Lonely

I just like this one.

Lensbaby Freakout

Wrapping up my unofficial “lensbaby week” (of course there will be lots of Lensbaby shots in the future — don’t fret) is this bizarre shot. Needless to say, a normal camera perspective was NOT used to capture this. That’s one of the main reasons I like it.

Lensbaby Portrait

or Deciding on a Parfait

So, I bought a lensbaby. The composer, to be specific. For those not in the know, it’s a “selective focus” SLR lens, that uses a tilting element to move an area of perfect focus (they call it the “sweet spot”) around in a frame. This is a little different from bokeh, where things in different distances from the camera get blurry and out of focus; no, everything outside the sweet spot is blurred and even distorted. It’s a really interesting (and difficult) lens to use, but I present to you one of my early efforts to get something cool out of it. I’ll post a few more this week to give you more of an idea. It’s really fun, but it’s easy to miss the area you want in focus. Of course, I think I just need to practice a little more.

A little more info on the photo — this is still shot with my lovely Canon Kiss X3, just with the mildly goofy looking lensbaby Composer lens on it. We’re in Karafuneya cafe, looking over the ridiculous parfait menu (a list with almost 200 choices), a process that often takes Sakiko a considerable amount of time. Hence, I started playing with my new toy.

The Photographess’ Silhouette

This is a beautiful portrait of my beautiful girlfriend, Sakiko (her photoblog). I thought the edge of her silhouette being lit made the photo. This was taken at a pretty little shrine at the top of Shoren-in. From the foxes around, I assume it was an inari shrine. Hit the jump for a black and white version.