A Little Trick Photography

Thanks to Mother Nature, I currently stand at 0-2 when it comes to trying to get some fresh photographs of the 2013 L'International des Feux Loto-Québec.  While the rain that had soaked the area all day did manage to end before the show, the sky was still pretty much full of heavy clouds.  As a result, the camera stayed home once again as I watch the show from the street.  Lucky for you, kind reader, I only opened this blog up last year so I still have a rather large supply of unseen fireworks shots to share with you in times like this when the weather doesn't co-operate.  This shot was taken back in 2010 from a biking path in Seaway Park, Saint-Lambert.  It's also a little bit of a trick shot.  One technique I learned for taking photographs of fireworks  involves using a long exposure time, but blocking the lens during some of the shot.  You can use this technique as a way to capture multiple blasts during the show.  To illustrate, the little block of red & white fireworks happened first, I then blocked my lens using my grey card (there's another reason why you should always have one with you) and pulled back the card when the circular fireworks went off.  I'd like to say I planned it as such, but the truth is that you need some luck.  There is no way to know what kind of fireworks will follow each other, so there is lots of trial and error involved.  Thankfully, we're in the digital age so I didn't have to waste several rolls of film to get this one photograph.  It was taken at f/14, 17sec, ISO 100 at 64mm.  Again, the 17 second exposure time is kind of misleading as the lens was only really open for maybe eight of those.  As an added bonus, I also framed the shot so that the bottom of my photograph would capture the light trails of the traffic passing by.  Hopefully the sky will clear during some of the remaining seven shows so that I can try and use this method of taking photographs of fireworks again.

Not So Itsy Bitsy Spider

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

 Crawled up the water spout.

Down came the rain,

 And washed the spider out.

Out came the sun, 

And dried up all the rain,

And the Itsy Bitsy Spider

 Went up the spout again.

 

I think we've all, at some point in our lives, been told that little nursery rhyme.  It would have sometimes been told to us complete with hand gestures that followed the spiders plight as he went up and down the water spout.  I don't have a water spout, but I do have a concrete wall that itsy bitsy spiders and a wide variety of other bugs do like to crawl on.  While I was taking pictures of my tomato plant the other day, this Daddy Long Legs crawled out from his hiding spot.  I was already using my Macro lens, so I just turned around and snapped away.  It was shot at f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I've never been the biggest fan of spiders, but for some reason I was kind of partial to this one species.  Mind  you, that was when I saw them at their regular 10mm size.  Blown up with the Macro lens, I'm beginning to rethink my feelings towards them. 

Jigsaws & Forget Me Nots

We're going back to my Mom's backyard to take a look at her Forget-Me-Nots.  These flowers are usually found in gardens, as in this case, they were in my Mom's.  There's some interesting folklore surrounding the name of the Forget-Me-Not.  I don`t know how accurate these tales are, I found them on the internet after all, but one involves God naming the different kind of flowers on Earth when a youngster yelled out "Forget Me Not", thus the flower was named after him.  The flower was also supposedly adopted by Henry IV during his exile and was also used in Newfoundland as the official flower of Remembrance for their soldiers who died in combat.  My favourite story that I came upon had the flowers getting their name as a Knight was picking them for his Lady while walking along a riverside.  He lost his footing and fell into the river, drowning when the weight of his suit of armour pulled him under the water.  Before sinking, he threw the bouquet of flowers he had picked to his Lady, shouting 'Forget Me Not!"  That story kind of seems like the kind of story that seems almost to crazy to be true, which probably means that it is.  To take something of a simpler turn, I like them because of their colours.  The flowers typically grow in clusters of blue, white and pink.  Much like the photo of the plate of Smarties, I'm of the belief that our eyes are drawn to many colours.  I also took these two pictures to serve as kind of a visual example on how you can use the aperture of your camera to adjust the depth of field in your photograph.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  The second picture was taken at f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  The first photograph has a shallow depth of field, meaning that the background it rather blurred out and the focus is on a select few flowers.  The second photograph has a deep depth of field, meaning that more of the photograph remains in focus.  These are the kind of cool things I like to do when left on my own while taking photographs and also is a great way to get more in touch with the settings of your camera.  While I like the first photograph, the second one I chose to add to this post because, in the loosely quoted words of my father, "it looks like the kind of Jigsaw Puzzle that would leave you pulling your hair out."  When I take photographs of flowers, I generally try to use my Macro lens, but it just didn't give me a wide enough look to get all of the flowers  that I wanted to capture.  I used my wide-angle lens instead, but by using a shallow depth of field, I think that I have pretty much accomplished as much as I could with the Macro, though with more flowers/colours.  The third and fourth photographs of this set, which were later cropped in Photoshop into horizontal photos, were both shot at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I really like these two photos as, in my opinion, the flowers that are blurred and just as attractive to see as the ones that are in focus.  It's an effect I like to use as often as possible with flowers, but the truth of the matter is that it's also a technique that works very well with portraits of people as well.  Imagine someone's face in the place of the flowers that are in focus, with the blurred background staying the same.  Sure, I'd probably re-position the face, but I think that would make for a pretty nice portrait.  I suppose that I should have spent the time I used taking these photos being with my parents, but they're more than aware of my fondness forphotography, and my Mom gets a kick out of seeing her flowers here on my site. It's also just another example of how a little more than an hour in your backyard can leave you with not only ample opportunities for practicing your technique but to also play around with all of the different settings to see what kind of results you'll end up with.  I came away with four photos just of the Forget-Me-Nots, and believe me when I tell you that there are many more photographs yet to be seen.  Don't worry Mom, I'll get around to having them up here eventually.

Appearing Soon In A Salad Near You

I guess you could say that this photograph came to be thanks to my little philosophy of photographing everything.  After all, the best way to continue getting better at taking photographs is to take more photographs.  It's fun to take out my camera and try and figure out a way to turn things that many of us take as common and turn them into, what I consider to be and I hope that some of you out there do too, interesting photographs.  What we're looking at today is the little yellow flower blossoms from the cherry tomato plant that is currently enjoying life on my deck.  When I took this picture a little more than a week ago, I had been taking lots of shots with my Macro lens.  That lens doesn't seem to get much work during the winter months, but much like the flowers and plants I like to photograph, you rarely see my camera without it during the Spring.  I really like how the Macro lens can pick up even the smallest of details, like the little hairs on the stems of the plant.  This photo was taken at f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  For those of you wondering, yes, I've already had my first tomato from the plant.  I'd share my tomato growing tips with you, but the only time I've every had a green thumb was while finger painting in kindergarten.  The real pro is my Lovely Assistant.  She grows them, I shoot them and I can't wait to eat even more as the summer continues.

Fire In The Sky

Tonight marks the beginning of the L'International des Feux Loto-Québec.  I've always enjoyed watching the shows at this annual fireworks competition.  Fireworks are also the reason why I found myself picking up a camera again back in 2008 and began taking courses at Concordia University.  I really enjoyed looking at photographs of fireworks and a switch went off in my head.  I wanted to know how to take pictures like the photographs I'd see in magazines and on the internet.  The key to taking good photographs of fireworks is to use a long exposure time.  You also need a good eye.  In my experience, the best time to begin taking your photograph is when you spot the rockets going up towards the sky.  This way you get the full effect of the explosion and the light trails of the fireworks as they go off in whatever direction they go.  After taking the course that better explained night photography, the Fireworks competition began and I spent most of the nights that had shows in different parts of Saint-Lambert, Longueuil or Montreal, shooting away.  I was planning on doing the same tonight, but Mother Nature has decided that I need to find other plans.  It's raining at the moment, and also rather cloudy with some building humidity in the air.  Not exactly ideal conditions for photographing fireworks.  When it gets like this, the smoke from the fireworks tends to not move away from the site very quickly, and it also gets rather thick.  As a result, the exploding light ends up being hidden behind the thick plums of smoke or swallowed by the clouds.  While this picture isn't as fresh as what I had planned to post later tonight, it's still a dandy.  This photograph was taken back in 2010 during the show by Italy.  It was taken on a bicycle path in Longueuil that I really like.  There are often boats that stop by to watch the show, and the water was calm enough for them to show up in silhouette form here.  Another added bonus with the calm water was that it made for some nice reflections.  A close examination of the photo will also show a couple of Montreal sights, like the Radio-Canada building and the Cross on Mount Royal.  It was shot at f/9, 19sec, ISO 100 at 64mm.  Those of you with good memories will remember that it was also on the wall during my photography exhibition of 2012.  No, I won't ever get tired to writing that.  Here's hoping that the skies will clear for the remainder of the competition so that I can get out and grab some more photos.

Mom's Backyard

After a couple of visits to see my parents to celebrate both Mother's Day and Father's Day, I filled my camera with all kinds of pictures of bugs, flowers and trees from my Mom & Dad's backyard.  I've been playing around with them for a while now and I think it's time to unleash her garden on the World.  However, some homework needs to be done.  When it comes to flowers, my knowledge about them comes down to, "oh, that looks pretty."  Seeing as how I don't want to be the guy who describes his photos as being "this is a photograph of the red flower", some homework needs to be done.  That little bit of knowledge will be shared with me from the master herself, my Mom.  I did the right thing and took lots of notes on my most recent visit, but I wasn't as smart the first time around.  So, if you're reading this Mom, you'll be getting an email soon as I ask you for the names of a few flowers.  In the meantime, we'll share a little tree that was blooming in the garden and that I managed to capture along with it's reflection in the bird bath.  I'm a big fan of reflections and this picture was kind of an added bonus.  I only noticed it while I was sitting a few yards away in what would end up being my futile attempt to photograph some birds.  We've already read how that went.  I decided to get rid of the telephoto lens and grabbed my trusty zoom lens instead.  I kind of took this photo a little in reverse.  What I mean by that, is that you usually put the foreground of the photograph in focus while the background would be blurred.  I did the opposite here, choosing to put the tree in focus.  I chose to do this because the tree is the biggest part of the photograph.  Now that I think about it, I kind of wish I had done the reverse.  It might have been interesting to have the reflection in the bird bath be in focus while the green and red provided by Mother Nature would have made an interesting blurred background.  Something for me to keep in mind the next time I visit.  I shot this photograph at f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  So, expect the blog to be going green for a little while as I we make our way through my Mom's garden.

The Ghosts That Walk Amongst Us

As I mentioned in the previous post, I spent the evening of June 14th at the Relay For Life, an annual event held by the Canadian Cancer Society.  I was there to take some pictures of the event and of my friend Jasmine, a participant and cancer survivor.  A few days before the event, I had an idea for a photograph that I thought would be interesting.  The Relay For Life is not only a fundraising event, but it's also an event where we remember those who sadly weren't able to beat the disease.  Being a Survivor, I though it would be nice to photograph Jasmine standing along the walking path while people passed her by.  The key to this though, was that it was going to have to be a long exposure photograph.  In doing so, it would make the other people who were walking along the path become blurred as the camera captured their movements.  This would result in what would appear to be 'ghosts', walking the path while Jasmine, who stood motionless stayed in focus.  Kind of a way to show that she had been able to survive the disease.  She loved the idea, and also suggested a second photo where she would be sitting along the path, holding the little memory bag that she had sponsored in a kind of solemn moment, remember the person she had lost and also showing respect for the ghosts that are passing her by.  I liked the idea, so we took a second photograph.  Both are here to be seen.  The first shot was taken at f/7.1, 3sec, ISO 1600 at 28mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/9, 5sec, ISO 1600 at 25mm.  I don't usually shoot long exposure photographs at such a high ISO, but the key to these photos was that Jasmine had to remain in focus.  It's rather difficult not to move, especially when you're standing.  The slightest movement gets picked up by the camera and the shot would then be ruined.  To try and increase the shutter speed, you could use a large aperture, like f/2.8   However, that would have blurred the background.  I wanted you to see the small bags and the 'ghosts' as they walked away.  That meant using apertures like the ones I chose.  The only other option, was to up the ISO.  This is a bit risky though, as upping the ISO puts your photograph at risk of having to much 'noise', which is kind of like little grains of light that show up in your photograph, especially in the dark areas.  Luckily, my photographs didn't suffer from having to much noise in them, and I think they came out pretty well.  I'm not really sure where I stand on the whole spirituality aspect of things, but while you're at the Relay For Life, you can't help but get a bit of a tingle that the survivors and supporters are not the only one's who are walking the path.  That's kind of the emotion that I was trying to capture with these photographs.

Boucherville Relay For Life 2013

Sadly, there are not that many people among us who can say that they don't know someone who has been touched by Cancer.  It's a terrible disease that seems to be able to strike anyone, at any time.  Through scientific research, many more people survive a diagnosis of Cancer than ever before, but there are still so many people who are not so lucky.  Much like many of you, Cancer has touched my family as well.  I've lost two Uncles and my Grandmother to the disease.  More recently, I've also lost a friend from High School and just this week, I discovered that one of my High School teachers had passed away from the disease.  I also know one survivor.  The lady in yellow with the big smile is my friend Jasmine, and she survived a Cancer scare a few years back.  Since her recovery, she has regularly taken part in the yearly Relay For Life, a charity raising event for the Canadian Cancer Society.  Several times over the last couple of years I've gone to the event to take photographs of her and of the event which she then uses in her promotion posters and these posters are used in her fundraising events.  While at these events, you can't help be be overwhelmed a little bit emotionally.  Being surrounded by Cancer survivors, they're the ones who are sporting the yellow t-shirts, is a powerful reminder that the disease doesn't have to be a death sentence.  On the flip side, lining both sides of the walking path are little bags that serve as little reminders of those people who were not so lucky.  I walked the course I couple of times last night, all the while thinking about how fortunate I am, but also spent several moments thinking about the many people I have lost.  I thought of my Uncle Doug, a man who was so strong and athletic that I couldn't believe how old he really was when I made the discovery at his funeral.  I thought of my friend Kimberly who had a smile that could not only light up a room, but also the personality needed to light up the rest of the building. I though about my former High School teacher, Miss Hendy, who I only found out the day before this event had died on Tuesday.  I thought about my Oncle Claude, who died when I was very young and never really had the chance to get to know, as well as his wife my Tante Juliette who was just recently diagnosed with the disease this past fall.  I also thought about my Grammie, who was always so supportive of me.  Though she had lived a long life, it was still Cancer that ended up taking her away.  Wow, things got kind of serious there for a second, didn't they.  Well, Cancer is a serious subject and if my photographs can be used by somebody to help them in their fundraising effort, than I am all the more honoured to be asked to take them.  Getting back to the photography side of things, I'm someone who generally always likes to shoot at ISO 100, and in the past I have paid for it at these events by getting lots of blurred photos as most of the course takes places under the cover of several trees that line the path.  Not wanting to make that same mistake again, I immediately moved to ISO 400, which was used for all of these photos, except for the fifth shot which was taken at ISO 800.  I also tried to use as large an aperture as possible in order to get the fastest shutter speeds that I would need to capture all of the movement.  In order of appearance, the photographs were shot using the following settings.  f/4, 1/400sec at 46mm.  f/4, 1/400sec at 32mm.  f/3.2, 1/250sec at 68mm.  f/2.8, 1/500sec at 32mm, f/2.8, 1/500sec at 35mm and finally f/3.2, 1/200sec at 41mm.  While taking the photographs, I tried to use some of the skills I learned while taking my course in Photojournalism.  Try and capture the story in a few photos.  The photograph at the Start/Finish line tells you what is going on.  The photograph of the long line of people crossing over, and waiting to cross over, the bridge tells you that this was a rather large event with lots of people.  The photograph with the two young children, with the Cancer survivor just behind them, reminds you that this is a disease that can strike anyone, at any age.  The photographs of people holding up the signs they had made is an example of how the support of friends and family can mean all the difference in the battle against Cancer.  Those were my personal interpretations.  I don't know if those were the feelings you got from the photos, but it's what I was feeling when I took them.  I hope that I haven't come come across as some kind of preacher for the cause with this post, because that isn't what I was going for.  I just personally believe that fighting Cancer is a worthwhile cause and I'm just trying to do my little bit by taking some photographs for a friend...while also providing a link to the Canadian Cancer Society should any of you happen to want to make a donation.  These Relay For Life Events happen all over the Country and there are also several other events held all during the year.  You can probably find an event taking place somewhere near you by checking out their website.

I'm A Chicken Hawk and I'm After Chicken

A few weeks ago I mentioned how while visiting my parents I was trying to snag a picture of a bird, but came up with nothing but Chipmunks.  Well, it's not entirely true.  I did come home with this one shot of a sparrow, but I didn't really think it would make it to the pages of my blog.  To be honest, the only reason why it's here is because while watching those Looney Tunes cartoons the other day, I mean while doing research for my Plymouth Road Runner photograph, I was reminded of the Foghorn Leghorn character and the trouble he had with that little Chicken Hawk.  This little guy kind of reminded me of him.  I found a cool quote to use as a title and so I opened the file, decided to try cropping it a few different ways and here we are. Before posting, the photograph had to survive a little focus group viewing and once it got the thumbs up from my Lovely Assistant, I figured, hey, why not.  As I said before, I'm not totally satisfied with this shot, but it is my first bird, and hopefully those to come in the near future will show improvement.  This photo, rather than the bird, was shot at f/5.6, 1/200sec, ISO100 at 300mm.  I then cropped it down to 12" x 12", placing the bird on the lower third of the photo.  Seeing as how the birds at my mom's feeder ended up being so camera shy, maybe I should starting start looking for chickens too!

Ultra-Sonicus Ad Infinitum

"Beep beep!"   What's that you say?  You don't understand the title of this post?  We'll get to that in a few minutes, but first, it's F1 Weekend here in Montreal where everyday life seems to get taken over by the almost cartoon spectacle of the fast cars racing around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.  I don't have any Montreal Grand Prix photographs or stories to share for you other than the fact that the roar of the motors is a familiar tune to me as it is forever associated with the end of the school year in my mind.  However, I think we can agree that this 1971 Road Runner takes care of both the cartoon and fast car aspects of the week-end.  This is another photograph taken from one of my visits to what used to be the annual Saint-Lambert Classic Car Show.  Much like my shot of the 1967 AMC Rambler.  As I mentioned in that post, rather than taking photographs of the whole car, which is very difficult in a crowd, I tend to zone in on specific parts of the car.  In this case, the rather iconic Road Runner logo.  The shot I took was of the front hood of the car.  It was taken at f/4, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 24mm and then cropped horizontally at 6" x 12".  I also did a little playing around with the contrast and gave a it little shot of life in Levels.  It's a still photograph, but I personally get a feeling of speed from looking at it.  Perhaps it's the Road Runner character, or the waving lines of electrical wires reflected on the hood of the car.  It's true that a photo of the entire car would be nice, but much like my photo of the Rambler, I actually find these cropped shots to be more interesting.  Speaking of interesting, I still haven't explained the title of this post.  I always try to find an entertaining (to me anyway) title for my posts, and for this one I decided to watch some old Road Runner cartoons.  Some of the cartoons would begin with little introductions of the Road Runner with a made up Latin name in brackets underneath.  The title of this post is one of the names used to describe the cartoon Road Runner.  Some close runners-up for the title were Burn-Em Upus Asphaltus and Velocitus Incalcubli.  See, now when my lovely assistant gets home and I tell her I spent my day watching Road Runner cartoons, I'll also be able to say that I had a good reason for doing so.

Blue Skies Smiling At Me

It took a little bit longer than I had planned, but I got my blue sky.  It was almost two weeks ago that I posted a similar photograph of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, but with a red sky.  For those of you who may have missed it, you can find that post here.  In between then and now, we had almost an entire week of rain and then a good four day stretch of high humidity that quickly reminded me of why I'm a winter person.  I pretty much followed the same method as last time.  Went back to the same spot, used the same lens, though cleaned thoroughly before leaving, and sucked on the same flavour of Lifesaver.  There was one difference.  Getting a little bored while the sun took its sweet time to set, I began to play around by taking shots of the above scene, but with different exposure times.  The goal was to try my hand at something called HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography.  Simply put, HDR photography consists of taking those different photographs and putting them together allowing to capture a greater range between the lightest and darkest images of a photograph.  However, fate would get in my way as upon returning home, I opened up Photoshop to try out the little trick only to discover that my version doesn't have the HDR tool.  Yes, my version of Photoshop really is that old.  There is a way to get the same result without the tool, but I need to get a little more in touch with my inner Photoshopper before I go down that path.  So, with that little balloon being temporarily burst, I went back to the job at hand, creating my blue sky.  Sadly, I once again fell victim to the little dust spots that hampered my previous outing.  Unlike the last time, I have no real answer as to why.  The lens never left my camera and was cleaned before I left by yours truly.  As I took more pictures, more spots appeared.  Surprisingly, this shot that I used only had three spots, which were easy enough to get rid of using the Clone Tool in Photoshop.  I also used the Colour Balance tool to add a bit of blue to the sky and just a little nudge in Levels.  The shot itself was taken at f/9, 4sec, ISO 100 at 300mm and once again cropped to 12.5" x 4".  Wow, that ended up being a lot of words for a photograph that pretty much only has a different colour sky than the last one.

Is That Chip, or Is It Dale?

Somewhere at this moment, Pluto is probably running somewhere to hide.  Sure, it's not like I was hunting down a Lion in the Serengeti, creeping up on a Tiger in Bangladesh or stalking a Grizzly in Alaska, but if you ask Mickey Mouse's best friend, he'll tell you that there is nothing more dangerous than a chipmunk.  I was sitting in the backyard on a swing while visiting my parents and hoping to snap off a few shots of the many birds that visit her feeders.  For some reason, they all came down with a severe case of camera shy as not one bird decided it needed to grab some seeds or to take a little afternoon bath.  On the verge of getting pretty frustrated over the lack of feathered models, this industrious little guy came up from his hiding spot and decided that it was his turn to shine.  I already had the 70-300mm on my camera as I was positioned a fair distance away from the bid feeders and wanted to make sure that I would be able to get the shots I needed.  The only problem now was to try and turn myself the 90 degrees necessary to capture my new model without scaring him back to his hiding spot under the pool. I managed to turn myself around and started to snap away.  Suddenly, something spooked the Chipmunk and he scurried back to the hole.  I took the opportunity to check out the shots that I had taken and everything seemed grainy.  I quickly checked the info and much to my disgust, the ISO was set at
 1600.  I had done it again, started taking pictures without changing the ISO.  I quickly reset the ISO to 100 and deleted the pictures while cursing myself under my breath.  Thinking I had blown my shot and getting ready to go back and hunt some Bumblebees, I caught something moving from the corner of my eye.  My little chipmunk was back and was ready for action.  Second time is the charm.  In order of appearance, the pictures were shot at the following settings.  f/9, 1/100sec, ISO100 at 300mm.  f/9, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 300mm.  f/9, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 300mm and finally f/9, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 300mm.  As everything was shot at 300mm, it's pretty obvious that some cropping was going to be necessary.  I also had to play with Levels a little bit with the first shot to bring out a little more colour in my subject.  The only thing that I couldn't get rid of was the black tube that was coming out of the pool.  My photoshopping isn't quite good enough to make something that size disappear and cropping it out wasn't possible as the chipmunk would no longer be properly framed in the photograph.  So, the tube stays in the picture.  I've actually kind of grown to like it, just a little bit.  It adds an obstacle for the chipmunk to look over.  I had hoped to grab a few more shots before calling it a day, so I went back inside and grabbed some bread and nuts, hoping to give the little critter something more to eat than some twirly birds that were on the ground.  I spread them around the ground, as far away from the pool tube as possible, and waited for my buddy to return for his snack, but to no avail.  He was now all the way at the other end of the pool, and didn't budge.  I was starting to look like rain, so I decided to return inside and pack away my gear.  I went to the backyard one final time to make sure that I hadn't left anything behind and all of the bread and nuts I had spread around were gone.  That little trickster managed to gather up all of that food in about ten minutes of times.  I guess that means it was Chip after all.