Merry Christmas To All

While I wasn't looking another Christmas has managed to sneak up on us.  It's time to shut things down for a couple of days and visit with my parents to see what will be hiding in their Christmas tree this year.  That's where I found this shiny little trinket last year.  I liked the whole teddy bear/rocking horse combination as it reminds me of Christmas gifts.  I moved it to a different part of the tree that had a few more lights and tried to aim it towards some of the brighter kitchen lights to get that extra shine on it.  The photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/50sec, ISO 800 at 24mm.  I hope that you all get all kinds of nice gifts this Holiday Season and that you all get to spend as much time as possible with family and friends.  Merry Christmas from My Lovely Assistant and myself to all of you out there.

Christmas Dessert

Since we're now officially in the Holiday Season, family gatherings and huge meals are to be scheduled and attended.  This means that it is time for My Lovely Assistant to shine.  She created this wonderful three-layered cake with caramelized pears and almond cookie trees.  It took her a fair amount of time, yet still much less time than I spent trying to photograph it.  I tried to find just the right amount of flash to properly light the cake, yet also keep the background darker so that we can see the reflection of the Christmas lights on the glass table surface.  I ended up taking the photograph at f/3.2, 1/20sec, ISO 800 at 24mm while bouncing some flash off of the ceiling down onto the cake, and also using up a four-pack of AA batteries while taking all of the test shots in the process.  The neighbours must have thought that we were having one heck of a party with all of the lights going off.  Hats off to My Lovely Assistant and her wonderful talents.

A Little Shaky

In order to be successful when taking photographs of fireworks, there are two things that much any photographer should have.  You need a sturdy tripod and a remote switch to trigger the shutter.  Sadly, about ten minutes before the fireworks show from the Old Port of Montreal was to begin, my remote switch took its last photograph.  I was taking some test shots to make sure that everything was in focus when I hit the button....and nothing happened.  I wasn't just going to pack up and leave, I do like to watch fireworks displays after all, but I was reduced to trying to take photographs by pressing my finger against the shutter button on the body of my camera and holding it in place.  The method works, but it also leaves open the possibility of the photograph being ruined by camera shake.  Since the exposure time on these types of photographs is a couple of seconds, and it's really hard for the human body to remain perfectly still, the reality is that even the smallest of movements gets recorded in the form of broken lines and things appearing out of focus.  As a result, I was only able to salvage two photographs from the evening and had to do a few Photoshop tricks to mask the lines and make it appear sharper.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 20secs, ISO 100 at 28mm and the second photograph was taken at f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 28mm.  There are a few more of these winter fireworks shows, so I'll be getting myself a new switch and I'll be getting back out there soon enough

Stairway To Apples

Sometimes when I'm playing around with some of my photographs I like to take a few seconds to see what they would look like as black and whites.  When I first began to take photographs, it was exclusively using black and white film so I will probably always have a little soft spot for those colourless photographs.  After finishing up with this photograph of a ladder up against a tree that I took while out picking apples with My Lovely Assistant this Fall, I thought that it would probably look as nice without all of the colour.  While I usually just press the Grayscale button in Photoshop to get rid of the colour, I also like to use some of the other functions, like Curves, in order to darken or lighten the photograph.  Doing those little steps brings out a little something extra in the photograph and keeps me safe behind the computer instead of being out in the world getting into trouble.  Not that I'm a troublemaker or anything. Wouldn't want my Mom to be getting any bad ideas.  The photograph was taken at f/9, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 24mm and I actually climbed up on one of those things at one point to grab an apple.  See, this is an example of the kind of trouble that I get into, and those of you who are aware of my complete lack of balance should be well aware how much trouble my being on a ladder without adult supervision can be.

Well Deserved Treat

Those of you who live in my neck of the woods are currently shoveling out of our first snowstorm of the year.  This was a fairly mild one at about 15cm's of the white stuff, but it still needs a good deal of shoveling to clean everything up.  After doing my fair share of shoveling both at the Day Job and afterwards at home, I felt that I was due a little treat.  Since I like to share, I have a little treat for you as well.  Some nice Jujube candies.  It's been a while since we've had some candy on the old blog, and the bright red kind of fits the season.  The photograph was taken at f/5, 1/60sec, ISO400 at 60mm.  I focused on the design on top of the candy and then framed it in the bottom corner of the photograph so that it would stand out from the others that blur away the further they go into the background.  Now I had best see if the snow is still coming down and if I'll be needing another little treat later.

Head In The Flowers

Visiting the parents always provides an opportunity to grab a photograph or two along the way.  My Mom always has a variety of flowers around the house.  They're very colourful and prove to be the perfect addition to the blog when we're going through a series of grey days.  This moth orchid was on a table during one visit and the colours immediately grabbed my attention.  The purple on white made for a nice pattern, and then the yellow on the long petals.  Then, after giving the whole thing a look-over, I noticed what looked like the head of a bird right in the middle of the darn thing.  That became the focus of what I tried to look at while I'd play around, looking for just the right light and angle.  I not only wanted to capture the nice colours, but I wanted to get a good look of that bird head as well.  I grabbed my Macro lens and took the photograph at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm, trying to keep as much of the head in focus while letting the larger purple and white petals fade off and flow into the background.  There's always fun to be had photographing flowers.

Coming Soon

Over the Winter months I sometimes take a few extra photographs that I save to be posted a little later in the Summer when I need a little mental reminder of cooler days ahead when dealing with a sweltering hot day.  Luckily, in my opinion anyway, this was a more comfortable Summer than usual in these parts, which is good news for me.  It's also bad news for the archives as it means a few photographs that should have been posted, have not yet appeared.  With another Winter season about to knock on our door, it means there will likely be fresher snow photographs to come, so I had better get this one posted up before it ends up getting forgotten on my hard drive.  The photograph was taken during a snowy walk at f/9, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I like the peacefulness that freshly fallen snow gives to things.  A fresh layer of snow just seems to make things look a little bit nicer to me.