Kind Of Blue

Here's something that I haven't said very much in my days as a photographer.  Photoshop saved my picture.  I'll allow you all a moment to pick your jaws up from off of the floor.  I'll be honest, this photo didn't quite go the way I had planned.  When I was planning the shot, for some reason I had it in my head that the lights were on the other side of the street.  Second, while I was waiting for the snow to melt, it appears as if half of the street lights had burned out.  Third, I knew that I wanted to take this picture before the leaves had covered the trees and blocked my view, but I didn't know that it would also leave me with the back of a large scoreboard from the Olympic Bassin.  Worst of all, I specifically waited for a little bit after the sun went down to take this picture so that I would have nice blue sky, but no matter how I tried to adjust my camera, be it aperture or shutter speed, I was left with an ugly grey sky.  Are any of you still reading after all of that negativity?  I know, you're all still stunned by the earlier admission of photoshop usage.  Okay, how about a little positivity.  I still wish that the lights would have been on the other side of the image, but if they were then I wouldn't have been able to capture the light streaks of the cars passing on the highway.  It's true that it would have been nice if all of the road lights worked, but if they did I probably wouldn't have gotten the cool blue reflection of the dome on the ground.  I can't think of anything nice to say about the scoreboard, but thanks to Photoshop my sky is blue again.  I figured I had nothing left to lose, so I decided to play around with the Color Balance option and added a whole lot of blue to the picture.  Suddenly, my sky was blue once again, I had what I feel is pretty close to the picture I wanted to take, and all else is right with the world.  For those of you wondering, this shot was taken at f/7.1, 7sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I've included the original before Photoshop photograph so that you can see the difference.

Do You Eat The Red Ones Last?

A little while back I found myself trying to find a photograph in the organized mess that is my hard drive.  As often happens, I end up coming across a folder of photos I had taken at some other time and next thing I know, I'm going from folder to folder just looking at all of the photos that I've taken over the past several years.  This time I ended up in the folder of class project photos I had taken while at Concordia and was reunited with a photo I took for a class called Colour - Photographic Styles.  The course dealt with lighting and composition.  One of the assignments was to photograph every day items that would not normally seem photogenic but could be used to create a colourful photo.  I ended up using a plate of Smarties.  I was going to be lazy and just post it here, but what better excuse to eat some Smarties then to photograph a plate of them.  I poured my subjects onto the plate and put them next to the window for light.  I used a 60mm Macro lens to take the picture.  A Macro lens acts kind of like a magnifying glass.  Truthfully, one of the reasons I took this photo was because it had been a while since I used that lens and I like to dust them all off and give them some action every now and then.  This shot was taken at f/13, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I ended up taking several pictures of the Smarties at several different apertures in order to play around with the depth of field.  The wider apertures gave some nice background blur, but in order to make the most of the colour, I chose to keep as many of the Smarties in focus as possible.  I think the Smarties make for a very colourful photo, and to answer the question in the title, no, I don't eat the red ones last.  It's always been purple for me.

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

The high percentage of 'lazy' in my blood coupled with a good dose of 'I'll do it later' in my bones means that I can often come up with some very good excuses when it comes to leaving my camera in it's bag.  My favourite excuse is "there's nothing interesting to take a picture of around here."  Ofcourse, that is not the truth.  There is always something interesting to photograph, it's just a question of moving around a little bit and opening your eyes.  Take this photograph for example.  What you see is the image of the door handle from the Bishop Stewart Memorial Church of the Holy Trinity in Frelighsburgh, Quebec.  Just before starting work on my pictures for the Romeo vs Juliette show, I had revisited the photographs I had taken there last November in order to prepare a CD of pictures for my father's cousin, Geraldine, who helps to take care of the church.  While going through the pictures, I came back upon this image, which had been a late discovery but was one of my favourite shots from the day.  The afternoon sun was going down, but it was coming in at a perfect angle to light up the handle and cast a soft shadow to it's left.  By zooming in real tight on the handle, it also allowed for the grain of the wood to be very visible.  I shot the photograph at f/2.8, 1/20sec, ISO 100 at 30mm.  I wanted to use the wide aperture in order to throw the rest of the door out of focus.  The wide aperture also meant that I'd have to use a slower camera speed due to the lack of available light so it's a good thing that I had my tripod with me.  Once home, I also cropped the image down to it's current size so that the handle became an even bigger focus of the image.  This is the kind of photo I like to look at when I fall victim to a case of lazy bones.  There's always something out there that you can turn into a nice photograph.  You just need to get out there, open your eyes and find it.

A Little Credit Goes A Long Way

I don't think it makes me any different than anyone else to be excited to see my name in print.  Mind you, had my name been on a Wanted Poster I may be thinking differently, but in this case, it is being associated with my photographs.  I've got two printed credits to brag about, I mean proudly tell you about today.  The first is a print ad for Provigo Richard Gagnon.  I did a photo for them last fall, but there has been some changes in the managerial staff since then and they wanted a new photo to be done.  I took the picture back in February and it appears right now, along with a photo I took of the outside of the store, in the Le Petit Annuaire St. Lambert.  It's kind of a mini telephone book that deals exclusively with St. Lambert.  It's not hard to miss my photos, they're on the first page after you open the book.  You might have to look twice to see my name though as it is next to the spine of the book, but I assure you that it is in fact there.  The photo also allowed me to practice my Photoshop skills a little bit as I used the Clone Brush an awful lot in order to get rid of the shadows cast by my flash behind the heads of the people in the back row.  The book can be found anywhere in St.Lambert.  My second credit appears in the production booklet for Romeo vs Juliette,the latest production from the Choeur Vives Voix.  You might have heard me mention them here before.  As some of you may remember, back in March I did the headshots for the booklet.  I'd like to take a little moment to thank Provigo Richard Gagnon and the Choeur Vives Voix for hiring me for their photography work and for making sure that my name was published, and most importantly that it was spelled correctly!

Romeo vs Juliette - Part One

Those of you who regularly visit my Facebook Page, Eric Mahannah Photography (go once, go twice, tell your friends and don't forget to 'Like' it) have probably already seen the pictures you're about to see.  I've been posting them there over the last few days.  However, I didn't want this page to be neglected, and I also felt it was time to tell some of the story behind these photos.  These photos were taken by yours truly on April 4th at the show Romeo vs Juliette.  Put on by the wonderful group, Choeur Vives Voix.  Romeo vs Juliette is kind of a different take on the famous play written by William Shakespeare.  This is the second year in a row that I had the fortune of being able to work with these great people and I had a wonderful time.  It's always a bit of a challenge to shoot these shows and this year was no different.  Low light means you have to use a high ISO and a wide aperture, much like I mentioned in the previous post about the pictures I took at the hockey game.  The lighting was even more severe at the show.  Once again, I shot everything in AV mode with the ISO at 1600 and every photo I took was at f/2.8.  No other options available.  To shoot at any other aperture would have resulted in slower shutter speeds and would have resulted in some very blurry images.  It's perhaps just my opinion, but I thought that the lighting was even darker this year than it was for last years show.  In order to appearance, the speeds that ended up being used were 1/320sec, 1/250sec, 1/400 sec, 1/500sec and 1/250sec.  My early photos were suffering from a bad case of the Blurries so I decided after the second scene that instead of trying to pick and choose, I had seen the play before shooting and knew when the most important scenes were going to happen, I would shoot as much as possible.  My trigger finger got a good work out as I ended up with almost 1800 photographs on my camera when the final curtain came down to bring and end to the show.  Yes, that is excessive.  I jokingly called this my Quantity over Quality strategy.  I then had the fun task of trying to edit down that large number to a total that fits comfortably onto t a CD.  In this case, the magic number was 200 photographs. That meant that almost 1600 photographs would have to go.  The first round of editing went rather quickly.  The photos that had been infected with a bad case of the Blurries were quickly brushed aside, never to be seen again.  Some with a small case of blurring around the hands were kept because I kind of liked the effect of motion that the blurring gave to the photos.  Afterwards, I then tried to cut down on multiple photos from the same scene.  I wanted to have at least one photo from every scene in the show rather than 20 from one 5 minute period and nothing from any of the others.  After a couple of days, the cutting was done and I had enough photos to fill the CD.  However, before I even got to that stage, something happened that almost resulted in my having no photos of the show here for me to show you at all.  Something that caused my heart to skip a few beats.  Something that you'll have to come back here later to read when I publish Part 2 in a few days!  Always keep your audience wanting more...

Hockey Morning In Greenfield Park

I've been pretty much spending all of my free time since Friday going through the photos I took for the Romeo vs Juliette show, and as I previously mentioned, those photos will be getting a blog post of their own in the very near future.  However, I was happy to see a Facebook message left by my friend Emmanuel who was letting the world know that his daughter Florence and her hockey team would be playing in Greenfield Park in a Sunday morning Semi-Final Midget B game as part of the Coupe Dodge tournament.  Knowing a good opportunity when I see one, I packed up the camera and decided to head out to the Cynthia Coull for a little camera practice.  Sometimes cameras aren't always welcome in arenas, but since I knew one of the coaches I figured that it wouldn't be a problem.  It ends up that my 'connections' weren't even necessary as there were plenty of cameras in the stands, and it didn't end up costing me anything to get in as one of my former teachers Mr. Hnatchuk was kind enough to cover the price of my ticket to get in.  Thank you, sir. I brought along two lenses for the games, my Canon 75-300mm and Canon 24-70mm.  I used the 75mm-300mm during the first period, but the low light in the area didn't mesh very well with the max f/5.6 aperture that I could use.  Even by upping my ISO to 1600 I wasn't getting enough speed.  So, it was time to change plans.  Out came the 24-70mm which allowed me to shoot at f/2.8, which enabled me to get a better speed to capture the action.  I wasn't able to zoom in on the action, so that meant doing some post-production cropping.  Florence is the goaltender for her team so I decided to place myself at her end of the rink for all three periods.  Being one person, I knew covering the entire rink wasn't really possible and when photographing hockey, most of the interesting action happens around the nets so my strategy was simple.  Stick with the goalie. These photos aren't Sports Illustrated crisp, but Sports Illustrated didn't lend me a lens for the afternoon and sadly the Greenfield Park arena isn't as well lit up as the Molson Centre.  Still, I was hoping to be able to freeze the action and get some good shots of Florence for her and her family.  I'm happy with the shots and I'm not going to let a little 'noise' bother me. All of the shots were taken in AV mode at f/2.8, except for the first shot which was taken at f/5.6.  They were also all taken at ISO 1600.  In order of appearance, the speeds that ended up being used were 1/200sec, 1/250sec, 1/640sec, 1/400sec, 1/320sec, 1/320sec and 1/400sec.  The high speeds are necessary ofcourse so that the action can be frozen.  I'm really happy that in most of the photos even the puck is frozen in midair.  Sadly, there was no fairy tale ending for the day.  Florence's team, the Champlain Rapids, lost the game 3-1, but the girls were all smiles after the match.  So was I.  Maybe I'll be able to get myself invited to a few more matches next season, I'd sure appreciate the chance to continue working on getting good shots.  Maybe next year I'll even be able to capture them hoisting a Cup of their own.

Romeo vs Juliette Teasers

This past Thursday, I spent the evening photographing the show Romeo vs Juliette for the troupe de théâtre Choeur Vives Voix.  I'm currently digging through the hundreds of photographs that I took to cut the total down to a more manageable size that will fit on a CD.  Here are two of that shots that I took with the promise that more will be coming soon.  Once everything has been organized and in better order, I'll be back here to let you all in on my adventures from that night.  While you're waiting, there is still time to go and see their show.  Visit their website to find out all of the information that you need.  I really enjoyed it and I'm sure that you will too.

A Little Snip Here, A Little Snip There

 One thing I've been trying to do a little more often is play with different kinds of cropping sizes in Photoshop.  One of the reasons for this has to do with the popularity of one of my photographs taken of Montreal that was on display at my photography exhibition.  For those of you who are curious, you can see the photograph in question here.  The only downside to these special crop sizes is that it gets rather difficult to find a good frame to fit the odd size crops that you decide to finally use, but it can be done.  Another reason to do some cropping is to get a final image that you just couldn't get by using the camera alone.  This photograph is a good example.  It comes from the Bishop Stewart Memorial Church of the Holy Trinity in Frelighsburgh, QC.  Some of you may remember some other photographs I took from that location.  Those of you who don't can find them here.  These stained glass windows are located over the main door and no matter how I positioned myself, I just couldn't get an angle that satisfied me.  So, knowing that Photoshop was there to help, I just took a wide shot of the door and decided to play around with the image at a later time.  This shot was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 42mm and then cropped to 12" x 6".  In all honesty, I also tweaked the image a little bit using the Curves tool in Photoshop.  It's another thing that I'm trying to get a little more comfortable using.  As an example, I've also included the original photograph that I took to show you the difference in what was shot, and what I finished with.

Something For Your Sweet Tooth

The Canadian Dental Association might not approve of this picture.  We just celebrated Easter over here, or for those of us who aren't overly religious, Chocolate Day.  As I would suspect happened with all of the rest of the good little girls and boys out there, we were visited by the Easter Bunny sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning.  Since my lovely assistant and I would like to continuing to receive these yearly baskets of chocolate, I thought that I would take a few minutes out of my binge eating to snap off a few shots.  Those of you who passed by last week will remember the shot I took of the Parmesan crisps, well I kind of did the opposite when it came to this shot.  No, the tripod didn't come out.  What I meant was that rather than using a large aperture in order to blur out most of the background, I used a smaller aperture this time to make sure that the eggs that are in the front of the picture wouldn't be overly blurry.  It's true that I wanted the bunnies to be the main focus, but I wanted the chocolate eggs to be seen as well and not just be turned into a blurred mess of colour.  I guess we could kind of call this shot the second part of a tasty two part lesson in using different apertures on your camera.  This shot was taken at f/10, 1/25sec, ISO 800 at 55mm.  There's actually a good reason for using ISO 800.  It's because I forgot to reset my camera after taking the shots of the Parmesan crisps.  I'd like to say that this is the first time such a thing as happened, but it's a mistake I seem to make more often than I care to admit.  If there is anyone from Canon taking notes, please include a "Reset Your Camera ISO When You're Done, Dummy!" function on your next models.  It would be appreciated.