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.

Double On The Rocks

Though we can now safely say that Summer is over, I'm still going through a little phase where I've been going over several of the photographs that I've taken over the last few summer vacation trips, trying to make up for last time and putting a final polish on them.  Sure, I should have done this probably shortly after getting home from those vacations, but one of the drawbacks of being a shutterbug, is that you sometimes end up coming home with way more photographs than you thought you would.  That's when my other little bad habit kicks in.  A wise man once said 'why do today what can be put off until tomorrow', and for better or for worse, those words seem to have stuck with me for most of my life.  These photographs were taken during the trip of 2014 to Tadoussac.  I shot them in the late afternoon after My Lovely Assistant and I had just arrived in town and went for a walk on the rocky beach as our first official act.  The first photograph, shot at f/5, 1/1600sec, ISO 1000 at 68mm, is of rocks that were out of the reach of the tide.  I liked the way that the sun and shadows seemed to dance around them.  The second photograph, shot at f/6.3, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 42mm was taken down by the water and I played around with a couple of different exposures before finally getting one that allowed me to properly capture not only the sun falling on the rocks, but also a nice reflection of the blue sky and clouds in the water.  These were the first among many photographs that I took in Tadoussac, and marked the beginning of a good vacation.

Ladybug Invasion

Okay, it's time to dig back into the archives for a quick update.  These photographs were taken last fall after getting home one afternoon and finding that the building had been invaded by ladybugs.  This one in particular seemed rather relaxed and enjoyed posing.  These photographs have been sitting in my website folder since January, but two little incidents finally got me to post them.  First, we had a similar invasion two weeks ago, though none of the bugs were as photogenic as this one.  The second reason needs a bit of explaining.  While visiting my parents over the Thanksgiving holiday, I came upon a ladybug that had gotten into their house.  I managed to position it onto my finger with the intention of letting it free outside, when I felt a little sting.  The little thing had bitten me.  I'd never known ladybugs to bite before, but it reminded me of these photographs.  The first one in particular.  I'm not sure how well is shows at the small size I use to post my photographs on this website, but when it was blown up to 10" x 15" for my exhibition back in March, one of the things that struck me were the teeth.  It's not a surprise I felt a bit of a pinch with a mouth full of teeth like this bug has.  Getting back to the photograph, another thing that I really liked was the reflection of the ladybug.  We had just painted the railings no more than two weeks before this photograph had been taken and the fresh paint provided a nice reflective surface.  I liked the photograph so much that I cropped it both vertically and horizontally.  It's the vertical version that ended up being put on display.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  Here's a third photograph that I also took that afternoon.

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400at 60mm

The reflection shows a bit more on the third photograph, but I should have probably used a smaller aperture in order to keep more of the face in focus.  Lesson learned.  Shoot with different apertures and also keep from being bitten by bugs in the future.

Football Highlights

Last night I made my way back to Seaway Park in Saint-Lambert for some more football action.  It was a 7:00PM start time and by the time that the game ended a little bit after 10:00PM, I was a human Popsicle.  Get ready to hear some words that I have quite possibly never uttered before.  It was cold.  I'm never cold, but on this night, I was frozen.  I was also always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Still no touchdown photographs, and by the third quarter I was to cold to move, so I just stuck to one end zone and tried to grab some plays as they happened.  The touchdown will have to wait for another time as this was the last regular season home game for the team, and it looks like my 'Day Job' will keep me from being able to see the team in their play-off game.  I might be getting ahead of myself as the scheduled time for the game has yet to be announced, but I was really hoping to be able to see a game while the sun would be out.  Especially now as the evenings have gotten a tad bit colder than I guess I was prepared for.  The first photograph was taken at f/4. 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 120mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/1000sec, ISO 3200 at 123mm.  While I continue to thaw out from last night, here are a few more photographs that I took during the game.

f/3.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.5, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

 f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

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

f/3.2, 1/800sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

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

f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 75mm

Nope, I'm still not fully thawed out.  This calls for an afternoon of warm nachos and watching some football on the couch.  Hmm, good thing today is a Sunday.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Left Behind

As previously mentioned, My Lovely Assistant and I were out apple picking last weekend.  A yearly activity that I enjoy very much.  As much for the tasty treats we bring home, as for the opportunities to grab a cool photograph.  Those of you with long memories may remember a photograph similar to this one that I took way back in 2012.  This one was taken under similar circumstances.  We were walking back with our bag of apples when I saw this one on the ground.  It had rained the night before so there was a bit of moisture on the apple, and instead of being on a dirt road, this nice red apple was surrounded by some bright green grass.  I took this photograph at f/7.1, 1/640sec, ISO 100 at 25mm.  I don't really see it as a replacement, just an update on what was a rather popular photograph.

Where's Waldo?

The other day while My Lovely Assistant and I were out picking apples, we had filled our bag to the top and were walking back to the parking area when she pointed out that there were grasshoppers everywhere.  There was one little guy who was following my every step.  I believe I've mentioned a few times that I jokingly like to say out loud to these little bugs and animals that if they stay still, I'll take their photograph.  I know it seems rather silly, but it seems to work.  If you look real close, you can see the little guy hidden in there somewhere.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 25mm.  I know the photograph looks a little messy, but I liked all of the different hues of green, not to mention that it kind of fit the whole "Where's Waldo" theme with the viewer needing to try and find where my little buddy is hidden.  Did you find him?

Rimouski Reflections

Last week I put up some photographs taken at sunset while My Lovely Assistant and I happened to be in Rimouski.  I was really happy with those photographs, but there was one other photograph that night that I liked as well.  This one was taken a little bit later that night.  We had decided to take a walk by the river and while heading back to the site of the jazz festival, I really liked the way  that the city lights were reflecting in the river.  I'd normally use a tripod to take such a photograph, but I didn't have one on me at the time.  I raised the ISO of my camera as high as it would go, set my aperture at f/16 in order to get a nice star effect on the lights, propped myself against the metal railings, held my breath and snapped away.  As you can imagine, many of the shots I took ended up quite blurry, but this one came out pretty well.  It was shot at f/16, 1/13sec, ISO 3200 at 75mm.  It's a good thing that this one worked out, because as soon as I had taken it, the wind began to pick up, and the once calm river was suddenly full of waves, killing the reflections that had been there moments before.  Sure, the sky is overly dark, but I still like this photograph because it's a shot that I really had no business getting, yet I managed to get it. 

Ready To Drop The Puck

A new season of NHL hockey is upon us, and in the continuing quest to get through my ever expanding archives, here are a couple of left-over photographs that I took back in January.  For those of you who don't remember, I ended up visiting the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard on Sunday morning when I had nothing else to do and work on some sports photography.  There was a what I suppose would be called a garage league game being played and the stands were empty to so I just walked in, grabbed a seat and and began to snap away.  Sure, the Bell Sports Complex on a Sunday morning is pretty far away from the Bell Center on a Saturday night, but you never know.  Stranger things have been known to happen, and in the meantime I still enjoy empty stands where I'm free to roam.  This blog may not be the pages of Sports Illustrated, but then again, I have a pretty good relationship with the editor-in-chief and he gives me free reign of the place.  The first photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 123mm and the second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 160mm.  Let the games begin.

Sunday Action

It's Sunday afternoon and if you're living in North America, chances are pretty good that you associate this particular day of the week with football.  Last night I paid a visit to my old school of oh-so many years ago, CEGEP Champlain in Saint-Lambert, to watch their football team in action.  Much like last year, I was there mostly because one of my younger buddies, Mike, still plays for the team.  Watch out for #5 in blue, you might just see him in action during this update.  Unlike last year, the Cavaliers play their regular season games at night, making things a little more difficult from a photography stand point than the sunny afternoon game I attended last year.  It's a little more difficult to grab some photographs under the field lights than it is under a sunny October sky, but I still managed to get a couple.  Though the Cavaliers managed to win the game 44-2, I didn't walk home with any touchdown photographs.  I missed the first few as I arrived at the game in the middle of the second quarter and found myself on the wrong side of the field for a couple others.  Then a runner got free and was headed to the corner of the end zone where I happened to place myself at the beginning of the third quarter.  That's him who you can see running in the first photograph.  Just before he was about to get to the end zone, a coach who was returning to the sideline late after halftime walked right in front of me and blocked my view.  I couldn't believe it.  I still managed to get some good photographs of the action that took place in the game, but due to my needing to use a high ISO due to the lack of light, the shots are still a little grainy.  I lost of couple of good shots as well as I wasn't able to get a fast enough shutter speed to totally freeze the action.  The first photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 145mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 102mm and the third photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took at the game.

f/3.5, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 88mm

f/4, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/4, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 168mm

The Cavaliers only have one more home game this season, and it will be played at night once again.  They're having a pretty good season though, so maybe they'll host a play-off game.  Maybe I'll get a chance to photograph a game under the sun just yet.

Rimouski Sunset

It has been about a month since the little summer road trip vacation I took with My Lovely Assistant to Percé.  As is the norm, none of the photographs that I took on vacation have seen the light of day.  What can I say, time goes by very quickly.  With that in mind, here are a couple of photographs that I took during out little stop in the city of Rimouski.  We were on the drive home from Percé and decided to take the long-way home.  We figured we'd drive until the town of Rimoski where we would stop as there was a Jazz Festival taking place that weekend.  We arrived in the early evening, found a motel to stay at and then hit downtown for the music.  As an added bonus, some of you may remember the photographs I managed to take while there of this cool little Dixie Band.  Before taking those photographs, we walked around the site a little bit just as the sun was beginning to set.  I didn't have a tripod with me since tripods and music festivals don't usually mix.  This provided a bit of a problem since I needed a slow shutter speed to properly photograph the sunset.  So, I got a little creative.  I rested my camera on the metal barrier that was separating the festival grounds from the main street, set my camera to burst mode and hoped to get lucky.  I tried to catch some of the passing cars in my shots, hoping to add some light streaks to the bottom of the image because I've always liked light streak.  The sunset though, is the real star.  It was somewhat cloudy and the setting sun turned the clouds in the sky into a cool textured red.  After getting a few shots with cars that were to my liking, I grabbed a few more of just the sunset over the St. Lawrence River with one of the islands in the middle of the river silhouetted.  The first photograph was taken at f/11, 1/13sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/11, 1/13sec, ISO 400 at 70mm and the third photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/30sec, ISO 400 at 200mm.

f/2.8, 1/40sec, ISO 400 at 70mm 

The stop in Rimouski wasn't part of the original plan for our vacation.  It only came about because of an add we saw in a restaurant while in Percé.  Some good music and some nice photographs resulted from it.