Tag Archives: driving

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

How many days do you hop in the car and drive somewhere? Is it to or from work? The grocery store? The gas station? The movie theater? School? Chances are, most people’s lives involve driving, either directly or indirectly.

With those thoughts in mind, I share this photo with you as part of the Daily Post at WordPress.com Weekly Photo Challenge – Everyday Life.

091812 Everyday Life

I really don’t have any specs to share on the photo (aperture, shutter speed, focal length, etc.) because I simply opened up my sun roof, held my GoPro above the car and let it snap a few dozen photos. Yes, I was driving on a one-way street in downtown Salt Lake City at the time and was convinced that drivers around me were giving me weird looks. But I promise I stayed in my lane, used my blinkers as needed, and made it safely to my destination. Oh, I hope I didn’t jinx myself for my next drive in the car!

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Today

, , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

When I saw the email about this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, I thought the write-up about it makes a great point on photo challenge submissions. I have a pet peeve about that, which I will most likely elaborate on in future post. But for now, I’ll share the photo I shot and am submitting to the photo challenge.

060112 Today photo challenge

I was in a meeting and didn’t have my camera on me when I saw the post. Then it was one of those CrAzY Fridays at work where you’re frantically trying to get stuff done so you don’t have to bring work home with you over the weekend. (Which probably means I shouldn’t be taking the time to write this blog post, but I was eager to get my photo up).

At about 1:30, when I finally decided that I better grab some lunch, since I skipped breakfast and didn’t want to get sick before dinner, I headed out to grab some food. I decided to bring my trusty GoPro along to get a shot that I’ve been thinking of taking for a few weeks now. Carpe Diem!

I put back the sunroof, set the camera to take one photo every .5 seconds, and held it outside of the car. I didn’t expect to get so much of a reflection in the windshield, but I liked the final result. One that I really liked was of a cross walk directly in front of the car, and perfectly reflected in the windshield, but the camera was off-kilter (that’s what happens when you’re driving and photographing at the same time).

So that’s my shot. I’ll rant about my photo challenge submission pet peeves later!

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, Just for fun, Travel

Driving the road to Haleakala Crater in Maui

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My wife thought I was crazy when I pulled over and hooked a suction cup mount to the side of our rental car, just behind the driver’s side tire. After driving for about 10 minutes to test the $30 mount to assure it wouldn’t fall off, I attached the $300 GoPro to the mount, setting it to take a photo every 60 seconds, and climbed back into the car.

We started driving, and with every bump, my wife and I cringed, hoping the jolt didn’t knock the camera off the car. We drove anywhere from 10 MPH to 40 MPH, depending on traffic and the many turns encountered on the climb from sea level to 10,000 feet.

050612 Driving to Haleakala

GoPro | 1 photo every 60 seconds

I wish I would have set it to take a photo every 30 seconds. Even though I would have ended up with a ton of photos, there would have been more photos to choose from. But I do like this one, which proved that mount is strong enough to have attached to a moving vehicle. But if I plan to travel any faster, I might attach a string to the mount so if it does fall, it won’t end up smashed along the side of the road.

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge

Weekly Challenge – D is for Driving

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

While perusing on Facebook, I found a group of photographers in Salt Lake City that presented a weekly photo challenge. I relished the idea of a weekly photo challenge in order to try and stretch my thinking and photography skills. Plus, since it’s local, I know a few people who are also in the group, the Capturing True Emotion (CTE) Salt Lake City Photography Meetup group.

The challenge is to start at the beginning of the alphabet and capture a thing, action or emotion that starts with the given letter. Since I didn’t get started until now, D was my first letter. After much thought, and going back to something I thought would be interesting to try a few years ago, I set up the shot in my car. I took more than 400 photos (436 to be exact) and ended up with this one being the best.

D_is_for_Drive_3

I have three others that I thought turned out great, so the set is posted in Flickr if you want to check them out. But here are the details on these shots.

The weight of the camera would toss the tripod to and fro during the trip, so I ended up sticking one of the legs into the back pocket of the seat, which provided the stability I needed. Before attaching the camera, I set it to TV (shutter speed) priority for a three-second exposure. I attached a shutter release button and then attached the camera to the tripod.

During my 45 minute commute, I started snapping photos. I had to remain completely still during each shot so that nothing in the car was blurred, which was not always easy to do to avoid drifting out of my lane, but I let safety trump my desire for a non-blurry shot. I also tried to match the speed to the person in front of me, while waiting for someone in the lanes around me to speed by, thus giving a sense of motion with the blurred vehicle.

Bumpy roads also made this a challenge. Overpasses were the worst, because if the car bumped, so did the camera, making the shot worthless. If I had to turn the steering wheel, or even my hand, it was blurry, too.

All of these factors are what made it a real photo challenge, but if you don’t try, you don’t know. I’ve noticed a few things in the photo that I would want to change to try and enhance it, so I’m glad for the letter D photo challenge this week, and I’m ready to move on to E. Hmmm. What will I capture for next week?

~signed, Carltonaut