Sun Sets On 2015

Another year is about to come to an end.  Last year I ended things off with a sunset, and it seemed like a good idea to do so once again.  This is another shot of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  I live right near it and it ends up being a favourite model of mine in the Spring and late Summer when the sun starts to set.  It was taken at f/5.6, 1/400sec, ISO 400 at 80mm.  I must admit that there is a little trickery involved.  I used Photoshop, specifically the Curves tool as well as Color Balance, in order to add a bit of punch to the sky.

It's been a good year here on the Blog.  I had my photography exhibition back in March, and also posted all kinds of different photographs for you all to see here.  I managed to get my camera in to a few more concerts this year, as well as taking it to a couple of free shows outside as well.  For the first time, I managed to photograph every one of the La Ronde Fireworks Competition shows in July from a different location, and I shot some winter fireworks down at the Old Port in January as well.  Got in to a few hockey games to snap some of the action on the ice, and also got out to a couple of football games this fall.  The year got off to a good start thanks to my ice fog photograph down by the Victoria Bridge.  It ended up being featured on CTV news back then, and is currently on display at the Saint-Lambert Library, though it will only be there for one more day.  In between, there have been the wide variety of bugs, lights, car parts, some food and even a Blood Super Moon.  I guess you could say that I kept my camera busy this year, and that's a good thing.  Thanks to all of you who stop by to read the words that go with my photographs.  Thanks also to My Lovely Assistant for having the patience to sit through some of my photography sessions, be they in frigid temperatures or bombarded by loud fireworks explosions. Also for giving me the kick in the pants that I sometimes need in order to go outside and get some of those shots.

Chocolate And Pear Yule Log

The arrival of the Christmas Holiday season means that all kinds of tasty treats tend to appear on the diner tables of families near and far.  Such is the case in this household and the season allows the cooking and baking talents of My Lovely Assistant to shine.  It also means a little bit of performance anxiety on my part as I try and take nice photographs of the tasty treats she creates.  Her pièce de résistance was a couple of Christmas Yule Log cakes, known as bûche de Noël in french.  This is the first of the two bûches.  It was nicely decorated with homemade gingerbread trees, some sugar balls and cranberries.  To add a little bit of the holiday feeling to the photograph, a little Christmas themed table centerpiece was added.  I suppose that I could have also used some kind of place mat or table cloth to add something to the photograph, but I really liked the look of our wooden table in this instance.  It was late in the afternoon when I took these photographs, so I had to go to my dreaded enemy, 'Flash'.  I've been practicing my flash usage, and in this instance, I bounced the light off of the ceiling and used a slower shutter speed than usual.  I think the results came out pretty well.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 24mm.  I tried several different angles while taking the photographs, so much so that My Lovely Assistant may have mentioned that it was taking me longer to photograph the cake than it took for her to make it.  Though time needs to be controlled in the baking game, it's a little more felxible when it comes to photography.

Merry Christmas To All

I had been hoping to put up a nice snowy Christmas photograph, but Mother Nature decided that snow wasn't in the forecast.  So, I decided to try and create my own little Christmas image.  I grabbed a little Santa Claus that has been sitting on our television and a porcelain Christmas tree that lights up.  I placed them both on the floor, a good distance from each other.  I then grabbed a flashlight from the drawer, put a little wax paper on it to act as a diffuser and gave two quick blasts of light to Santa, one from low on the left and a second a little higher on the right.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 15sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  The large aperture allowed me to blur the lights of the tree, as well as to get the reflection of the light on the floor.  Using the two quick bursts from the flashlight allowed me to get enough light on my Santa during the long exposure, without the light overpowering the rest of the image.  It was a fun little project.  Speaking of fun, I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas.

Roll The Dice

This is one of my favourite photographs that I took during the Saint-Lambert Classic Car Show this past May.  So, naturally, I waited about six months before finally putting it up here on the blog.  This car was an El Camino and the owner obviously liked to roll the dice a little bit as he had some fuzzy dice over the rear-view mirror, but I was more impressed with the dice he had installed on the lock for the front door.  I tried to frame the photograph in a particular way so that the dice on the would be in focus, and the background would be blurred.  I didn't want the background to be blurred so much that you couldn't make out the details in the dash, so I moved in real close to take the photograph, but still used a small aperture.  I also tried to keep a little streak of the green of the car in the bottom of the frame to add a little slice of colour.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 52mm.  I'd kind of like to think that this car had been won on a bet and had made several visits to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but that kind of fiction should best be reserved for another kind of blog.

Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder

I guess you could say that I've had a love/hate relationship with this little guy over the years.  When I was younger, I enjoyed watching as they would struggle to find their way into the various bird feeders that my mother would have set up around the house.  Now though, I've grown to like these little buggers a little less as over the last two years they've found their way into the little garden that My Lovely Assistant has worked on and have managed to get away with various cherry tomatoes, red peppers, raspberries, large tomatoes, cucumbers and even watermelons that we've tried to grown.  Well, the crops are long gone, but these guys are still scurrying around.  This one in particular was hanging around the yard, looking for various things to snack on.  I'm not sure if he thought he was going to find another meal on our steps, but if that's the case, he was surely out of luck.  I can't really say that I felt that sorry for him.  But, I figured the least he could do in order to pay for the food he had eaten was to pose for a few photographs.  I snuck my lens through the openings in our curtain and snapped away while he ate.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/50sec, ISO 400 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/50sec, ISO 400 at 200mm.  I admit it, I wouldn't have minded shooting him in a non-photographic way, but since that's not really legal, I limited my self to making little 'bang' noises in my head while taking these photographs and thinking of all of our lost fruits and veggies.  I hope that he enjoyed them.

Experimenting With Steel Panther

As hard as it may be for those of you out there who know me to believe, I tend to spend lots of time in front of my computer.  I can only imagine the shock that admission might be causing some of you.  Some of that computer time is spent trying out different things with my photographs in Photoshop.  I particularly enjoy trying to play with different Filters in the program.  One filter that I have learned to have fun with lately is the Sumi-e filter.  Sumi-e is an ancient Japanese art form of brush painting, which I would have probably never discovered had it not been for Photoshop.  I like the effect that the filter has on my photographs, making them look kind of like a painting.  I've tried it with a few of my photographs now, but the debut on this website will belong to this image of the band Steel Panther.  I attended a concert by Steel Panther and Future Villains back in May of this year.  I managed to get my camera into the venue and took lots of photographs.  You can see the shots I took of Steel Panther here and the shots I took of Future Villains here. Getting back to the transformation, while using the Sumi-e, the Photoshop program asks you to use different kind of brush strokes.  After trying out several different combinations, I ended up using a short stroke width with a high stroke pressure.  The final result is what you see in the second photograph.  The original photograph was shot at f/4.5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  You can also see that I cropped the second photograph a little bit to get rid of the microphone stand and to put the cell phone that is in the foreground of the photograph more in the corner.  I tried other brush stroke filters on this photograph as well, but I've yet to get them where I like.  Maybe we'll see this image up here in another form some day.

Fun With Daffodils

The year is quickly coming to an end as I begin to face the cold hard fact that I'm once again going to end the year with a large collection of photographs that I have yet to post up on the blog.  I think I mentioned here one time that I probably have enough photographs in my hard drive to go an entire year without taking another one.  That's obviously not going to happen as I'm often at my happiest when I've got my camera in my hands.  So, I'll continue to dig around that hard drive and be thankful that in the digital age, I can store all of those photographs rather easily.  Which bring us to these photographs.  Taken back in the month of April, these are some close-ups of Daffodils.  I had bought them because the Daffodil is sold by the Canadian Cancer Society as a way to raise funds for Cancer research.  Sadly, this terrible disease has touched my family, and it's probably, and sadly, a safe bet that it has touched those of you who are reading.  Over the years I've lost family members, and friends to the disease.  I wanted to do something nice with these flowers, and I really like doing close-ups.  I focused on the stamen of the flower and tried to get as much detail in the shots as possible. I took two different photographs.  The first, taken at f/9, 1/100sec, ISO 400 at 60mm  I wanted to capture the detail of the stamen and the pollen, as well as the yellow colour of the Daffodil.  With the second photograph, taken at f/20, 1/80sec, ISO 400 at 60mm, I was more interested in the petals and the texture of the flower.  To get both photographs, I simply moved the flower around.  I had the Daffodil facing the sun in the first shot, while in the second I put the sun behind the flower.  It's all about placing your light.  Now, back to the hard drive to see how many more photographs I can unleash on you all before the calendar turns.

I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas

I don't know what things look like where you live, but over here, we're several days into the month of December, and there isn't a flake of snow anywhere to be seen.  The temperature was five degrees above the seasonal norm today, and the forecast calls for a temperature in the double digits Celsius before the week comes to an end.  That doesn't bode well for any snow this week, and there's even talk of not having a white Christmas this year.  So, since I have no snow, I went digging into the archives and pulled out this photograph that I took waaaaay back in 2007.  It was taken at f/8, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 27mm.  Just a little reminder for all of you out there about what the outdoors is supposed to look like at this time of the year.  Back to dreaming of a white Christmas I go, while I also take a moment to wonder if Santa's sleigh can be equipped with wheels, just in case.

Colour Injection

It's been a rather grey month of December.  For the record, the month of November wasn't very colourful either.  So, while we wait for some snow to arrive, I thought you might all enjoy a little injection of colour into your internet lives today.  Since today also happens to be my Mom's birthday, I thought it would be appropriate to dig out a photograph from the archives from her old flowerbed.  My parents recently moved into a new house with a large yard so I'm thinking that I might have some new flowers to photograph next year.  These flowers are from a few years back and one of those photographs that I intended to post, but then got lost in time.  I guess it works out for the best.  I now get to use them to help celebrate my Mom's birthday, and as I mentioned, to give you all a little dose of colour.  This photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/2500sec, ISO 100 at 45mm.  I've always been a fan of having blurred backgrounds in my flower photographs.  Especially when the backgrounds have lots of colour in them.  To achieve this, I try to focus on a flower that has a either lots of other flowers behind it or to a side.  I then move so that the flowers that I want in focus are near the bottom of my frame, use a large aperture and snap away.  This one worked out pretty well.  Happy Birthday Mom!

On The Wall

As previously mentioned, that's a photograph of my photograph hanging on the wall in the Saint-Lambert Library.  It's up there as part of an annual holiday art exhibition.  This is the third year I participate in the show, and even after three years I still find it pretty cool to see one of my photographs hanging on the walls of a building I used to visit to borrow books when I was a kid.  Again, if you'd like to find out more about this particular photograph, you can go back to my original blog post about it.  A big thank-you to My Lovely Assistant for the photograph.  A big "I'm sorry" to my Mom for the beard.  If you happen to find yourself in the Saint-Lambert area and would like to have a look, my photograph is hanging in the back of the first floor in the computer area.  While you're there, check out the other works.  That jazz guy behind me is pretty cool as well.

At The Saint-Lambert Library

Yes, you've all seen this photograph before.  Those of you with long memories will remember that this photograph debuted here on the site back in February, despite the fact that it was taken in January.  My backlog in photographs has grown longer than one month since then.  It's back here on the site because as of today, it is on display at the Saint-Lambert Library.  For the third year, one of my photographs will be part of their annual holiday art exhibition.  If you'd like to find out more about this photograph, feel free to go back in time and visit the original blog post from February, or even check out the video from when it was chosen as a CTV WeatherPix.  The photograph will be in Saint-Lambert until December 31st.  If you missed the chance to see it during my personal exhibition back in March, head down to Saint-Lambert and take a look at it as well as all of the other pieces of art that are on display.

Pontiac GTO

As we approach the end of another month, I find myself getting ready for the monthly back-up of my hard drive.  Doing so usually entails my going through all of the folders in my photography file and trying to figure out which ones I can remove from my computer and place in the relative safety of the different hard drives I use to back up my photographs.  It's usually at that point where I realize how far behind I am in getting my shots here onto the blog and I dig something out and throw it up on the site right away.  Such is the case of this photograph, taken back in May.  I was at an antique car show and the colour of this Pontiac GTO caught my eye.  I wanted to take a tight photograph of the car logo, simply because I really liked the colour.  I noticed that the sun was reflecting in the chrome around the letters, so I used a small aperture which resulted in getting those little star shapes you see in different locations around the lettering.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 59mm.  I hope you enjoyed this little trip to the archives, now go an back-up your own hard drives as well.

Napoleon`s Last Stand

Over the last several years, I've photographed all kinds of strange and wonderful things.  It's time to add to that list.  This update is about photographing a corpse.  Before you all get a little worried, it's a bug corpse that I have photographed.  My Lovely Assistant and I have this little habit of giving names to things that happen to find their way into our home.  For some reason, this guy ended up being called Napoleon, possibly because he was small and rather daring.  He found his way into our home around Christmas last year.  He flew around for a few days before suddenly disappearing.  A few weeks later, I found what was left of our little buddy, and thought that his corpse was so well preserved, it might make for an interesting photograph.  I put him on the window sill and was really impressed with the detail in the body, especially the head and wings.  I took this photograph at f/5.6, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  Is it a little bit weird?  Possibly, but I also think that it's a pretty cool look at something that I've never seen so close before.  To each his own.

Hockey Night In St. Hubert

The sports theme on the old blog over the last few weeks continues with this little update.  Hockey season has been on for a while now, but I only got my first chance to shoot some game action this past weekend when my good friend Emmanuel told me that his daughter would be playing a game close to home.  Seeing as how I really enjoy shooting hockey games, I couldn't pass up the chance to take some photographs of Florence in action.  Sadly, my one-game winning streak came to an end as Florence's team ended up losing.  Thankfully the family likes my photographs and I keep getting invited back to take more, because I think her team has a record of 1-3, if not worst, when I'm in the arena.  I ventured out of my usual location this time.  I usually try to stick close to center ice so that I can get a good view of both nets.  Mostly because Florence is a goaltender and because I feel that most of the best action takes place around the nets.  This time, I ventured down to the corner of the arena for a period to take some shots closer to rinkside.  I had refrained from doing so in the past because, let's be honest, the plexiglass that surrounds city rinks is not the same quality, or as well kept as the plexiglass you'll find at the Bell Center.  However, lots of the pros shoot from that location, you can often see them in the corner behind the glass when you're watching a game, so I figured I should at least give it a try.  After finally making my way down there and pressing my camera against the glass, I noticed that all of the knicks, scratches and stains don't even show in the final image.  If I get the chance, I'll probably try and head down there again.  The first photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/640sec, ISO 1000 at 105mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 1000 at 100mm and the third photograph was taken at f/5, 1/400sec, ISO 1000 at 200mm.  Here are a few more action shots that I took over the course of the game.

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 1000 at 70mm

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 1000 at 165mm

f/5, 1/400sec, ISO 1000 at 110mm

Hopefully I get invited back before the season comes to an end.  I need a chance to improve my winning percentage.  That, and it's always fun to take my camera down to the arena and watch Florence play.

No Strings Attached

 I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone is well aware of the tragic events that took place in Paris a few days ago.  I kind of like to keep things light, so this won't really turn into any kind of deep discussion.  One of the ways that cities around the world have been showing their support for the city of Paris has been to light up buildings with the colours of the French flag.  Here in Montreal, both the Olympic Stadium and the Montreal Biosphere have changed their lighting into the blue, white and red colour pattern of the French flag.  Heading out to the Olympic Stadium was a little bit out of my way, plus it was really well done by one of my friends, Marilyn.  So, I decided to stick close to home.  While driving a few weeks ago, I noticed the Biosphere from an angle that I had not yet tried, where we could see some of the buildings of Montreal as well.  I went to take the photograph, but there was this telephone line going right across the frame of my shot, so I kind of 'cheated' and used Photoshop to make it disappear.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 7sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I waited a bit past sunset to take my shot, and also waited to get a good series of cars to pass by to get the light streaks across the bottom of my photograph.  I know removing the lines goes against much of what I've said about using Photoshop to alter images, but that telephone line really bothered me.  I'll try and go back to being principled with the next photographs.

Adding A Little Colour

It's been a rather grey couple of days, both locally and globally, so I thought it might be good for my morale, and maybe the morale of some others out there, by adding a little bit of colour.  It's a Daylily, always my favourite flower to photograph.  This particular photograph was taken in the late afternoon as the sun was setting in the mother of my Lovely Assistants garden.  I managed to grab a nice angle and shot away.  This photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 68mm.  Also, in the spirit of friendship, there is a little friend hidden near the tip of the petal on the far right.  I'm not sure how well it appear in the small resolution I'm using here on the website, but there's a tiny little spider.  He's so well hidden that I didn't even notice him until a few hours ago when I decided to put this photograph on the page.  After watching the events of the weekend unfold, it's was nice to have a little surprise.

Musical Hands

Earlier this week I posted up several photographs that I took at the Aphasie Rive Sud fundraiser that my friend had organized.  I left one photograph out of that set because I wanted it to show it by itself.  Maybe I'm out to lunch on this one, but I really liked it.  These are the hands of Emilie Lecavalier, a pianist who has been playing with the Choeur Vives Voix for the last couple of years, and who my friend got to play for the fundraiser.  After getting several shots of the singers, I found myself in a position where I had a clear shot of her hands as she played and I thought that it made a very cool shot.  So, since this is my blog, here it is.  This photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 1250 at 68mm.  I was afraid that in order to properly expose her hands that I might have overexposed the sheet music, but I was very happy to see that all of the notes survived.  Though I feel that I may not be properly expressing my thoughts on this photograph, which is probably why I tend to prefer photography over, say, public speaking, I still feel that this was my favourite photograph that I took that night.

Poppy

Remembrance Day is once again upon us, and the symbol for this very important day is the poppy.  I wasn't able to attend any of the weekend Remembrance Day ceremonies this year, nor will I be able to attend on on the 11th.  In my 'Perfect World', Remembrance Day will become a National Holiday so that everyone can take the time to pay their respect to those who gave their lives so that we can live in freedom today.  However, since I'm nowhere near able to pass laws at the moment, I'm going to have to dig into my archives and pull out this extra photograph that I took at a ceremony I attended last year.  This photograph was taken at f/11, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 52mm.  I didn't want to entirely blur out the background of this photograph, so I positioned myself close to the poppy, and used a small aperture.  This allowed me to focus on the poppy, but not throw the rest of the photograph out of focus entirely.  Don't forget to take a moment out of your day to remember those who made the most important sacrifice there is.

Aphasia Fundraiser

A couple of Saturdays ago, a good friend of mine organized a fundraiser to try and raise some money for Aphasie Rive-Sud.  It's an organization that helps people affected by and families dealing with Aphasia.  Aphasia is a condition that reduces the affected persons ability to communicate.  The ability to read, write, speak and understand are diminished, though the intelligence of the person in question doesn't change.  Aphasia is usually caused by an injury to the brain, most often either a stroke, a trauma or a tumor.  My friends father had recently been diagnosed with the condition, thus her deciding to try and raise some funds, and some awareness, for the condition and this group that helps people deal with it.  She organized a spaghetti supper and a musical show, with all of the money raised being given to Aphasie Rive-Sud.  She brought in several of her friends to sing some songs, people some of you may remember as they belong to the Choeur Vives Voix, and I've photographed their shows for the last several years.  They all donated their time, others workers donated their time in the kitchen, and I donated my time as well by going in and photographing the show for them.  At last count, the evening had raised over $4000 for the organization, money that will be used to help people and their families to adapt to their condition.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 30mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/320sec, ISO 1000 at 70mm.  Here are some more photographs of the show.

f/4.5, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm

f/3.5, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

f/4.5, 1/125sec, ISO 1250 at 68mm

f/4.5, 1/80sec, ISO 1250 at 54mm

f/4.5, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm

f/3.5, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 28mm

I'd say that the evening was a success.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy myself, and from a personal standpoint, I had a great times as well.  The stage was kind of small, but they had rented a huge spotlight, which allowed me to use an ISO a little lower than the usual ISO 3200 that I use for the Choeur Vives Voix shows.  That meant less grain in the photographs.  The evening also gave me a chance to practice my shots using flash, something that always gives me a headache.  These, I think, came out pretty well.  I didn't have any flash created shadows in my photographs, and everyone seems well lit.  It was a fun night for everyone involved.

 

Red Pepper

It's been quite the while since I've played with my food.  So long, infact, that while digging through my hard drive during my monthly back-up, I found this lost pepper.  It was fresh from the store and the bright red colour instantly caught my eye.  I threw open the curtains in the kitchen and let the sunshine in.  I had to work fast because if my memory is correct, this pepper was scheduled to become part of supper that night.  Seeing as how the first  photograph was taken on a window sill,  I tried to get as close as possible for my shot and I used a large aperture in order to blur out the less than spectacular background.  For the second photograph, I still stayed close to my subject.  I tried to focus on the texture of the inside of the pepper because I found that it was really interesting.  I also played around with the positioning of the slice of pepper in order to get a nice shadow effect on my plate.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 68mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.

There are all kinds of colourful things that you can find in the kitchen.  As an added bonus, this one had a nice texture to it as well.  It made for a tasty addition to supper than night as well.

The Final Whistle

The local Champlain Cavaliers football team was playing a Quarter-Final play-off game last night,so I decided to make the trek down the street one last time this season to see the team in action.  It ended up being one heck of a good game.  Things were looking pretty bleak at halftime as the team was down 22-9 and their starting quarterback had been taken out of the game in the middle of the second quarter after taking a hit.  Thinking I had a good selection of photographs, I almost headed for home at the half, but I'm really happy I didn't because I would have missed one heck of a comeback.  The team scored two fourth quarter touchdowns to take the lead 23-22 with a less than four minutes to go.  Things were looking fairly bleak when the opposing team took the ball all the way down the field and scored the go-ahead touchdown with a little bit more than two minutes to go on the following drive.  However, despair quickly turned to elation when on the ensuing kick-off, Champlain returned the ball all the way down the field and scored what would be the winning touchdown.  Final Score - Champlain 29 vs Ahuntsic 28.  Sadly, even in victory this game marked the end of my football season, photographically speaking.  Though Champlain won the game, their next play-off game will be played in Thetford Mines, and should they make it to the finals, that game will be played in St. Jean.  A bit far off for me to make the trip.  Still, I had much fun attending the three games that I made it out to this season, though I wish that one of those games would have taken place in the afternoon to provide me with a bit better light to take my photographs.  I could also use a bit of better luck.  I only got a good shot of one touchdown during the three games that I attended.  For the most part, the scores always seemed to come at the other end of the field from where I was positioned.  I only have myself to blame for this past game though as three touchdowns were scored in my end zone, but I missed the first two when I wasn't fast enough to adjust my focusing while the action was taking place and I ended up with two out of focus scores.  That really ticked me off.  I'll have to practice spinning that focus ring a little more quickly to build up my finger speed.  The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm.  Here are a few more shots of the action that took place on the field.

f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/800sec, ISO 3200 at 110mm

f/3.2, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/500, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

That last photograph ended up being the winning touchdown.  Congratulations to my former school on their great season, and here's wishing them much success in the semi-finals this weekend.

Reese's Pieces

The explanation behind these photographs is kind of a stretch, but I'm guessing that those of you who come here are somewhat interested in my little musings, so here goes.  If you're reading this the day after it has been published, you know that it is Halloween.  On Halloween, fun folks young and old alike get dressed up in various different costumes.  A favourite costume through the ages has been to dress up as an alien.  And who is the everyone's favourite alien?  Why it's E.T.  And what was E.T's favourite snack?  Reese's Pieces.  As a Halloween treat to all of you, I'm offering up some photographs of Reese's Pieces.  Longtime visitors to this site know that photographing candy is something I enjoy.  There are two reasons.  First, they're really colourful and can really grab your attention.  Second, they make for a really tasty treat once your done shooting them.  I like to shoot candy two different ways.  With a large aperture which blurs out the background and again with a smaller aperture, keeping everything in focus.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/80sec, ISO 400 at 60mm and the second photograph was taken at f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  After all of you trick or treaters get home with bags filled up with tasty treats, give a look at what is inside.  There might be something cool in there to snap a picture of before you eat it.