Primed.

It occurs to me, as I approach the finish line and put the various pages of my SoFoBoMo PDF together, that I happened to have only used prime lenses during the project. Hadn't planned it that way, but there it is.

About two weekends ago I started looking into what method I would use to create the PDF book. I approached it with some trepidation, but was relieved to realize that I had plenty of options at hand. I decided to create pages as image files in Photoshop and then bring them into Lightroom's slideshow module, at which point I create a PDF from that. I've got all the final photos assembled now, arranged in six groupings and sequenced - looks ok, I think - within those groups.

I just finished the index/technical specs for the back pages tonight, and have left only the intro to write - long or short, I haven't decided yet. I expect to have everything wrapped up and uploaded on the 31st day - this coming Saturday.

I'm really pleased with how things came out - can't say I'm equally enthused about every image I decided to include, but I'm satisfied enough that I didn't compromise too much. I'm especially happy about the last grouping of images - I got good results from a new technique that I employed on my last day of shooting (this past Sunday).

The idea for it just popped into my head while I was wandering around looking for something to shoot, but maybe I read about it somewhere and just don't remember the origin of the idea - I'm sure people must have tried it before. With a prime lens (only what I used, I'm sure it's not an absolute requirement), determine a point of focus you want to start with and then predetermine (using the lens markings as a guide) either a point of defocus, or one or more points of further focus (focus points deeper into the composition, beyond the first point of focus). Then, set up the shot to give you enough exposure time (ND filters come in very handy here) that you can adjust the focus to the 2nd (or 2nd and 3rd) predetermined point(s) during the exposure. Play with length of time at each point, even, to see how that changes the results. I find you get some nice glowing effect in the subtler examples, and in the several-points-of-focus examples you get a disorienting effect of several planes of focus in the same shot with blur/glow in between. As I said, I'm really pleased with the outcome, so I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks when I finally post the PDF on Saturday.

I can't believe I'm reaching the end of it, and successfully finished, to boot. I'm a little surprised at it all.