Fly! Bring Me That Girl and Her Slippers!

This little runaway from the Land of Oz was found looking for some ruby slippers at the home of my Uncle over the Christmas holidays.  Always on the look-out for chances to practice taking portraits, I found him to be the perfect model.  A non-human.  I still find myself being a little nervous when it comes to taking pictures of actual people.  I don't have doubt in my abilities, but rather with my instruction giving.  There's just something about my telling someone to "give me your best smile" just before I count to three that seems to not produce the natural smiles I'm looking for.  Shocking, isn't it.  Luckily, this guy was used to taking orders from a Wicked Witch so he found my direction giving to be a little less stressful.  I did a little redecoration and moved the statue out of its corner and positioned it on a table with some Christmas lights in the background.  Lighting consisted of a hanging table lamp that was just above the statue and some background light from the room.  I took the shot at f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  The main reason for shooting at f/2.8 in this case was because I really wanted the blurring effect on the Christmas lights.  I felt that the out of focus balls of light looked nicer than if were we to see the LED lights that were strung together along the wall.  Being the perfect model, he held his pose long enough for me to snap off a few shots before vanishing in a burst of smoke and fire and a clap of thunder.  Something about needing to find a girl and her little dog too.

And Now A Message From Our Sponsor

I'd like to take a moment to thank all of the visitors who come here.  You're not a vocal bunch, but I do notice that you've been passing through.  Feel free to also visit my Facebook Page in order to keep up to date with everything I post.  Thanks again.

Je voudrais prendre un moment pour remercier tous les visiteurs qui viennent ici. Vous n'êtes pas un groupe vocal, mais je ne remarque que vous avez été de passage. N'hésitez pas à visiter aussi ma page Facebook afin de rester à jour avec tout ce que j'ai poster. Merci encore.

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Walking On, Walking On The Moon

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  This morning I saw a photograph that my professor, Richard Anber, had posted to his Facebook page and I thought it was so cool in it's simplicity that I had to go out and give it a shot myself.  It was nothing more than a photo of a footprint in the snow, but it managed to do something that I haven't done for myself in a while.  It got me and my camera out of the house.  He added a subtitle to his photo, "That's one small step for man..." a link to the moon landing, so I decided to follow in that vain and boldly go where I have never gone before (with any real success)...using Curves in Photoshop.  I took the original photo at  f/22 1/60sec ISO 100 at 46mm.  As you might imagine, the image was rather white.  That's when I decided to let the magic of Photoshop go to work.  I'd like to give a little tutorial on Curves at this point, but the truth is that I just placed a couple of anchor points and just generally moved the curves around until I got what I was looking for.  That being turning the white snow into a grey lunar surface.  So, Mr. Anber, thanks for all of the info you've passed along over the years and thanks for getting me out of the house today.  Although I did break your golden rule about spending more time using Photoshop than taking the picture.  I'll try to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Emancipate Us From Winter

First off, I feel the need to mention the title of this post.  I am not one to complain about snow or winter.  I am a cold weather person and will take the slushy snow falling on us today anytime over the heat and humidity of summer.  However, as someone who works with the public, I also know that my preferences are not shared with the majority of people.  So, in an effort to provide some relief to those of you who are having the February Blah's, here is a shot I took while taking an early morning walk in Vancouver a few years back.  Something I always look for when I'm on a photo walk is reflections.  In puddles, on glass, or in this case, on False Creek.  I found myself wide awake at 5:30AM that morning and decided that it was the perfect time to do a little walking tour of Downtown Vancouver.  I ended up down by the site of Expo '88 and found this lonely old boat floating around in a sea of modern buildings.  It was a real throwback, and upon closer inspection, I discovered that the boat had the perfect name, Emancipation.  I walked around the bicycle path, trying to find a vantage point that would allow me to take advantage of all of the reflections on the water, but also allowed me to get the name of the boat in my shot.  I took this photograph at f/4, 1/800sec, ISO 100 at 51mm.  I was curious to know if this boat was actually owned by someone or if it was just in the creek as a kind of funny exhibition, so I used Google Earth recently to check the location out and the boat is gone.  I hope it's enjoying its freedom.

A Snowy Situation

We had a little bit of a snow fall from the sky today, however I was stuck at work and was thus unable to get out and wander around with my camera.  However, waiting for me when I got home was this interesting looking pattern.  Basically, we had some wet, sticky snow which was being blown around by some pretty strong winds.  This resulted in the snow getting blown against one of the outside walls where I live and sticking to the many cobwebs left behind by some spiders that were much more active than I had thought over the summer.  It wasn't a plan-point-and-shoot situation as I decided to play around a little bit with my flash.  To be perfectly honest, I have no real explanation behind this photo.  I was limited in time and location, so this seemed like a good opportunity.  I just decided to play around and this one had a the nicest look to my eye.  The shot you see here was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec ISO 1600 at 24mm while also bouncing some flash against the wall.  I'm pretty sure that the combination of flash and the high ISO is what caused the burned out look on the bricks. Either that, or it's just the result of the random numbers that I set the camera at.  Sometimes it's just fun to go out and play around with the camera.  Unless you decide that you really like this shot as well.  In that case, well, I obviously had the result planned all along. 

Take My Heart, Please

 I must be coming down with a case of Valentine-itis, because I have a second Valentine`s themed photo for you all this week.  Truthfully, this photo was my originally planned submission for the 14^th, but the flowers that I posted yesterday looked much to nice to pass up.  That and I have a friend who said that I should post more photos, more often.  As a result, we have back-to-back postings for the first time in a while.  This photo was taken back in September and was also seen during my photography exhibition.  I’d like to say that I was sitting on the dock when I had the brilliant idea of forming the cord that you see into the shape of a heart, but the truth is that I saw a similar photo that a friend of mine had taken and I borrowed the idea.  I changed the photo up a bit, added my own personal style.  However, there are two versions of this photo.  The one that is on the upper left side of the screen and one more that you will find at the end of this posting.  The first one may have been on display, but it is the second one that is by far one of my favourite photos.  The first shot was taken at f/4, 1/1000sec. ISO 100 at 24mm.  Shooting at f/4 really blurs out the background, putting all of your attention on what the photographer really wants you to see.  In this case, I want you to look at the heart.  The second photo was shot at f/8 1/250sec. ISO 100 at 25mm.  The difference between the two being that by shooting at f/8, the background of the photo become a little more clear, but still remains blurred enough so that a certain camera shy person doesn’t mind being photographed.  Many people told me that they liked the photo above, and even a couple were sold.  However, the version with that little extra special something on the lake is much more to my liking.

She Loves Me...She Loves Me Not...She Loves Me...

I've be wanting to practice shooting some flowers for a while now, but haven't had the opportunity.  I usually try to take pictures in my Mom's garden, however her garden is currently 100km away an under about 15cm's of snow.  Luckily, it's Valentine's Day and all of the local flower shops have a wide variety of flowers just waiting to be photographed.  I picked out a selection and brought them home.  Then came the fun part.  Since I don't have studio lighting, it was time to improvise.  I set the flowers up in front of a soft light source and added my flash to my camera.  I've had many moments with that flash.  Some good, some not so good, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of using it.  After playing around with the flowers to get them positioned in a manner than I was happy with, I placed the bouquet next to one light source and angled my flash to 45degrees and used the pull-out reflector to bounce the light towards the flowers.  I shot at f/11, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Using a shallow depth of field like f/11 allows me to make sure that most of the flowers will be in focus, where as if I were to shoot at something like f/4, there would be many more of the flowers that would appear blurry.  Shooting a 1/250sec is pretty much the standard when using a flash, though I did get some interesting results by shooting at some slower and faster speeds while I was playing around.  I think this shot came out pretty well, and the wonderful person who received the flowers seemed quite happy as well.