Happy Halloween

 People getting dressed up in spooky costumes and then getting free candy.  What's not to like about Halloween.  It's easily one of my favourite days of the year despite the fact that my Trick or Treating days ended over 25 years ago.  The spirit has lived on though, as at the day job they allow us to dress up for the day and I've been known to walk the floor with my trusty little skull and leave a trail of blood or two on the floor.  The classic Halloween image is the Jack-O-Lantern and this is one that you can probably find on the lawn of your neighbour.  I had to play around a bit with different exposure times in order to get the orange to be just how I liked while keeping the star effect from the light in the big pumpkin's hat.  This photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1sec, ISO 400 at 52mm.  So keep your eyes open on the night of the 31st as there are bound to be a countless number of spooks out there, all looking for some chips and chocolate.

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

I had a week of vacation back in August and I had the great opportunity to visit Ottawa and also spend some time at a cottage near Mt. Tremblant.  I spent most of that week with my camera in my hand and as a result, it's been almost two months since my week off and I'm still nowhere near finished with processing all of those photographs.  While going through some of the photos I have yet to display, I stumbled upon some that I had taken of this little flower.  Despite the fact that it was stuck right in the middle of several large rocks, it had managed to grow into an eye-catching beauty.  I noticed it while eating lunch and decided to later take a couple of photographs.  I guess I was impressed by the fact that despite it's surroundings, the flower had managed to persevere and grow. The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/400sec. ISO 100 at 80mm.  With this photo I wanted to show the harsh surroundings that the flower was growing in.  The second photograph was taken at f/5, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 140mm.  I felt that this photo better shows off the flower, but still has enough of the rocks to describe where it was.  I also liked the little shadow that the flower has cast against the rock.  One difference between these photographs and others that I have taken is that these were taken with a telephoto lens.  I took these photos while trying to track a dragonfly.  You'll see him here soon as well, but I was rather impressed with how well the lens captured the details in the rocks and the flower.

Ready, Set, GO!!!

I can't really give you a reason why, but I've always had a thing for little critters.  Squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and everything else that you can come across in your yard.  I guess it could be due to their size, me being the big lug who is intrigued by such small things.  If you're interested, I took some more chipmunk photos earlier this year.  This is a Mt. Tremblant chipmunk that liked to follow My Lovely Assistant and I around the cottage we were staying at.  Or more accurately, it got a kick out of watching me chase after him with my camera.  He was always more than happy to be seen, but ended up being a little bit camera shy.  I tried to lure him into certain spots by leaving peanuts out for him, but he always refused to take the bait...until I wasn't looking only to later realize that the peanuts were gone.  I finally managed to track him just under my car and then waited for him to get out from under the car and into the sun.  I had my telephoto lens so I was able to stay back a fair distance so that I wouldn't spook the little guy out more than he already was.  As you can tell from the photo, he was ready to run, and after I snapped off a few shots, that's exactly what he did.  I took this photograph at f/7.1, 1/160sec, ISO 400 at 300mm and I cropped the image to 12" x 4".  I then left him alone for the rest of our stay.  I did leave him a few extra peanuts before we left to thank him for being such a fun challenge to get a picture of.

Blue Tie Affair

Back to my Mom's garden we go.  Well, I suppose I should say former garden since they moved two months ago and sadly left all of the flowers you've seen this year behind.  I'm hoping that my Mom will have the chance to do some planting in the Spring because if she doesn't, all of you out there might be stuck looking at photos of my old Star Wars or G.I. Joe action figures come this time next year.  The flower you see here today is a blue Tradescantia, a wildflower that grew in my Mom's garden.  What's special about this particular flower, is that it usually has three petals, as you can see in the second photograph.  For some reason, this one only had two, which is what drew my eye to it in the first place.  It kind of looked like a tiny blue bow tie.  I once again used my Macro lens to take these photographs and was really happy with the results.  I really like the texture of the petals and all of the lines you can see in them.  I also like the little stems in the center of the flower and the little yellow anthers.  You can even see a tiny piece of pollen on each of the flowers.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  I still get a kick out of the blurring effect you get from using the Macro lens.  It is possible to get a nice blurred background with a regular lens, but using the Macro really kicks it up a notch, really helping to separate the main subject of the photograph from the background.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find a blue suit that matches the blue bow tie.

The Stone Family

Those of you who passed by over the last 24 hours already know about my attempt to get a photograph of the sun rising in the morning.  I ended up driving around for a couple of hours before finally calling an end to my morning as the clouds had begun to clear out and the sun was coming out in full force.  As I was making my way home through Saint-Lambert, I ended up driving by the Le Balcon d'Art art gallery.  Outside of the gallery stands a stone statue of a family and as I was driving by, my eye caught the way that the sun was hitting the statue.  I parked my car and got out to snap a few portraits since the family was already doing such a good job of posing for me.  As I said, what caught my eye was the way that the sun was hitting the statue.  I really like the triangle that the is on the face of Mrs. Stone and the silhouette of the younger child that can be seen on the dress of the older child.  The same can be said for the second photograph.  The sun seemed to bring out all kinds of details in the stone such as hairlines and clothing.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 100, -1 Exposure at 34mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 100, -1 Exposure at 43mm.  I'd like to give a logical reason for my having taken the shots at -1 Exposure, but the truth is that I forgot to reset my camera after having taken the pictures of the sky earlier that morning.  I know, I've been talking about fixing that problem all year.  It will have to be at the top of my Things To Do In 2014 list.  I was also surprised that I chose to go with my f/5 shot for the first photo.  I didn't want to use to large of an aperture and risk losing the name of the art gallery, but the smaller apertures seemed to not separate the statue from the building as well as I wanted.  With that, my early morning adventure came to an end.  I didn't end up getting the photographs of the sky that I was hoping for, but I was also really happy with these Stone family portraits.  At the very least, I didn't feel like I had wasted my morning.

Crack The Sky

For the last three years, whenever I needed to be at the 'Day Job' for 7:00AM, I'd find myself driving and looking at the sky and saying to myself, why the heck am I going there instead of trying to find a place to take a photo of the early morning sky.  It would often be bright red, or full of white clouds and it would kill me to head to the 'Day Job' rather than do something that I really wanted to do, take some photographs.  So, this morning I found myself in a situation where it was My Lovely Assistant who had to begin at 7:00AM and I was off.  I had decided the night before that I'd wake up early as well and go out to take some photos when she left for work.  I ran into a few problems along the way.  My sorry butt wanted nothing to do with getting out of bed at 5:45AM.  Not many of my other parts wanted to get out of bed at 5:45AM either.  I finally crawled out of the bed as she walked out the door a little after 6:30AM and I was on the road by 6:50AM.  That's when I ran into the second problem, the sky was full of dark rain clouds, the remains of the showers that had passed through over night.  Nowhere to be seen was the bright red sky or the puffy white clouds I was looking for.  The sun finally started to come through around 7:30AM and the sky began to look a little interesting as the sun would begin to shine through the cracks in the clouds.  Then came the third problem.  Where could I go to take a picture of this sky?  I was driving on Taschereau Blvd and always seemed to find myself on the wrong side, being forced to try and take a picture through all of the various wires that line the road.  I finally drove into a parking lot and decided I was going to sit there until the cracks made their way to me.  The wind was still blowing pretty hard , so it didn't take very long.  I grabbed the photo you see here and then made my way home.  I took this photograph at f/22, 1/100sec, ISO 100, -1 Exposure at 67mm.  I then cropped it to 4" by 12".  The photo captures how dark the cloud cover was in the early morning, yet how blue the actual sky was once clear of the clouds.  I'll be honest, this isn't exactly the photo I had envisioned.  I'm putting it up here to remind me that I need to go back out there one morning soon so that I can get the picture that I wanted.  I'll just remember to check the weather reports the night before.  Oh, and if someone could move Sunrise to something closer to 10:00AM, I'd appreciate that as well.  Thanks.

Another Visitor To The Garden

I'm not much of an outdoors person.  My idea of a nice summer day is a comfy spot on the couch watching a movie with the air conditioning on High.  On the other hand, My Lovely Assistant put the 'out' in outdoors.  As a result, my sweaty head spends more time outside in the summer months than before.  In the overall scheme of things, I suppose that her pushing me out the door is a good thing since it would be pretty boring to see pictures of my floor every second day here on the blog.  Though truth be told, my floor is very pretty.  I'd also miss out on meeting all kinds of interesting creatures, such as this Grasshopper who passed by earlier this summer.  My Lovely Assistant was off planting some flowers when I first noticed Hoppy.  Yes, I like to name my little critter visitors.  He was sitting on the steps of my deck and I quickly made a move back inside to grab my camera.  I knew that I'd need the Macro lens in order to properly photograph my little friend, I only hoped that I'd be able to get close enough to Hoppy in order to use the lens and not scare him away.  Thanks to these many unplanned visits, I've gotten quite good at putting my camera together in a rather quick amount of time.  Even with my blazing speed, I feared that I had missed my visitor because when I got back outside, he was no longer where I had last seen him.  I quickly scanned the area, hoping to find the little guy, when I spotted him sitting on the pair of scissors that My Lovely Assistant had been using.  I didn't waste any time and began snapping away.  I continued snapping away for the better part of 30 minutes as I followed Hoppy around the deck.  Beginning on the scissors, back to the steps, into the flower pot and finally among the branches of parsley.  He was a very giving model, more than happy to stop and pose, and never once trying to get away or get spooked by either my movements or my moving of the plants where he was peacefully climbing.  The first photograph you see on this page was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 60mm.  I also cropped the photograph to 6" by 12" because I also liked the way that the scissors looked in the photo and wanted them to be featured as well.  By cropping the photo to that size rather than leaving it at 8" x 12", I feel I accomplished making the scissors stand out.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 60mm.  Here are a couple more photos of Hoppy.

f/4, 1/30sec, ISO 400 at 60mm

f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 60mm

f/13, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm

I had to play around a little bit to get that last shot.  I took the picture in Manual Mode, used my flash and had to experiment a little bit before I found the right combination.  Good thing Hoppy didn't get spooked by the flash because he must have been seeing stars by the time I was done.

Love Bugs...Part Deux

I'd like to start this post with a bit of honesty.  This subject probably didn't need to have five photos added to it, but I really like the way that their eyes appear in these photos, thus I got a little carried away while preparing them for this page.  Back in July, I made my first steps on my way to becoming the next big photographer in the naughty picture industry.  It proved to be a successful debut as many people seemed to enjoy my pictures.  Well, everyone except for my mother.  She had her reasons.  I agree that the subject matter is a little bit risqué, and the couple in question were responsible for eating some of plants, but sometimes a photographer has to do what a photographer has to do.  This new happy couple really didn't want to have their picture taken at first.  They were found on the lid of the garbage container where I live.  Along with a few of their friends, they were having quite the party, however every time I would try and get close with my camera, they would get shy and fly away.  I would slowly back away and they would return after a few minutes.  Oddly enough, they'd still be, ahem, connected when they would fly off and return.  I guess you could call it a pretty tight relationship.  I managed to soothe their fears to the point where I was able to get close enough to them to take these photos, even while using my macro lens.  Most couples would be a little uncomfortable, especially using a macro lens, but these fine folks were real troopers.  As you can see from the photos, we tried a few different positions and ended up with some nice shots that they'll be able to look back on in their older years.  If I can be serious for a minute, the thing I really like about these photos, as I mentioned at the very beginning, is the detail in their eyes.  I also love the detail in their shadows on the lid of the garbage can.  The first photograph was taken at f/11, 1/40sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  The second photo was taken at f/11, 1/50sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  Photograph number three was taken at f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm and the final photograph was shot at f/11,1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm and then cropped to 12" x 6".  Unlike my first porn shoot, taking the photographs at ISO 1600 was done on purpose.  While the sun was shining bright on the lid of the trash can, I was shooting from the shadow of a tree under a late afternoon sun.  Also, unlike the previous shoot, I took these photos as f/11.  I chose the smaller aperture because there really wasn't anything in the background that would benefit from being thrown out of focus, and these guys were rather small and I need to make sure that they would be in focus.  Shooting at f/11 is the other reason why I needed to shoot at ISO 1600.  The small aperture gave me a slower shutter speed which meant I had to up the ISO in order to compensate.  So, I've got a little more experience now when it comes to dirty pictures, maybe my next foray into the industry will involve models that are bigger than my fingernail.  Nope, Mom won't appreciate this at all....

Teach Me How To Tie A Sailor's Knot

I like to think that I have an eye for details.  Those little things that we see every day, yet never take the time to notice.  These are the things that I like to photograph because I find them to be interesting.  Such as this dock ring.  I took this photograph while on vacation in Mt. Tremblant on a dock at the cottage where we stayed.  This dock was also used in another of my photos I displayed here in February that went on to become a favourite of many people who saw it at my exhibition.  I shot this photograph with a large aperture in order to blur the background and put all of the focus on the ring.  I like how the light hits the ring and the little rust stains on the wood.  I almost cropped out the dark end of the wood that's in the lower right-hand corner of the photo, but decided to leave it as I felt it added something a little different.  I shot this picture at f/5, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 50mm.  I usually shoot this kind of photo at f/2.8 or f/4.  In this case, I wanted the background of the photo to be blurred, but not so much so that you wouldn't see the lines in the wood.

Sunset Superman

It was a rather rainy afternoon, but the sky finally managed to clear out a little after 6:30PM.  My eye became interested in the odd orange light that was coming in through the kitchen window and reflecting against the wall.  The sky was rather spectacular.  I made the snap decision to grab my camera and take some pictures.  I'm lucky to find myself with a clear view of the Biosphere, as those of you have been following here are well aware.  You may remember this shot from April, or maybe this shot from January and there's still a shot that I had from my exhibition that for some reason hasn't found it's way onto this site yet.  In order to get this shot, I strayed into strange waters.  I shot in Manual Mode and played around by taking several shots at different settings.  I was mostly shooting to try and get the most colour in the sky as possible. This photo was take at f/5.6, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 300mm.  Once I got back inside, I noticed that I had a pretty good view of the Radio-Canada building, and the sky over it was very nice as well.  I had a good view of the building from the kitchen window, so I felt I'd stay a little dry after coming in from the rain for the first shot.  I opened the window and took out the screen and began to shoot away.  Again, I shot in Manual Mode in order to make sure that I could get the proper colour of the sky.  The bottom of the photo is kind of dark, but I like how it kind of gets broken up by the single street light.  I also really like how clear that the Radio-Canada logo stands out in the photo.  I didn't really follow the 'Rule of Thirds' with this photo as the building is pretty much in the middle, but the sky is kind of the real star of this photo and I wanted to include as much of it as possible.  The Radio-Canada photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/50sec, ISO 800 at 300mm.  The sun wasn't out for very long, but I think I made the most of it's short appearance.

Wasp In Flight

It's been a good six weeks since my week of vacation took me to both Ottawa and Mt. Tremblant and I'm still trying to work my way through all of the photographs that I took.  I've been sorting them first by day, and later by subject as I try and make it easier to be able to locate specific photos.  Such as these wasps.  I'll be perfectly honest, while I have grown in time to appreciate and even like Bumblebee's, I still have no appreciation for the wasp.  They still bother me to this day. This may or may not have something to do with two tragic encounters that a much younger Eric may have had

with wasp nests during his younger years.  I see them as a pest, even if they do serve as being a very effective predator to other insects that are also considered to be pest.  While I won't be keeping any as pets, and will probably continue to shoo them away when they show up uninvited to dinner, they do make good subjects for photography.  This particular wasp, like I could really tell them apart, had been harassing myself and My Lovely Assistant whenever we tried to eat on the deck outside.  However, one afternoon it found the flowers next to the deck to be a little more interesting than us.  It even brought a little friend along as well.  This allowed me to pull out my telephoto lens and begin to shoot away.   With wasp, as with most insects, animals and critters, you can't really ask them to sit still and smile.  Many humans don't react all that well to those instructions either.  What I tried to do in order to get the best possible photos was focus on a general area and shooting in Burst mode, which fires off several photographs in a matter of seconds.  The result is what led to the partial backlog in photographs that I have been fighting through, but it also allowed to me to catch this great photos of the wasp in flight, going from flower to flower.  The first photo in this group is probably my favourite as it is one of the few where I actually caught a look at the face of the wasp.  I also like how he appears to be headed from the flower in the background to the flower in the foreground.  This picture was shot at f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 300mm.  The second photograph of the wasp in flight was shot at f/5.6, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 300mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 300mm.  I like the flight of the wasp in both of these photos, but especially the third one where the hind legs are very visible and you can see the wings fluttering in flight.  The final two photographs included a bit of a little surprise that I only noticed when I took the time to look at them more closely after we had gotten home.

f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 300mm

If you'll notice along the stem of the flower on the left, there is a little 'baby' wasp flying around

f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 300mm

The little guy gets a photo of his own.

I've often complained about that fact that my telephoto lens can't shoot at 300mm with an aperture any larger than f/5.6, but in this case, it's a good thing.  I have the tendency to shoot at higher apertures with my macro shots, but had I done so in this case, I might not have caught the wasp as it was moving so fast and would have probably found itself in a part of the frame that wouldn't have been in focus.  I also would have probably never found the little wasp in the fourth picture as it would have likely been out of focus as well.  Score one for the telephoto.

Giant Tree Hugger

It's really fun to take photographs of odd things.  Take this one, for example.  I giant set of arms wrapped around a large tree.  I took this photo in the town of Frelighsburg.  I was there to visit the annual Festiv'Art, a festival of local artists that takes up most of the center of the town and is very well attended.  In the past, I've considered sending a submission of my work to them, but I've often chickened out or been to cheap to pay the application fee.  That might change one day.  Back to this photo, I caught sight of this tree and my imagination went into overdrive.  I'm sure there is some kind of link between this tree decoration and the art festival, but allow me to entertain you with my interpretation.  This is a historical re-enactment of what happened one night when a Giant drank a little bit more wine than he should have (the blue sign reads 'Route Des Vins'...translated it mean The Wine Road) and decided to ride his bike back home.  One wobbly turn led to another, and BANG, right into the tree he went.  Hey, I thought it was a funny story and that is all that matters.  This photo was shot at f/5.6, 1/800sec, ISO 400 at 38mm, and the story was created by my imagination.  I hope you enjoy them both.

A Little South Of Heaven

This past Saturday was the annual visit to go and pick some apples.  Our orchard of choice is the Verger Petit et Fils in Mont Saint-Hilaire.  They have great apples and even greater apple donuts which are cooked on site.  There's a couple of reasons why I like our annual apple picking trip.  First is because the apple orchard is a great place to take photographs.  All kinds of different colours, shapes and sizes.  Second, it means that in my very near future, My Lovely Assistant will be making some very tasty treats with the apples that we picked.  Getting back to the first reason, some of you may see this photo and be reminded of a similar shot that I took last year.  It's kind of the same subject, but presented in a different way.  My older photo shows the lonely apple, abandoned on the side of the road.  This new photo shows the lonely apple, on the ground and separated from all of the other apples still hanging up in the trees.  Who knew that apples could feel so lonely.  This photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 38mm.  Now if you'll excuse me, there's some tasty apple crumble in the fridge that is calling my name.  I told you that there would be tasty treats!