634 - With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming



This is the second attempt at today’s Image of the Day. My first choice, a nice sunrise, perfectly matching the cliché, had some technical flaws and, honestly, at this time of the day I don’t have the nerve to do it again. It’s always nice to have a backup ready, isn’t it?

Well, the backup is another image of this morning, and it perfectly connects to yesterday’s entry. This one was shot with the Nikon 50/1.2 at f1.2. It is a detail from a shop facade in Vienna’s Josefstädter Straße, but with so extremely shallow depth of field, that it has become a complete abstract. This lens may be a beast to focus, but it sure was worth its money.

The second image is not a very elegant match, in fact the only two things that these two images have in common, are the street where they were taken and the lens that I have used. This second image was taken at f4, and somehow I like the asymmetric composition.

The Song of the Day is another one by Natalie Cole, and that’s by chance as well. It’s “With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming” from the 1999 album “Snowfall on the Sahara”. The version that I have found on YouTube is not from Natalie but from Patti Page.


There are 2 comments

Lewisp4909   (2008-07-09)

What an interesting shot - I have the Nikon 50mm 1.4 but I have never shot at 1.2! Is the blue next to the yellow real or photoshoped/white balanced? Almost too good to be true but I love it. The second shot doesn't look like f4 to me - seems deeper than that. Great work - I have started with your first post and am working my way through.

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Andreas   (2008-07-10)

White balanced IS real 🙂)

Well, I didn't do much to the image. The colors are about what was there. White balance is always arbitrary. Either the camera does it or you or Photoshop. You can go out and balance with gray cards, but in many situations it will look different from what you saw and remember to have seen (which again can be two different things). I've maxed out the histogram, darkened the left side, added some vignetting, ... and that's about all that I remember 🙂

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