Sandmountain

GRD II, f5, 1/500, ISO 80, RAW

The weather has been grey and rainy all day so I have not been taking many pictures and have been a bit uninspired. On my way home I saw this though and found it would make a nice picture due to the colors and contrast between the sand and sky. I added strong vignetting and used a very high contrast for this to give it an almost HDR look.

Danger Razorwire

CX1, f6.8, 1/660, ISO 80, JPG, 74mm

On my way home I decided to take a walk through Greenwich and take a few pictures on the way. This is the one I like most from today. I changed the contrast, added noise and converted it to b&w to get a grittier look.

Three Cranes

GRD, f8, 1/800, ISO 200, JPG b&w

I love cranes and I like taking pictures of reflections, although I don't get to do this very often. While taking a walk home today I saw the reflection of these three cranes and found it looked very good and could make a great b&w picture. I used ISO 200 to get some noise in the picture but also because I find it gives crisper images when compared to ISO 64 or ISO 100 on the GRD I.

Beware

LC1, f2.5, 1/15, ISO 400, RAW, 41mm

The weather was great so perfect for a nice walk. I decided to walk all the way from Greenwich to Covent Garden and stop by the Wapping Project to take some pictures and have a coffee. Took this picture there and like it best from the day.

One Year Later

GRD II, f5, 8 sec., ISO 80, RAW

Today is a special day for my blog, it becomes one year old :D. It is exactly one year since I started the blog and a lot has happened in between.

I got the idea to start the blog when a friend mentioned starting a "food diary" and taking pictures of food. This sounded like fun and I was looking for something in order to get myself motivated to take more pictures. At that time, I was carrying the GRD I around with me every day but did not use it sometimes for a whole week. This was a wasted opportunity in my view so a photo diary sounded like a good idea. This is how the name 'Ricoh GR-Diary' and this blog came to be.

I would have never expected to keep posting one picture every day for a whole year and, aside from some friends, I did not think people would be intersted to read my blog. I kind of expected to post a few pictures and then get bored and leave it. Taking and posting a picture every day became a lot of fun and I began to see things around me that I ignored or passed by before. It was not always easy and on some days I only had some mediocre pictures or had to improvise something but it was always fun.

What I would have never expected is the response I got and the fantastic people I met through my blog. Thank you for reading my blog and it was great to meet some of you in person, hope there will be more opportunities for this!

Meeting Ricoh representatives at Photokina, having the rare opportunity to visit the Ricoh factory during my trip to Hong Kong or getting cameras to review is something that might have never happened without me starting this blog. Here let me say again a bit thank you to Ricoh for making all of this possible!

Enough talk for now. I hope you enjoyed the blog so far, be it the pictures, my writing or maybe both? Whatever is was, I hope it was never boring.

The Wapping Series

While taking a walk after work I came across an old power station in Wapping and saw that there was an exhibition on so I decided to go in and have a look. The place is 'The Wapping Project'. It was well worth the visit since it is an old power station with some of the machines still inside so it makes for an interesting setting. This time I can also recommend something to Yesbuts, usually he is the one telling me about these places in London.
I need to go back there and take more pictures since I did not have a lot of time today. So for now enjoy this series, all taken with the GX200 and most are at ISO 800 and RAW.

View Through the Fence

GX200, f6.3, 15 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 72mm

While on the bus today I saw this scene and had to get off and take a picture, or a few to be honest. Sometimes I see a scene and know exactly how I want the picture to look like. This was one of these occasions and while it is yet another long exposure I really like the picture. Also reminds me to get out more after dark and take some pictures of the industry around North Greenwich.

Keep Clear of Boom

GRD, f5, 1/90, ISO 64, JPG, 40mm

There is something about taking pictures in the fall, winter and spring when the sun is low. It creates harsh and long shadows and gives pictures a different contrast. I prefer the light to the summer where it is usually a bit flat and you don't get much contrast. I like the textures and shadows in this picture, it was very good out of the camera but I played around with the curves to get a even higher contrast and added some vignetting. The vignetting was for two reasons, first because I think it looks better but also to mask the flare in the corner from the 40mm lens.