photography – Ryan Coultas

December 31, 2013

Soldier Field – Photo 52 Project [Week 52]

We are already at Photo 52? How did that happen? I does not feel like a year but here we are. I am home sick today so I am using the time to do a bit of photo work.

Jesse, Mari Ann, and I went to the Bears game on Sunday. They played the Green Bay Packers for the NFC North title. They lost, but it was a great game. The Bears had the lead with less than a minute left. Green Bay went for it on 4th and 7 and scored a touchdown to take the lead. We needed a touchdown to win, but couldn’t pull it off. It was still a great game and we had a lot of fun.

I stitched this photo together with Photoshop. If I were to take the pictures again I would have set a manual exposure instead of shooting in Time Priority. That led to some exposure inconsistency. After a year of taking pictures every week I still have more to learn and experience to gain. I am glad I completed this project. There were some weeks where I would really take it to the wire but I made every deadline I setup in the beginning. I think 2013 was a pretty good year.

December 22, 2013

Me Too – Photo 52 Project [Week 51]

I wanted to play with lighting a little. I setup a work light on my pinball machine, and stood beside it. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost Jesse’s tripod. So, I thought, “I’ll just set this awkwardly shaped camera atop a chair back. What could possibly go wrong?” Well, the camera could fall off and the 50mm prime lens could stop focusing, rendering it useless. I know that could happen because it did.

This is one of the last photos taken before that lens fell to its death. I think the lighting and composition are good but I am not a fan of the subject. The photo was just before the MCS Christmas party so I was all dressed up. This was the first shot I took and I was not intentionally trying to look forlorn. I just stood where I would be in focus and looked down. I was not really posing at all. I assumed that the first shot would have a lot of technical issues and would never be used. A couple of shots later, the lens had taken its leap and I was done for the night.

December 19, 2013

Tags – Photo 52 Project [Week 50]

Chicago…working…found this thing…blah blah blah.

This was right outside of the “W” Lakeshore hotel in Chicago. The design of a chic downtown hotel is very different than anything else I can think of. They invest huge amounts of money in decorations that anywhere else would look tacky. I think that a hotel can get away with an endless display of purple tags on their building because a hotel is just temporary. You are in and out in a few days and that is not enough time to get sick of outlandish useless crap everywhere. Instead, all of that crap is new, different, exciting, and intriguing.