Day 120: From the Ground Up

2026-06-06

Hello! Trying abstract photography for the next few days.

I still don't have a portable light that I'm satisfied with. I've come around to using the on-camera flash for certain effects, but it wouldn't have worked here. Instead, the trees above let sunlight leak through the leaves and fall on this spot here.

The setting sun moves constant and steady, and quicker than one might expect by intuition. I had set up these dice and coins at a different location, but by the time I set up the tripod, the wind and the earth had shifted enough to move the sunspot a bit farther down. So I took the camera off the tripod and quickly tossed the subjects elsewhere.

The cool white is from editing, by the way — partially from the white balance I set in-camera, partially from the further calibration done in an editing program at home. I thought it was cool to give the impression of an overhead streetlight in the evening, so the warm glow of a golden hour sunset isn't obvious here.

I wonder if I can convincingly frame these photos of dice in a series together. They almost look like plant seeds, smaller than grass blades, ready to grow good luck or blessings for the future. Or something like that.

Finally, a web game. Everyone has their favorite browser games, whether they be the ones provided by Google (like Snake and Minesweeper) or on whatever website you found when you were in school. For me, that was Slope — a simple endless runner game full of basic green and black graphics. I've recently found Slope Plus, a modification of the game with settings to tweak and secret codes to try out.

Cheers,
David