Valderi, Valdera

The date was September 29, 2004.  I sat in the right field bleachers with my buddies Patrick and Louie.  We were at Olympic Stadium for the final match of the Montreal Expos.  For as long as I could remember, I was a baseball fan.  Though I wore the cap of the Oakland A's for several years, the real team that had a hold on my heart was the Montreal Expos.  There are so many memories.  Going to the game as a kid with my family, the great players over the years, the moments shared with friends and so much more.  This weekend baseball returned to Montreal with a series of two games between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets.  I didn't end up getting tickets to either of the games, mostly due to my hard head and some hard feelings I'm still harbouring against Major League Baseball.  I figured I'd take my own trip down nostalgia lane by mixing an older passion with a newer one.  The first thing I needed to do was haul my old Expos cap out of the closet and wash a good layer of dust off of it.  Sadly, my old tri-colour cap had died many years ago from years of use.  This cap I actually bought at that last game and I don't think that I've ever worn it since.  I then needed to put my cap on something so that I could get a shot of it.  Luckily, My Lovely Assistant was in the process of baking a cake and had taken out her display stand.  As it was sitting on the kitchen table, I knew I had found what I needed.  I propped my cap on top of the glass cover, grabbed my flash and snapped away.  The first photograph you see was taken at f/11, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  While I was checking out the first batch of photographs that I took, I though it might be nice to take a similar shot, but vertically rather than horizontally.  My only problem with that idea was that my flash doesn't really work out that well shooting vertically.  So, I opened up the blind on the kitchen window to let a little more sun in.  It's a rather grey day over here so not much light ended up coming in.  The second shot was taken at f/8, 1/50sec, ISO 1600 at 42mm.  I ended up playing with it a little bit in Photoshop, using the Curves tool which kind of washed out a little bit of the white fabric in the 'm' portion of the logo, but made the blue of the cap look much nicer.  For those of you wondering how the logo works, it's basically three letter cursively attached together.  The 'e' for Expos, 'm' in the middle for Montreal and the 'b' at the end for Baseball.  I was watching the game on television while working on these photos and this post and kind of wish that I hadn't let my hard head get in the way of my being at the game myself.

Still Playing With My Food

I know that it's considered rude to play with your food, but I can't help it.  It's Mother Nature's fault.  You all know that I've gone on the record several times saying how I enjoy the winter.  Well, one drawback is that other than the snow, there isn't very much more out there to photograph.  As a result, I kind of took to looking around the house for things to shoot, because as any photographer will tell you, the moment you stop shooting is the moment you stop learning.  This winter, my shooting seems to have, for the most part, taken place in the kitchen.  What I like about shooting food is the different shapes, colours and textures that you encounter.  In order to bring all of those things out of these grapes, I began by leaving them in the fridge overnight.  I then poured some water over them, placed them on a place and put them next to a bright window.  I also used my flash and bounced some more light from the ceiling down onto them.  In the first photograph that you see, I tried to focus on the largest grape and them framed the image so that the grape I had chosen to focus on was on the lower third of the photograph.  In the second photograph, I kind of did the opposite, putting the focus on the two grapes just above the other grape.  I wanted to see what the image would look like if the foreground was blurred instead of the background.  I like the little blur of light that we see on that out-of-focus grape.  Sticking with the light, the fact that the grapes were wet kind of ads an overall glow to them that I really like.  Both photographs were taken at f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I think I'd like to play with grapes once again, but next time, maybe play with the shutter speeds to see what kind of effects it will have on the final image.

Back To Candyland

I suppose that if I keep this up, I might get a bit of a reputation for having a sweet tooth.  In the short amount of time that this blog has been around, I've found the time to take pictures of some Smarties, Jelly Beans and some Rockets.  Joining the list of candies this week are those little guys who taste so good and often find themselves stuck to the ceiling of classrooms...or so I've heard, Gummy Bears.  As with all of the other candies I've photographed, you can't help buy be drawn in by all of the colours.  I bought a small amount of the bears and put them on a plate.  I placed the plate in a little corner where the sun was shining and then began to shoot away.  I turned a few of them around so that we could see their faces, and after looking at a few shots, I did move a few around to get a better colour mix.  This photograph was taken at f/9, 1/60sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  I shot it with my Macro lens so that the bears would be a good size and at f/9 so that more of them would be in focus.  A little bad news for my cousin, he won't be getting and Gummies for Christmas this year.  Unlike the Rockets, My Lovely Assistant and I like these little guys.

A Twist Of Lime

Sometimes inspiration can come from a likely source.  I'm a big fan of photography magazines.  I've been reading Digital Photographer magazine for several years now, and have both learned, and been inspired by the things I find within its pages.  This February, I began reading another magazine.  My Lovely Assistant decided to give me a very creative Valentine's Day gift, a subscription to Photolife Magazine.  Upon my first time through the magazine, I was stopped by a photograph of a slice of lime, taken using a Macro lens.  I decided I wanted to try taking one myself.  In order to get the right lighting, I needed to make sure that the lime was lit from underneath.  To achieve that, I took my slice of lime and placed it on top of a plastic ziplock style plastic container.  I then rested that container on top of my flashlight and then began shooting away.  My first slice of lime wasn't quite thick enough, and the light ended up drowning out the colour of the lime.  I then cut a thicker slice and had much more success.  I took this photo at f/4, 1/40sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I added a slight touch of green to the image using the Colour Balance tool in Photoshop and ended up with an image that I really like.  I like this new technique, it really brought out the details in the slice of lime.  I'll probably try it again soon.

Happy St. Frozen Fingers Day

Get ready to see some words that have never been seen before on this blog, and have very rarely ever come out of my mouth.  Holy crap was it cold outside today!  It probably wouldn't have been that bad if I wasn't standing still in one spot for a couple of hours and wearing gloves that didn't cover my fingers, but wow was I feeling the chill of winter.  Today was Montreal's 191st St. Patrick's Day Parade.  Beginning in 1824, the parade is the oldest St. Patrick's Parade in Canada.  They say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and I myself have roots that go a couple of generations back on my father's side of the family.  As such, I enjoy going to the parade every year, or whenever possible.  I also like to bring out my camera, because as a photographer, I like getting out and photographing things.  It gets me out of my comfort zone, and with today's weather, trust me, I was out of my comfort zone.  Last year I kind of mentioned all of the things that go through my mind when I take pictures at the parade.  For those of you who don't want to click on the link, here is the short version.  I try to find images that I think define the event.  The kind of picture where you take a look and can kind of figure out that an Irish parade was going on.  With that in mind, here are some of the photographs that I took this year.

 Saint Patrick

f/5, 1/2500sec, ISO 400 at 45mm

Parade Queen Sarah Murphy & Princesses

f/5, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 67mm

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

f/11, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 42mm

f/6.3, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

The first photograph that you saw at the top of the page was shot at f/6.3, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 54mm.  By the time the last float went by, my fingers were nice and red and I was more than ready to start moving again to warm up.  I shouldn't complain though, it was a lovely day for a parade.

Driving Through A Winter Wonderland

We had ourselves a bit of a blizzard Wednesday night.  Blowing snow, high winds, low visibility and the general type of conditions that have the local weatherperson telling people to stay home.  Ofcourse, that meant it was time for me to hit the road.  I was looking for an excuse to get out and take some photos of the storm, and luckily My Lovely Assistant was at work which gave the the opportunity to gallantly go pick her up and offer a ride home.  Aren't I sweet.  The first photo you see here was taken through my windshield as I was driving to pick her up.  Don't worry Mom, as you can see, the light was red so I wasn't actually driving when I took this shot.  It was taken at f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 43mm.  I had to use a wide aperture and a high ISO to compensate for the low light.  I think it worked out pretty well as you can see the effect that the blowing snow had on visibility.  For the rest of these photos, I'm going to try something new.  My friend Pierre had also been out taking photographs and decided to publish them in black & white.  I found it to be an interesting look, so I decided to try going that route with my storm photos as well.  Let's see how they turned out.

f/2.8, 1/30sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm

f/4, 1/50sec, ISO 1000 at 24mm

f/2.8, 1/25sec, ISO 400 at 24mm

There you have it.  The regular photograph and it's black and white double.  I have kind of mixed feelings.  I like the black and white in the second photograph of the three, but I prefer the colour versions of the first and third.  I also got a little bit lucky in catching a snowplow passing by just as I was taking that third photograph.  It kind of adds a little something.  In the first photograph, I think that the blowing snow gets lost in the image when the colour is discarded.  I was able to use lower ISO's for the second and third photographs thanks to the big street/parking lot lights.  Usually, I would have used a tripod and longer exposure times for such low-light shots, but that wasn't an option with the high winds that were swirling around.  So there you go.  What do you think?  Black and white or colour?  Feel free to let me know.

For Steven

Those of you with long memories will remember that this photograph first appeared on this page back in June 2013.  It's back here tonight because this photograph was the favourite of my good buddy, Steven Beaulieu.  I found out this morning that Steven had lost his battle with cancer and I just wanted to put this up as a little tribute to him.  Steven was probably one of the most kind-hearted people I've ever met, and as with most people who are stricken with this terrible disease, he didn't deserve the end that he got.  Steven was a very spiritual person and I'd often end our hospital visits by telling him, "Sometimes you have to go through Hell in order to get into Heaven."  He'd get a kick out of that as myself and several friends tried to raise his spirits over his last few weeks.  One thing I'll always remember is what he said during one of our visits.  He told us that he didn't want to die because he loved life so much.  We should all love life as much as Steven did.  If there is a 'Big Guy' up there, I'm sure that he has a special place reserved for Steve.  If you'd like to find out the story behind this photograph, you can follow this link.  Take care, Little Buddy.  Thanks for your positive attitude, for always being a big supporter of my photography and for having been a great friend.

You Like Tomato And I Like Tomahto

One of the things that tends to happen when you like photography is that you tend to see things and think to yourself, 'that might make a cool picture'.  Such was the case during a recent walk through the grocery store.  I was in the fruits & vegetables department looking for a lime for a different photographic reason, when I came upon a pile of fresh tomatoes that had just been put on display.  They were really smooth and the remains of the stem were full and pointed so I ended up having the above thought go through my head.  I've already had some fun shooting some cherry tomatoes, you can see those photos right here and the other set right here.  I carefully threw a couple in my basket and made my way home.  A couple of days later, I pulled them out of the fridge and while walking to a nice sunny spot, I promptly dropped them on the floor.  Yeah for being clumsy.  One tomato ended up getting a large bump on it, but the other escaped rather unscathed from its fall to the floor.  So, the two tomato session quickly became a solo effort.  I put the tomato on a white plate, just recently purchased by My Lovely Assistant for such culinary photo situations, and moved the plate around until the sun was hitting the tomato how I liked.  Then, I grabbed the Macro lens and just shot away.  The first photograph was shot at f/2.8, 1/30sec, ISO 100 at 60mm. The second photograph was shot at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 60mm and the third photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  Those of you who like to read the photo information may have noticed a lot more different numbers than you usually do.  I had begun shooting at ISO 100, but the available light I had was not as strong as I had through it was, resulting in slower shutter speeds.  Afraid of camera shake, I raised the ISO to gain some shutter speed.  I wasn't really afraid of any camera noise that the higher ISO would might cause because I wasn't shooting anything overly dark.  For the final shot, I decided to use my flash so I went back to ISO 100, and I liked the way that the flash brought out more detail in the stem.  I also liked the way that the natural light from the window was hitting the camera.  While my shot with the flash has a little reflection of light just under the stem, the other shots without the flash allowed the natural light to hit off a few other parts of the tomato, helping to give it a more rounded look and to stand out a bit more from the white background of the plate.  I also liked how well the colour of the tomato came out.  No Photoshop adjustments here, that's exactly how red the tomato was in my original file.  The only Photoshopping that was done was a little bit of cropping.  I just hope that my Mom won't be upset that I still play with my food.

Wine & Cheese

I was snooping through the fridge looking for an after-work snack when I saw a tasty looking apple and cheese plate that was either prepared for me by those terrific Fridge Elves, or My Lovely Assistant.  The Fridge Elves have been there for about 12 years now and I've never really known them to make anything very creative, so I'm pretty sure this was the work of My Lovely Assistant.  Before I could start snacking, she walked in the door and put a couple of bottles of wine she had just bought on the table.  That's when the photographer in me took over.  I tried to arrange things so that I could make a nice table scene.  I had kind of achieved what I was looking for, but the scene was cluttered with my television and other living room items taking up space in the background.  As I tried to think of a better way to position the table, I remembered how I solved a similar problem back in February.  I grabbed the throw blanket from the bedroom and decided to use it as a backdrop.  My Lovely Assistant then lived up to her name by holding up the blanket so that I could have a nice grey backdrop for my photograph.  I had originally though about using my flash for this shot, but there was enough light coming in from the kitchen window.  There was even a little bit to much light, so I closed the blind a little bit, raised my ISO and started shooting.  I took this photograph at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 400 at 24mm.  Then we settled down on the couch for a nice little snack.  Anything that may have happened afterwards was not photography related and none of your concern.

The Tracks Of Your Tears

Despite all of the words that you see printed here on this page, I'm not really that much of a talker.  I'm more of the quiet guy who sits in the corner and listens to everyone and what they have to say.  What I've heard a lot of you saying over the past couple of weeks is that you're all sick and tired of winter.  I hate to be in disagreement with the majority, though it wouldn't be the first time, but I don't share that opinion at all.   Bring on the snow!  May the temperature stay in the minus-whatever range for as long as possible!  I could go on for a while, but this is supposed to be a blog on photography, so I suppose that I should get back on subject.  Last year I took a photograph of my footprint in the snow, but then played around with it in Photoshop so that it would kind of look like I had walked on the moon.  I was trying to think of a way to do something similar this year, but I wasn't sure what to use.  I was walking through the parking lot where I live one day last week and noticed all of the tire tracks on the freshly fallen snow.  I suddenly realized that I had found the snow tracks that I was looking for.  I had to wait a few days before a fresh layer of snow was on the ground, but I got the perfect conditions I was looking for on Sunday morning.  Oddly enough, I took this picture exactly one year after I had taken the picture of my shoe in the snow.  I suppose that it's not an exact science, but if there are any gamblers out there, you may want to place an early bet on there being a light snowfall on March 1st, 2015.  I went and dusted off my car and took it for a quick ride around the block.  It was fairly warm that morning and most of the snow had already melted off of the road.  I wanted to make sure that my tires would be bare when I would be driving on the snow in my parking lot.  The plan didn't go exactly as planned.  It may be time for me to look into buying new snow tires because I didn't get the kind of deep, detailed impressions that I was looking for.  Before I gave up, I decided to walk a little further through the parking lot and found that one of my neighbours had left the exact kind of tire marks that I had been hoping to make.  I pushed some of the snow out of my way, knelt down and began to snap away.  I liked the connecting lines of the first shot and took more of a close-up for the second shot to get the tire tracks in greater detail.  The first shot was taken at f/20, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 55mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/8, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I know that many of you are sick of looking at snow, so maybe try and focus on the tire patterns here.  I'd hate to be responsible for any screen or tablet related damage due to snow-rage.

And So It Begins...Again

Another adventure begins today as I get to meet my friends in the Choeur Vives Voix once again.  They're preparing their new show, Façade, and I'll once again be photographing the show for them.  I begin with some headshots for their production booklet tonight and then I'll be shooting their show at a later date.  Check out the group at the links I provided above, and to see some of the photographs I've taken of their shows in the past, you can see them right here.  There are a couple more right here.  If that's not enough, you can see a few more right here.  And if that's not enough, here are four more that I have not yet posted.  All of these shots were taken at f/2.8, ISO 1600 due to how little light was available and not being able to use any flash.

This project is always one of my favourite photographic opportunities every year and I very excited to be taking part in their show once again.  It probably doesn't need to be said, but you can expect to see more shots from this show later this month and into April.  Don't forget to visit their website to find out more about the show.

Blow Up The Outside World

Back in October I had the good fortune of looking out my window just in time to see, what in my mind, was a spectacular sunset.  It was a nice mix of yellow/orange sky and some thin clouds.  Don't just take my word for it, go and take a look for yourself.  A few short weeks later I had the good fortune to have history repeat itself.  I was walking down the hall when I took time to take a quick glance out the window.  What I saw sent me running for my camera.  The sky was a bright red, which unfortunately didn't last very long.  By the time I had the lens on my camera, what I had left was the maroon coloured sky you had here, and about three minutes later all of the colour was gone.  Like the last time, I had taken the screen out of my kitchen window in order to take this picture.  Luckily, it was the middle of November by this time so I didn't have to deal with any pesky insects trying to sneak their way in.  The photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/80sec, ISO 400 at 270mm.  I would have preferred getting the bright red sky that I had seen, but when you're dealing with Mother Nature, you end up working on her clock.  I guess she was in a rush that day.