What My Navel Saw in Tokyo

Occasionally, I use a technique where I put a very wide angle lens on my camera, hang the camera from my neck at navel level, sort of casually have my right hand on the camera with a finger hanging over the shutter button, and walk around snapping photos of things my navel sees.  I don't do it often because it is a less involved sort of way to take photos, but it does give an angle of view like a 6-year old sees and I was one of those not too long ago so I enjoy the chance to relive the past. :lol:   It is just another technique to use sometimes like shallow dof, perspective distortion, panning, etc.  I took some photos like this a few days ago in Tokyo.  I will put a few in this post, but I have more here:

http://www.bakubo.com/galleries/Japan/Tokyo%20People%20from%20my%20Navel/index.html

OMG!  When I look in your ear I can see clear through to the other side, dude!

 She's a Guitar Girl

Stretched out on the Yamanote-sen train in Tokyo.  Where do you think you are, kid?  This ain't New York or London. :-)

Generally, an 18-28mm equivalent fov seems to work well.  I don't use AF.  I usually set the focus to something like 4 feet and the aperture to about f6.3, f7.1, or f8.  I use A mode and let the camera choose the shutter speed.  Can't use auto ISO because you would often end up with a low ISO and low shutter speed so I set the ISO depending on light.  Usually ISO 400-1600 to get shutter speeds that are fast enough.  With really bright light though you can often use ISO 200.

Fishing for fish

Hoping to catch one:

Caught one:

 Don thinks he's hooked a lunker in East Texas, 1978. Turns out he lost it though. We were in a boat on a small lake and I had put my fishing rod down for a moment and picked up my camera to take a photo of some lily pads in the water when suddenly this happened. Really lucky to catch that expression on his face.

 Probably only about 20-30 minutes later I caught the largest largemouth bass I have ever caught.  It was about 6 pounds, which is pretty good.  I still can't believe that I don't have a photo of it.  On the way home I stopped by my cousin's house to show it to her and ask her to take a photo of me holding it with my fishing rod.  She took a couple of photos and then the next day went to San Antonio with a friend.  About a week later I asked her about the photos and she said she had changed her film in San Antonio and left it sitting on a bench.  Photos lost forever.  Maybe someone found the roll of film, got them developed, and there is a photo of a much younger me smiling and holding my bass in a box in someone's closet right now. lol

Alligator with fish, Everglades National Park, 1999