NIKON D40X,  1″,  F5, ISO 200, 135mm – Albany Skyline from East Greenbush, NY

This night shot of the Albany, NY skyline is the last entry after 1 full year of taking photos and picking the best from the each week.

In total I shot 1,689 photos over the past 52 weeks.  Of course there were more “keepers” from my year’s shots.  In fact, sometimes it was hard to pick just one for this blog.  Additional photos can be seen at my main photo album.

As far as my photography is concerned I noticed that my composition and framing has improved over the past year.  When I first started, many times I would need to heavily crop the original in order to produce a reasonable result.  But, near the end of the year,  many of the photos remained uncropped or only slightly.

Over all it was a fun experience, but unless I have far more time on my hands in the future, I doubt I will “up the ante” and take on the challenge of doing a 365 photo project.

NIKON D40X, 1/3″, F4.8, ISO 800, 35mm – At Home

Photographing this sleeping pair (granddaughter, Keira and Siedh the cat) was tough.  I didn’t use any flash not only because I didn’t want to wake them, but I also didn’t want any harsh shadows.  They were also spread out from each other enough that getting just them in the frame was tricky.

NIKON D40X, 0.8″, F5.6, ISO 800, 55mm – Luminaries; Valley Falls, NY

Every year several volunteers set out luminaries on Christmas eve in our village.  It’s very beautiful to see all the streets lit with them.

NIKON D40X, 1/3″, F32, ISO 100, 42mm – Buttermilk Falls; Schaghticoke, NY

Another week of dreary overcast skies.  At least this small falls was running well and provided some additional opportunity to work with long shutter speeds.

Of course the downside is that also means standing out in the cold setting up the tripod and waiting for the camera to take the shot.

NIKON D40X, 1/25″, F8, ISO 1600, 32mm – Old B&M rail underpass; Hemstreet Park, NY

For this shot I purposefully used a long shutter speed and fast ISO so the light coming in from the other end of this one car underpass would obscure the distant background and give that “light at the end of the tunnel effect”.  I’m not sure I got exactly what I was hoping for perhaps a tighter more focused light would have been better than just the diffused daylight.

NIKON D40X, 1/100″, F4.5, ISO 800, 75mm – Altamont, NY

This week we got our first measurable snow.  It’s unlikely that it will stick around for long since it was barely over an inch.  But it sure has made everything beautiful.  Winter is on its way!

NIKON D40X, 4″,  F22, ISO 100, 18mm – Guilderland, NY

Well, as is typical of late Fall, most of the days have been grey and dreary.  Recently we’ve had torrential rains to go with the overcast skies.  This flooded many of the small feeder streams and run-offs that dump into the Normanskill creek.

Normally, this run-off is indistinguishable from the forest floor.  Only when it was overloaded with water did I spot its interesting serpentine route.

NIKON D40X, 1/250″, F25, ISO 800, 38mm – Rehoboth Beach; Rehoboth, DE

This past weekend we took a quick trip down to Delaware for Samhain (Halloween) festivities.  In addition to all that was going on Sarah and I took the opportunity to take pictures on the beach.

Personally, I love look of the seaside in fall.  I think this is mostly because there are so few people there that, sand dunes, wave forms, and other natural elements are virtually undisturbed.  Also, the fall lighting, clouds and weather, are often so different from those in the summer that they provide a nice change from “typical” beach photos.

NIKON D40X, 1/320″, F8, ISO 800, 45mm – Saratoga Apple; Schuylerville, NY

Although our family isn’t able to go apple picking every fall, things worked out nicely this year.  It was seasonably chilly but not so cold as to be unenjoyable.  Since we went during their last week for “pick-your-own” we got about 20# of apples dirt cheap.

Of course the second half of the family apple picking is making pies, apple butter, and other goodies from the apples.  Next year we hope to move some of the cooking process outside and over an open fire in a true traditional style.

NIKON D40X, 1/4″, F14, ISO 800, 300mm – Farnsworth Middle School; Guilderland, NY

A few weeks ago I was using “StumbleUpon” to surf photography sites.  One of the sites I was at featured a series of macro/close up shots of old objects in black and white that had an awfully familiar style.  After pondering where I had seen this before I realized a similar style is employed by art students who are learning to sketch and draw. Typically, an old object with texture, curves or another interesting feature  is placed under directional lighting so the student has to focus on shading, details, and such.

Fortunately, I work at a school that uses this study with its art students.  So with just a quick trip to the art department I was able to locate plenty of sketch objects to photograph.