Thinking Inside The Box

We've reached the end of June, which can only mean one thing.  Only two more months of oppressive heat until the cool air of Fall returns!  Oh yeah, and it also means that the International des Feux Loto-Quebec is back for another year of bright lights and loud explosions.  To begin the 2014 season, which is the 30th Anniversary of the fireworks competition, it was Germany who had the honour of being the first to light up the sky.  I began the season at a similar spot to one I had used last year because the location I had really wanted to use ended up not being as ideal as I thought it would be.  I also had another flare problem.  In an effort to avoid repeating the same problem I had last year with light from the flare leaking into my shots, I chose a spot where no flares had been directly placed on the highway infront of me.  I had a wide smile as I watch the cop walk by, not stopping to light any flares on the ground.  Sadly, my smile didn`t last very long as the cop stopped right infront of me on her way back to the car and dropped the flare she had been using to light the others.  Busted, my spot had been ruined, with only five minutes until show time.  I moved a few feet to the right, losing the road flare, but ending up with an unwanted street light in my shot.  There was no time to move anywhere else so I decided to shoot away, knowing that I`d have to do some cropping when I got home.  I ended up having to crop some of the thoughts into a 12x12 format rather than the 12x8 that I regularly use.  I still ended up with some nice shots, though maybe not as spectacular as in the past.  Maybe it`s just me, but I found the explosions to be a bit less wild than in years gone by.  Perhaps it was my location, perhaps my timing was off, perhaps my my mind was elsewhere.  Anyway, enough negativity.  I still think I ended up with a few nice shot. To compensate for the lack of action in the sky, I tried to add a little more of a light show to the bottom of my shots.  Passing police cars produce almost as much fancy light as the fireworks themselves.  The first shot you see here was taken at f/14, 10sec, ISO 100 at 43mm.  The second shot was taken at f/14, 17sec, ISO 100 at 43mm.  Here are a few more shots from last night.

f/14, 6sec, ISO 100 at 43mm

f/14, 7sec, ISO 100 at 43mm

f/11, 12sec, ISO 100 at 43mm

f/11, 11sec, ISO 100 at 43mm

I`ll admit, I was a little down on the walk home from taking these shots, but as usual, My Lovely Assistant was right.  I always hate my shots after the fireworks end, but they never end up being as bad as I thought they would be.

Aperture Leftover

Anybody out there remember the brief example of how aperture works that I posted back in February?  No?  That's okay.  I'm not the best teacher in the world.  The shots I took that you saw in that post were kind of a field test for me as I was trying out the different apertures in order to decide which one I would use for taking this photograph you see here.  I always take test shots to make sure that everything is just they way I want in my photographs.  It's one of the reasons why photo-walks with myself, or any other real photographer, tend to be a long patience testing experience for non-photographers.  It's not just point-and-shoot with me.  I really liked that this forgotten strand of tall field grass stood out against the blue sky, but also wanted to keep a bit of the mountain and other foliage in the bottom of the shot.  I ended up taking this photograph at f/4, 1/1250sec, ISO 100 at 25mm.  The only thing that I don't like about the shot is that I can't think of a better word than 'tall field grass' to describe what we're looking at.  I don't think my Grandfather, who was a farmer, would approve of my term.

Pretty Little Spikes

Over the last few years, my Mom's Garden provided me with all kinds of models, more than willing to sit around and let me photograph them for as long as I wanted, and to take as many photographs as I wanted.  You've all heard the stories before, and you already know that I have a large reserve of flower shots from the garden, so let's just get right to the point as these are a few more of my Mom's flowers.  This little beauty is an Echinacea, or more commonly known as a Cone Flower.  I didn't really do much different for these shots than I have for the many other flower photographs  I've taken.  I like to shoot them with a large aperture so that the flower itself is very sharp and the background is very blurry.  Usually you like to have the petals featured when you take shots of flowers, but with the Echinacea, the center of the flowers with all of the little spikes.  There are tiny pieces of pollen wedged between the spikes, and I really wanted to get a good shot of those tiny little things  I think it adds a little something to the shot.  In real life, I try to stay as far away from pollen as it would usually leave me with watery eyes and hours upon hours of fun as I sneeze my head off, but the photographer in me wants to get as close as possible in order to get a nicer photograph. Getting back to the cones, what originally drew me to these flowers was the cones.  When I'd stand over the flower and look directly into the center, it would almost have a dizzying effect as odd patterns would seem to appear and play tricks with my eyes.  I tried to repeat the sensation with the second photograph you see here on the page.  If you look very closely at the center of the flower, you can kind of see the same effects that I experienced .  You can see a similar type of effect with the third photo in this set.  Instead of looking straight down on the flower, I tried to look at it from a different angle where you'd get a look across the center, or as I like to call it, the face, of the flower.  You get a nice look at the top of the cones and also the different colours that you can find in the cones.  I also enjoy the little surprises you get from time to time when you're photographing flowers.  You get visited by little insects once in a while.  If the first and fourth photographs look somewhat the same, it's because they pretty much are.  The little difference is down in the bottom left-hand corner of the photograph.  I had moved around a little bit to take a second shot of the flower from a different vantage point.  I didn't notice the little guy down there while I was taking the photograph as I was pretty much focused on the cones of the flower.  If I had seen him, I would have tried to switch the focus from the cones down to the little bug who passed by to photobomb my shot.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 70mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm.  Before anyone out there raises their arms to say "Hey Eric, you forgot to reset your ISO again didn't you!", nope, not this time.  I took these photos a little bit after a rain storm and it was real grey outside.  So no, this time using ISO 1600 wasn't actually a mistake.  it was done on purpose.  It was probably the photographs I took the day after these that ended up being shot at ISO 1600 for no good reason whatsoever.  Live and learn.

Follow The Lines

I think it wasn't that long ago that I mentioned how I have a rather large archive of photographs that are just waiting to see the light of day on this blog.  This one here dates back to November of last year.   It was taken during a visit to Cowansville, but not just any visit.  It was the evening that my UV Filter met it's untimely end.  This is one of the last photographs taken before my camera had it's rather harsh meeting with the cement at my feet.  To go back in time and view that last photograph, you can visit this link here.  I've always liked taking photos of light streaks and traffic lights.  For this shot, I tried to position myself in such a way that the lines on the street led you to the traffic lights, while also catching the streaks of light of the passing cars in the bottom of the frame.  As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount of time to capture such an image.  This one was taken at f/11, 27sec, ISO 100 at 27mm.  There are still a few more shots from this visit that have yet to be published here on the blog, so maybe you'll be seeing more from Cowansville the next time I venture back into archives.

Viewer's Choice

I was out for supper the other night with My Lovely Assistant and on the way home, I couldn't help but notice how the setting sun was adding a nice red colour to the clouds.  The added colour seemed to add some texture to them as well.  Never needing an excuse to grab the camera, we went for a little walk to see if I could grab some sky.  I've enjoyed sunsets more than in the past after getting a look at several of the photographs taken by my former professor, Richard Anber.  Feel free to look through the sunset photos (and more of his work) on his Instagram site.  After getting home, I decided to do a little bit of cropping to one of my photos, but couldn't decide on which version I liked better.  The first photograph I really liked, but felt that I cut out more of the clouds than I wanted.  The second photograph, I left more of the clouds, but I had to cut out some of the bridge from the lower right-hand side of the photograph while also adding more of the silhouetted trees in the lower left. On the plus, I also like how the clouds seems to split the sky into two different colours.  Though I am kind of reaching for straws here, I also like how the photograph reminds me of the cover for the album Stormbringer by Deep Purple, which itself was based on a famous photograph from 1927 by Lucille Handberg.  So gentle viewers, I once again leave it up to you to decide.  Which version do you prefer more.  Both versions of the  photograph were taken at f/14, 1/80sec, ISO 400 at 43mm

Breaking The Law

A few weeks back I posted up a couple of pictures showing the Montreal Biosphere had changed their colour scheme to that of the Montreal Canadiens during their run in the Stanley Cup Play-Offs.  Sadly, the Canadiens were eliminated by the New York Rangers in the semi-finals, but I had promised one more photograph that I had taken that night as it had a story of its own.  I was on the Cosmos Bridge to take these photographs and this shot here was the final of my set that I wanted to take.  However, before I could begin snapping away, a car slowed down and stopped right next to me.  It was Island Security.  I was politely asked what I was doing and was then asked to move to the other side of the bridge where I would be protected from oncoming traffic by a bicycle path on the bridge.  I knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere by arguing, so I thanked the security guard for the advice and wished him a good evening.  I picked up my gear and moved to the bicycle path, and then waited as the security car slowly drove away.  Once I knew the car was far enough away, I quickly went back to my spot and began to shoot in order to get my photograph.  I've used this position before, I took a similar photograph a few years back that actually appeared in my Library Exposition in October 2012 (been a while since I've mentioned that).  Oddly enough, that photograph has not yet been featured here on the blog.  I guess we now have a good excuse to work it into a future update.  This shot was taken at f/16, 22sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  If by some chance that security guard finds his way to this page one day, I hope he'll understand why I disobeyed his orders.  I couldn't get this shot from the bike path.  I promise I'll be a good law abiding citizen from here on out...unless it means getting a better shot.

Maude & Curtis

I'm always a little bit nervous before I press the 'Publish' button on this page and send my photographs and words out into the world.  The usual thoughts always run through my mind.  Will people look at these photographs, will they like the photographs and will people even care.  All of those thoughts are running through my mind once again as I'm writing this, but they're about one thousand times louder.  These are some photographs I took of my very good friend Curtis, and his lovely bride, Maude.  I've known Curtis for almost 30 years now, and I've had the pleasure of getting to know Maude over the last few years.  They got married back on April 24th on the beach in Antigua, W.I.  Now, as you can tell just from the first photograph, these aren't from Antigua.  Maude and Curtis decided to get married in a small private ceremony, however they asked me to take some photographs of them at a little party they had with their families back in early May.  Obviously, this was a big deal to me.  You've seen all kinds of photographs of flowers, fireworks, automobiles and other objects here on the page, but photographs of actual people are few and far between.  Photographing people is a little bit out of my comfort zone.  But, sometimes in order to grow, you need to step out of that comfort zone and press forward.  I tried to prepare for this shoot by looking at other wedding photographs in order to have a wide array of pose suggestions at my disposal.  That way I wouldn't be wasting all of our time twiddling my thumbs trying to position my friends.  I tried to keep an air of confidence around how I spoke, but inside I was a nervous wreck.  Until I began to see the photographs on my camera.  The further into the evening we went, the better I began to feel.  We took a bunch of photographs, many shots of the entire family, but mostly shots of the happy couple, as that what they really wanted. After the meal was finished, we went outside for a few more photographs, which is where I learned an important lesson.  I wanted to take some photographs of them by a water fountain, which meant that using the flash was out of the question.  However, a fire-pit that I was planning on using as a light source was not working that night, so we needed to work with some streetlights that were in the area.  I pumped my ISO as high as possible and managed to get a few shots, but if I would have thought for a few minutes and brought a reflector with me, I would have had a little bit more success.  We finally parted ways for the evening with the promise of getting back together later in the summer for more photographs, in warmer and more eye pleasing location.  I got back home and immediately went through the photos when the nerves began to set it. Would they like the photos?  I presented the photographs to them a little more than a week later and they loved them.  I asked for permission to publish the photographs on my blog, and they accepted.  Then more nerves.  What if I publish these photos and nobody likes them?  What if nobody cares?  Finally, I decided it's time to bite the bullet, face my fear and put these photos out for all to see.  What better day to face your fear than on Friday the 13th.  So World, here they are.  Several photographs I took of my very good friends.  I hope you like them.  The first photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/9, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The third photograph was taken at
f/9, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 25mm, the fourth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 at 58mm and the fifth photograph was taken at f/9, 1/250sec. ISO 100 at 34mm.  A couple quick words about some of the photographs.  The second shot on this page was taken in the same booth at the restaurant where Maude and Curtis actually had their first date.  I was looking around for a booth we could use when I saw some people leave.  As fate would have it, that was their booth.  We spoke with the waiting staff and they allowed us to take several shots from the booth.  The sixth shot I decided to put in black & white as I really liked the effect it had.  Wedding photographs tend to have a nice classic feel in monochrome and in the final photograph, I like how the flash acted not only as the main light source, but the light of the flash bouncing off of a mirror in behind the couple acted like a bit like a backlight as well.  Here are a few more shots that I took.

f/7.1, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/5, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 30mm

A big thank-you to Maude and Curtis.  It was a tremendous honour to be invited to your private party and and an honour to have been asked to take these photographs.  I wish the both of you a lifetime of great times and wonderful moments together.  Congratulations.

Mom's Day Lily

Of all of the flowers that I've photographed from my Mom's garden, it's probably the Day Lilies that I like the most.  Sadly, my parents moved last year and where they currently live, my Mom doesn't have the required space to plant the many varieties of flowers that decorated the landscape of their old house.  Another move is planned for the future, so hopefully they'll find a house with a large yard so that my Mom's green thumb can be put back to work.  In the meantime, I managed to take so many photographs last year that I still have a rather large reserve of images of flowers that have yet to see the light of day on this blog.  Like this little fella here.  I know that I like to put links up to older images here on my site in the hopes that some of you will surf around for a little while as you visit, there are so many Day Lily flower photos on this site that to put up links to them all would probably fill up this update.  I usually shoot these flowers using my Macro lens at f/2.8 to really focus on the stamen of the flower, but I also wanted to make sure that the fallen pieces of pollen were also in focus.  So, I used a larger aperture to widen the amount of the photograph that would be in focus.  This photograph was taken at f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  I'm always looking for some Day Lillies to photograph.  The hunt may be a little bit harder this year, but I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for some.

We Will Rock You

Last Saturday night My Lovely Assistant and I decided to hit the bustling streets of downtown Saint-Lambert in order to take in a concert held during the Festival Classica.  The show was a tribute to the classic rock group Queen.  Songs by the band were performed by a symphony orchestra and sung by a large choir, as well as guest vocalist Jean-Sébastien Lavoie,a singer who had previously appeared on a reality talent show called La Voix.  I had brought my camera with me because I knew that if I didn't, I would end up regretting not having done so.  I was hoping to get close enough to the stage in order to get some shots, but even getting to the site an hour and a half before the show was not early enough to get a good spot.  My Lovely Assistant and myself decided to walk around the site where we were happy to bump into my photographer friend Pierre Bourgault, who was there to take some shots of the event.  Disappointed that I wasn't going to be close to the stage, My Lovely Assistant and I found a good spot to watch the show, and settled in for the concert.  Midway through the show, we decided to move around a little bit as it was kind of a chilly evening, so we walked around the concert site and found ourselves back on the main street that the concert was being held on.  The crowd had thinned out a little by this point and I managed to get a little closer to the stage than I had before.  We continued to press forward a little bit as the songs went by, and by the time of the encore, I was about five rows of people from the stage.  It was time to take some photographs.  As mentioned in my Future Villains update, it was suggested that I try shooting shows with a somewhat smaller aperture in order to make the photos a little more sharp.  As I got closer to the stage, more light became available to me to use, so I decided to give my fingers a little action as they spun the dials of my camera as I tried shooting at different apertures.  However, there is a sad part to this story.  While my fingers were spinning the dial, I accidentally ended up changing the focusing mode on my camera from One Shot to AI Servo.  Instead of focusing what I wanted to focus on, it would lock on to what was in the center of my screen and try to keep up with whatever was moving from there.  Instead of getting home with some crisp photos using this new method, I got home with photos even less sharp than before.  I decided to see what I could do with Photoshop to try and save my photographs, and I think I may have saved a couple using the 'Sharpen More' Filter.  They're not perfect, but I still really like these photos, especially the fourth one here where I not only captured the singer and orchestra, but also a very excited fan who happened to be near the front of the stage.  It's pretty easy to see that he was having a pretty good time.  As did we.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 57mm.  The second was taken at f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 1000 at 55mm.  Number three was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 50mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 800 at 70mm, the fifth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 43mm and the sixth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 1600 at 48mm.  As I mentioned, these photographs aren't perfect, but they did provide me with a bit of a lesson.  I need to slow down while taking shots of shows.  Especially if I'm playing with the shutter speed and aperture.  It's important to take the time to make sure that I haven't changed any of the other functions while that could cause me to screw up my photos.  I was able to kind of save a couple of shots, the best of which I have shared with you here, but there were many others that found their way into the Recycling Bin of my computer because I didn't take the time to make sure that the settings were right.  I hope this lesson sinks in faster than the lesson in resetting the ISO on my camera after I'm done.  Which reminds me, I better go and make sure that I did that before I get another unwanted surprise the next time I go out.  As we begin to wrap things up for now, here's a final shot, a bit of a cropped panorama shot that I like to take.  It was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 24mm.  It was a fun show and with summer just about upon us, hopefully I'll be able to sneak my way to the front of a few more crowds in the coming months.

Neon Kiwi

One of my new favourite things to photograph has become slices of fruit.  Back March after having gotten the idea from reading an article in a magazine, I took a photograph of a piece of lime.  I really liked the result and promised that on the next trip to the fruit store, I'd bring home something else to try shooting.  That trip would have to wait as I was quickly reminded by My Lovely Assistant that there was a kiwi sitting in the fridge that was waiting to be shot.  I had originally bought the kiwi as I though that it was the fruit that I had seen in the original magazine article.  Perhaps not my greatest hour, but it did save me a trip to the store.  I repeated the same process to get this photograph.  I cut a large slice of Kiwi and placed it on a plastic container which I balanced on a flashlight, lighting the slice of kiwi from below.  This photograph was shot at f/9, 1/80sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm using a Macro lens.  I really liked the green of the kiwi and how well the seeds stand out. I'll be photographing more fruit in the future, but I think we'll try and different colour next time.