The Accidental Shot

OK – so what does that mean?  

Well, this is where you are taking one type of shot and within that shot, you see another one   The shot within the shot, so to speak.  If you’re not looking for it, you might even miss it   In one sense, these are kind of a pleasant surprise.  AND to make it a little neater, one sometimes finds them from shots taken in abnormal circumstances. 

Here’s an example:

 

The shot on the right was initially intended to be a reference shot to show water coming out of a drain that was being installed.  A bit of background.  I have a two car garage where the top of the garage is also used as a two tier deck. We bought this house like this and it also has a hot tub on it.  It started to leak   Soooooo… I tore out some drywall and pulled insulation to find that water was in a lot of spots…..  The more I tore out, the more water I found, soooo… it just so happened that the next door neighbors were getting their garage done for the same reason, so we asked for a quote and went for it.  I’m a pretty handy type of person and do a lot of renovation work, but this was something that was totally over my head.  Not that I couldn’t have ultimately done it, but it would have taken me a lot more time than what these guys are taking – just a few days…  This is the type of job that requires a lot of work (including moving our hot tub) and focused work at that.  What I mean, is that it has to be done fairly quickly due to some of the weather conditions here.  We’ve had some awesome weather, but we’ve also had rain late in the day. For me, I might have been able to do this, but with me being between contracts, I’m spending several hours per day looking for work, and also on interviews, so the renovation could only be handled intermittently from my side.  Even now, I don’t know when I’m going to get to the drywall stage of things  

So… as they did the outside, I started to rip out drywall and insulation on the inside.  Go figure….the wiring was also not to code so I’ve got to get that done too….   BUT while I’m at it, I’m going to also install recessed ceiling speakers and pipe in music   There was a tiny bit of mold, but the joists were still solid (whew….) but I decided to treat the wood with mould killer while I had the joists exposed.  What initially started this leaking, was the drains.  They were too small and a the water started to seep under the membrane.  The new one won’t be doing this   Anyway…they are leaving the drain connection to the end.  The other nite  at about 4:00 a.m., I got woken up to thunder!  AND I heard rain – hard rain….., so I went downstairs knowing I had to find containers for the water coming thru an unconnected drain (there was only one installed at this stage).  I managed to find an empty storage bin and put it under the drain to catch the water, but there was also water on garage floor.  Concrete, so not to worry   I wanted to get some reference shots of this happening.  BTW – I am taking progress pics of my deck being re-done

Ok – a bit of techy digital equipment stuff.

This deck renovation PLUS me being at home while this is being done has provided me with some great opportunities for getting progress pics.  The other big plus, too, was by seeing the joists from the top, it also gave me a good idea of what I had to do from the inside.  Unfortunately, it’s going to be about 3/4 of the deck that going to have to be done from the inside….

Anyway – gear.  My primary camera has been, if you can believe it my Nikon S9400.  A travel cam, but it’s a fairly new one and it does get the job done nicely.  If I’m wanting more detail, it’s the Panasonic GX1, but in the end, I’ll be using just about everything at time or another.  For instance, this a.m., I had the Sony HX30 to take some outdoor shots, last nite, I did a couple of indoor ones with the ZS15 and ZS25.  I’m also planning to try my Nikon J1 today as well for some of the interior shots.  Bottom line here, is to see how each camera performs for this type of work.  So far, I’m pretty happy with what I’m seeing   The nice thing with the travel type cameras, is that they have the equivalent to a 24mm lens and this can be a real advantage when doing interiors.  The kit lenses that come with the GX1 and J1 are about a 28mm equivalent, and though that’s adequate for exterior type shots, the wider angle lens is definitely an advantage here. 

Onward….