Better Luck Next Time

One of the little projects I wanted to try out this year was to try out capturing light from passing stars in the night.  As you can see from the image on the left, I kind of succeeded, but not really.  I needed to photoshop the crap out of this image, using the Levels tool to get the sky to be black.  There is also a bright spot in the middle of the image and all kinds of red pixels.  I had used some tips I read online to try this photograph and it was shot at f/2.8, 93min15sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Obviously, this wasn't what I had in mind.  I read somewhere else that I should have shot several 30minutes exposures and put them together in photoshop.  If anyone out there has any ideas, it would be appreciated.

Keep Photographing Everything

Those of you who were here over the last year have probably seen me write several times that the best way to get better at photography is to keep on shooting things.  Photograph everything is something that has been written several times on these pages, with examples always included.  Here's another little situation that I believe helps my case.  From the 16th-21st of August there was some work being done on the building where I live.  The metal guardrails were removed and repaired, but before they were replaced, I took out my camera and took a few shots of the old wood that the guardrails had previously been connected to.  I then used photoshop to crop the photos into different sizes and do some re-framing.  The first photo you see at the top of the page was shot at f/5, 1/2500sec, ISO 400 at 60mm and then cropped to 12" x 6".

f/5, 1/2000 sec, ISO 400 at 60mm

f/5, 1/2500sec, ISO 400 at 60mm

f/5, 1/2500sec, ISO 40 at 60mm

I like doing little projects like this where I take one photograph and I end up turning it into four, or more, separate photographs.  This also something else you've seen me do if you've been here for a while.  I think that all four of these are interesting photographs, and the subject was nothing more than a weathered piece of wood.  Get out there and shoot.

Happy Birthday!!!

The blog turned One today.  I'm actually very happy with this place as it has forced me to go out and keep taking photographs and experimenting with photography.  I hope that all of you out there have been enjoying it as well.

Good-Bye Cotton Street

Here's a bit of news that I didn't think I'd write.  My parents sold their house.  This bit of news wouldn't really figure to be that important in my little world of photography, but where my parents live has provided me with many flowery models through the years and produced some of my favourite photographs as well as providing all kinds of practice when it comes to framing and experimenting with aperture and shutter speed.  In other words, my Mom & Dad's backyard has kind of served as a photography school where I have shot hundreds of photographs over the years.  I ended up paying my last visit to their house today, and in-between moving boxes around and picking over family relics, I did what comes natural for me.  I took some pictures.  This isn't really the end of the line for photos from what will now be know as my Mom & Dad's old backyard.  I have photos taken all the way back in May that I still haven't had the time to share with you just yet.  As a matter of fact, I may need to keep those photos in reserve for a while if my Mom doesn't have the time to weave her magic on a new flower bed for me to take pictures of come next Spring.  An obvious choice for my final Cotton Street picture would have been a Day Lily.  They're the flowers that have seen the most screen time here on the blog.  You can see some shots of my Mom's Day Lilies here and here.  Instead, I chose to go with something a little more colourful, because my Mom's flowerbed has always been full of colour.  This photo was taken at f/4, 1/800sec, ISO 100 at 51mm and features some yellow Rudbeckia Hirta's (otherwise known as Brown-Eyed Susan's) as well as some blue and pink Phlox.  We had some good times on Cotton street, and don't worry Mom & Dad, we'll have plenty more at the new place as well.

Grammie's Daisies

August 22nd will mark the second year since my Grandmother, Grammie, passed away.  I'm not really the sentimental sort, but Grammie was kind of important to me.  I know that I have the full support of my entire family and friends, but I always seemed to feel it that much more from her.  She was always a big fan of my photographs and one of my big regrets was that she passed away before my I had the chance to have my exhibition.  I really think it's something that she would have really enjoyed.  I remember showing her some photos I had taken of the Victoria Bridge one time and she went on to explain to me how the way that the shadows of the bridge fell on the water must have caught my eye and been the reason why I took the photo. I won't lie, I was impressed.  Most people had commented on how nice the bridge had looked, but nobody had ever mentioned the shadow.  For the record, she was right.  I did take the photo because of the shadow.  If the photo was digital, I'd probably show it to to you all here, but it was taken back when I was still using film.  One of these days I'll get around to scanning all of those old photos, when I have a year or two free to spare.  Since the bridge isn't available, these Daisies will have to do.  I chose the Daisy because it's a flower that I always associated with her.  It might be because they always grew everywhere around the farm that my Grandparents lived on.  Back in the summer when I'd stay with her while my parents would be away on business or vacation, we'd go out into the field and pick them.  I was even introduced to the famous 'She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not' game thanks to Grammie and her Daisies. I like to take pictures of Daisies whenever I see them, just because they remind me of my Grandmother.  Keeping the family connection going, these Daisies came from my Mom's yard where, much like many places, they grow wild pretty much wherever they want to.  I used my 60mm Macro lens to take these photos for two reasons.  The first being that it really brings out the center yellow disc of the flower.  The second being that since these flowers grow wild anywhere, these found themselves around the cement deck in the backyard.  Cement isn't really all that interesting to look at, so by shooting these flowers with a wide aperture, the cement in the background gets blurred, which draws more attention the flower while making what would be a rather drab background, look a little bit more interesting.  In order of appearance, the photographs you see were shot at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  f/4, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  The third photo was shot using the same settings as the second, and the fourth photograph was taken at f/4, 1/800sec, ISO 400 at 50mm.  Those of  you still reading will have noticed that the final photo was taken at a different focal length than the previous three.  This was done because while the Macro lens does a great job of magnification, it doesn't work so well when you want to take a wide angled shot.  For the final photo, I also wanted to show some of the cluster of Daisies that were all growing together.  The Macro lens couldn't get the job done, but the wide angle worked great.  My Grammie was never big on computers, but I'd like to think that somewhere up in the sky she gets the chance to look down once in a while and sneak a peak at all of the photos that I've been sharing with all of you.  Maybe she's even letting the others up there know what I was thinking when I took the pictures they're looking at.

Family Ties...Part II

I know a winner when I see one, and like a Hollywood executive chomping at the bits after a successful summer blockbuster, the thoughts of a sequel immediately come to mind.  I love taking photographs of fireworks, flowers, cars and all kinds of other things, but some of the best numbers I get are when the lovely Alexia graces my pages.  So, here we go with Part II.  There's not much more to add to the story for those of you who read Family Ties, so I'll just add the technical information underneath the photographs for those of you who are interested by such things.  As with the previous photos, they were all taken using my 50mm lens.  The first photograph on the page here was taken at f/4, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.

The 'Blow Me A Kiss' Photo

f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 100 50mm

Comfortably Seated

f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 100, 50mm

Tickled By The Invisible Man

f/3.5, 1/200sec, ISO 100, 50mm

Laurence, George and Alexia, it was lots of fun.  We'll have to do this again sometime.

Family Ties

Way back in March, I introduced you all to the lovely, Alexia.  I babysat her while her parents were both busy at work.  Okay, my Lovely Assistant took care of her while I ran from room to room trying to make sure that none of my stuff got broken.  I also found the time to take a bunch of photos of Alexia, that her parents really liked.  They asked me if it would be possible when the weather warmed up if I could take some more pictures of her, and of themselves as well.  While I like to consider myself as being pretty good at photographing 'stuff', I've never really had that much success when it comes to photographing people.  I've been trying to change that.  My March photos of Alexia proved to be very popular, as were some photos I took of my cousin's newborn son back in December.  I took these photos two weeks ago and gave my friends, George and Laurence (I suppose we can give them names) this past Saturday.  They loved the photos and were nice enough to allow me to share them with all of you.  It's not easy to take photos of kids, especially kids that are full of energy and don't want to sit still for very long.  I had one thing going for me in my favour.  Alexia is already comfortable with me as we've seen each other several times.  I was told that she even says my name when she's sees my picture on my Facebook page.  Ah, I can't tell you how awesome it is to be popular with the under-three demographic.  Even with the familiarity, Alexia got a little tired of the camera after a little while, and began to hide from the lens.  I kind of new then that the photoshoot was over.  My Lovely Assistant and I still stuck around for a little bit.  Gotta make sure that the little tyke still thinks of me as 'friendly' in case some more photos are requested in the future.  We met at Seaway Park in Saint-Lambert, and I had a little twinge of worry as soon as it dawned on me that much of the park was currently torn up or littered with construction equipment because of work being done on Riverside Drive.  George and Laurence were more worried about the weather, was it was a tad bit cloudy and the forecast called for rain.  I assured them that this would not be a problem, but rather was better as the clouds would act as a natural diffuser against the sun.  We all got to the park around the same time and managed to find a little green space that didn't have any water tubes or large tractors in the immediate area and got right to work.  As I don't do that many photographs of people, I don't have a large library of poses in my head that I can call upon when trying to get people to have their picture taken.  This was a similar problem back in school as we needed to know how to get the right poses out of the models for our Fashion Photography course.  One tip that was given to me back then was to look through fashion magazine and cut out some of the photos of the models and then use those to show to the model that you are shooting.  My Lovely Assistant was kind enough to sacrifice some of her magazines back then to my education, but at the moment, neither one of us has any 'family' magazines around the house.  So, I hit the internet the night before and did a search for 'outdoor family pictures'. I'd like to say that it made a difference, but the poses you see today were 100% decided by Alexia.  Telling a two-year old to 'sit on the rock with your right hand against the other rock while you let the wind blow through your hair', doesn't really go over all that well.  Here's the simple truth.  The kid is in charge.  You shoot, and you better be ready to shoot, when she stops.  The first picture was taken at f/4, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  Photograph number three was taken at f/3.5, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  The fourth photo was taken at f/4, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 50mm and the final photograph was taken at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  It was also cropped to 12" x 12" as I liked the circle inside of a square look.  The observant among you might have also noticed that all of the pictures were taken at 50mm.  That's because I used my 50mm prime lens.  It's little, it's plastic and it probably my second favorite lens in my bag.  Whenever friends ask me what kind of lens to get, I always tell them to get this lens (link leads to a review by The Digital Picture).  This was a great way to spend an afternoon and I had a blast taking these photos.  Alexia has a really expressive face, as do most children, and I'm really happy that I manage to capture some of her unique smiles on my camera.  The fact that George and Laurence really liked them is a real bonus.  If there are some people who you don't want to disappoint, it's the parents.  Especially when the parents are friends of yours and requested that you take the pictures in the first place.  I hope that all of you out there like them as well.




***BONUS COVERAGE****

This photo wasn't originally going to be part of my post, but Laurence thought it was very funny and asked me to put it up as well.  We titled this photo 'A Couple Of Monkeys' and how long you get to see this picture will depend on how much of a sense of humour George has.