better and better tablets, like the iPad, and Nexus 7, I already wonder how we ever lugged around such a massive device.

July 24, 2012September 5, 2012 by Scott Fillmer Categories: TechnologyTags: apple, challenge, computer, DailyPost, IBM, ipad, Laptop, macbook, Macintosh, p365, Photography, postaday, project365, Technology, Weekly Photo Challenge 4 Comments

Tag: Weekly Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

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