Well, here we are in week 2 already. To recap for anyone just seeing this without context, I’ve decided to tackle a 52-week photo project, taking a new picture on a new theme every week, and writing a blog post about it, offering a bit of an explanation behind the shot and any sort of technical details that might be useful for anyone reading along.

The themes each week are coming from a very cool little Reddit community, /r/picturechallenge, where each week a previous winner gets to suggest that week’s challenge, and people scramble to come up with an idea and then shoot it within that week. Everyone casts votes for their favourites and the winner is crowned. Rinse, repeat.

This week’s theme was “define where you live”, a delightfully open-ended and thought-provoking task. Considering the brutal cold snap we endured over the past week or so, it’s likely not surprising what I ended up settling on as one working definition of life in the Ottawa Valley:

I’ve always found frost patterns to be particularly beautiful (not that I’m alone in that by any stretch), so when a recent acquisition finally arrived in the mail, I jumped on the chance to get a bit of a closer look.

The new gear in question is the Raynox DCR-250 macro conversion lens, and after just a day of playing with it, I’d have to say it’s pretty tremendous. Snaps right on to the end of any lens (with a filter ring size between 52 and 67 mm) and… well that’s that. Then you start shooting up close and personal.

As for the shot above, it’s a pretty self-explanatory one this week. I found a section of window with some really neat looking patterns, waited for the sun to hit it just right and then hunkered down and started shooting. It was a great way to break in the new macro adapter, and I’d be lying if I said I thought that this was the only weekly challenge that’d be featuring it in the weeks/months to come.

Technical Details

Gear: Nikon d800e + Nikkor 18-105mm lens + Raynox macro converter

Shot: f/5.3 | 1/320 sec | ISO 800 | 70mm

As with last week, here’s one of the other shots I took that morning:

And that’s that. Week 2, in the bag. Thanks for checking in, and we’ll see you in week 3!