Siberian Iris

Back to my Mom's garden we go.  I have so many pictures to go through that the flowers will be blooming again next spring before I run out.  That's part of the fun with taking pictures.  There always seems to be something new and interesting to take a picture of.  My opinion may change come February, but that's okay because, as I mentioned, I have all kinds of flowers sitting here on the bench waiting to be put on the page.  This particular flower, a Siberian Iris, was photographed back in June during a Mother's Day/Father's Day lunch.  It's one of the many flowers that grow in my Mom's garden and I think it looks great.  The flower generally grows in Northern areas but is known for it's ability to grow in a wide range of climates.  It's main characteristic is its purplish colour, mixed with a lighter yellow center.  It may sound a little childish, but I purposely positioned myself to take this photo the way you see it because it looked like some kind of devilish flower demon that was sticking it's tongue out at me.  Don't look at me like that, I can't control my imagination.  I also love the details in the 'tongue', they almost look like veins.  This photograph was shot at f/4, 1/320sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  I used my Macro lens to take the picture, and coupled with shooting at f/4, it really helps separate the flower from the green foliage in the background.  Another example of how flowers make great models.

Rock 'N Roll All Night & Party Every Day

Those of you who know me are aware of how I am the eternal optimist and believe that anything and everything good is possible.  Okay, those of you who really know me are aware that there is zero truth to that last statement at all.  However, in the weeks leading up to August 10th, I was a hopeful optimist who believed that things might work out for the best.  I was going to Heavy MTL, an annual festival of Heavy Metal music.  It's held at Parc Jean-Drapeau which is on Île Sainte-Hélène in Montreal.  I was hopeful that there would be a way for me to bring my camera to the event and take some nice pictures of the groups as they played.  I became even more hopeful when a few months before the concert, the Heavy MTL website changed their FAQ to read that cameras were allowed on the site, but that professional video and audio recording devices were not.  As the weeks to the show grew shorter, I sent an email through the 'Contact Us' form that is available on the website, asking if my camera would be allowed on the island.  I never got a formal response, just sent a link to a different FAQ that said professional detachable lens cameras were not allowed at the show.  I was kind of disappointed, but at the same time, I had a bit of an urge to try and bring my camera none the less.  After all, a Canon 30D is not really a 'professional' camera, it's a 'semi-professional' camera.  Or so it says on Wikipedia.  I thought if I showed up with just the camera body and one lens, I might have a shot at getting in with the camera hanging around my neck.  I chickened out at the last minute, not wanting to be forced into making a trip back home or to have my camera be imprisoned at some shady coat-check station.So, I didn't heed the advice of American Express and I left home without it.  Instead, I brought my Plan B, an old Kodak EasyShare Point & Shoot camera.  The kind of camera that I laugh at when I see people use.  You know what they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, and there is nothing more desperate than a guy who loves using a DSLR being reduced to trying to snap off pictures with a Point & Shoot.  The second photograph that you see on this page is one of the shots that I came home with.  It's also the only one that will see the light of day, and that's only because I'm using it as an example of why I hate point & shoots.  I suppose if you look at the photograph quickly enough, there doesn't seem to be all that much wrong with it.  You can see the band, the background and people rocking out in the foreground.  However, the thing that sticks out most in this photo is the head you see at the bottom of the photo and if you try and blow the picture up any more than it is here on this page, you'll see that the members of the band are blurry, mostly because there is no function that allows you to shoot 'Manually' on this particular camera.  I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Eric, if you knew the pictures would be crap, why did you bother to bring the camera?"  That is a good question.  I brought the camera because I used it back in May when I took some pictures at a concert by The Darkness. Those pictures didn't turn out that bad, and I thought that in outdoor conditions and with better light, I might be able to get a few pics before the sun went down.  The problem though, was that what I made up for in light, I ended up losing in distance.  At The Darkness, I was about five people from the stage.  For Heavy MTL, I was about 20 people back.  Awesome positioning for enjoying the show, but not close enough for the camera that I was using.  After all of that, I suppose that I should talk about the pictures that you do see here on the page.  Still being in a rock and roll frame of mind, I decided to dig out some old photos from a few years back.  I took these of my buddy Louie and his guitars.  I didn't have the chance to ask him personally if I could use the pictures with him in them, though one does appear in an earlier blog post.  Oddly enough, that picture, much like these, came up the day after I had attended a concert.  These pictures were used as part of a school project where I had to shoot the pictures for, and then produce a physical copy of, a CD booklet.  It was a great project that I loved doing.  The very first picture was taken at f/2, 1/100sec, ISO 400 at 135mm while he played guitar at the top of a little hill.  You may have noticed that the I also Photoshopped the heck out of it.  I was just goofing around, but my friend loved the finished result and it actually found itself in the CD booklet.  I'd try to explain what I did to get to that final result, but I have no clue.  I just pushed lots of buttons and turned some dials and knobs.  The shot that appears after the concert footage probably shouldn't even be shown, but I just love the way that the guitar looks.  It was shot at f/3.5, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 135mm and under studio lights as part of my courses.  The reason it shouldn't have been used is because I cut the head off of the guitar.  If you don't tell anyone, I won't either.  The third shot of a guitar in it's case was shot at f/4, 1/8sec, ISO 400 at 25mm.  I like how the guitar strings kind of lead you off to nowhere.  The final picture was kind of a reverse portrait, but with the head of the guitar in focus, while my buddy is blurred in the background.  It was shot at f/2.2, 1/160sec, ISO 400 at 135mm.  I suppose I should end things here with a couple of things I learned.  1)Make sure the head of the guitar is in the frame.  2)When watching GWAR, make sure you're atleast 20ft from the stage or make sure to bring a fresh change of clothes.  3)Michael Starr does not look like a chubby Bret Michaels, he looks like a skinny Vince Neil.  4)Watch out for bodies coming at you from behind, and above, the closer you are to the stage, and most importantly, don't bring a Point & Shoot when a DLSR is what's needed for the job.  Oh yeah, and that part about professional detachable lens camera being banned from the site.  I wish someone would have told that to the folks with the Rebel XTI's and Nikon's who were changing lenses up on the hill between sets.  Next time, I'm brining the Canon.

Play Ball!

This weekend (Aug 8 - 11) marks the 29th Annual Mike Reid Softball Tournament in Greenfield Park.  Teams from far and wide come to the little town of Greenfield Park to participate and to also raise funds for the Mackay Center School.   I didn't know Mike Reid or the Reid family, but I have been to watch the tournament many times.  If you'd like to know more about the Reid family and why this is such an important fund raising tournament, follow this link to a story by Stu Cowan of the Montreal Gazette. The photo you see here is not one that I took at the Tournament, but is one that I took while serving as unofficial photographer for the Journal l'Action Régionale for a story about the Saint-Basile-le-Grand Softball League.  I was hoping to capture the ball leaving the hand of the pitcher so I placed myself behind the screen at Home Plate and shot away.  I was worried that the screen would show up in my shot, but I was pressed so close up to it that the chain link fence didn't show up at all.  The photograph was shot at f/2, 1/320sec, ISO 400 at 135mm.  I cropped it a little bit to tighten up the image.  If you do happen to find yourself in the area of Greenfield Park this weekend, feel free to stop off at Pierre Laporte Park and cheer the teams on.

Bullet The Blue Sky

The 2013 L'International des Feux Loto-Québec ended the same way that it began, with rain.  Now, neither my camera nor myself are made of chocolate, but I'm still not to keen on getting it wet.  So, instead of a couple of shots from last night, you get another from the archives.  This shot came from 2009 and the show put on by Italy.  It was also one of the final cuts from my photography exhibition from last fall and one of the photos that also hang in my home.  I think those are some pretty good credentials and make this photograph worthy of being presented to all of you out there in Cyber World.  This photo was taken on a bicycle path just a little bit beyond the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  Oddly enough, I didn't go back to that location this year.  I'll have to be sure to go back next year as I really like the results.  I especially enjoy the reflections of the fireworks in the water at the bottom of the picture.  I don't know if you can see it at the size and resolution I chose for presentation here, but on the second whole boat from the left, you can actually see someone standing up on the boat to get a better view of the fireworks.  Just a small detail that I picked up and thought I would share.  This shot was taken at f/9, 21sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I'll probably take a little break from fireworks for the moment, but to those of you who have enjoyed seeing them, don't worry.  I have plenty more in the archives so I'm sure it's a safe bet to say that you'll be seeing more around here before the 2014 competition begins.

Good Evening, Clarice

Some of my favorite photos end up being the ones that I had no plan on taking, they happen out of the blue.  Such is the case with this suave looking grey moth.  I found this guy resting on the wall outside of where I live when I got back home from taking pictures of the Canadian Flag.  I almost did see it as it only caught my after I was already half-way through the door.  I quickly turned around and snapped off a few pics, but wasn't very impressed when I got them on the computer.  The shots were a little dark, mostly because the moth was on a wall that had little natural light because of an overhang that caused the wall to be in it's shadow.  I went back in, grabbed my flash and took another picture.  The flash allowed for the colours and pattern of the moth to really come out.  I also cropped the final image to 12" x 12" rather than the usual 8" x 12" because there isn't really anything very attractive about the brick wall.  Also, by cropping it in a square, I was still able to preserve the 'rule of thirds', but having both wings and the head of the moth on separate thirds.  This photograph was taken at f/10, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I had originally tried to take the picture with a much larger aperture, like f/4, but the moth was so flat against the wall that there was no way to try and blur the background without blurring much of the moth as well.  Since the pattern on the back of the moth is, in my opinion, the most important part, it would not have made much sense in blurring any of it.

A Deep Purple Classic

I was planning on calling this post 'Smoke On The Water, Fire In The Sky', only to quickly realize that I already had a fireworks related post called Fire In The Sky, and another called Purple On The Water.  So a change was needed.  The big theme of the night, for me anyway, was how the smoke from the already exploded fireworks turned my wonderful location into a cloudy mess within minutes.  Thus, the 'Smoke On The Water', and the 'Fire In The Sky.  As you probably guess by looking at the photos, this is another fireworks blog post.  These photos once again come to your thanks to the L'International des Feux Loto-Québec.  For those of you keeping track at home, there is only one show left, so don't miss out or you'll have to wait until next year.  The show on Wednesday night was put together by Italy and it was a pretty good exhibition.  The part that I saw through the smoke anyways. When it comes to taking photographs of fireworks, the wind is always a concern.  Since the photos you`re going to be taking have to be taken over a fairly long period of time, in the photographic sense, it is pretty important that your camera does not move.  If this happens, you`re obviously not going to end up with the picture that you originally wanted to take as the camera will not only pick up all of the light while the shutter is open, but it will capture any movements as well.  Be they caused by your own hand, or the wind.  This was an early concern that I had on Wednesday night.  The new location chosen for this shoot was a pedestrian overpass that goes over Highway 132 in Longueuil. When I got there with my Lovely Assistant, I immediately noted that the wind was pretty strong.   I was worried that the wind would cause my tripod to shake, thus ruining my photos.  When the wind suddenly died a few minutes before the fireworks began, I made sure to note how good my luck was.  I no longer needed to worry about the wind brushing my camera, just about when the overpass had been built and if good concrete had been used in building it.  Badum-dum.  My opinion about the lack of wind changed very shortly when after the first few blasts the large clouds of smoke failed to move away from the blast site. I was suddenly wishing very hard that the wind would come back, the sooner and stronger the better.  Sadly, the wind did not return.  I`m still think I took some pretty nice shots, it`s just that there is lots of smoke clouds in them.  As you may have noticed, I also decided to use a couple of different crop sizes again.  I used them in order to hide the street light that you see in some of the shots, but not in others.  We've reached the part of the post where we get a bit technical.  Time to discuss the settings that I used.  The first shot was taken at f/11, 6sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and then cropped to 12" x 8".  The second shot was taken at f/11, 18sec, ISO 100 at 75mm and then cropped to 12" x 5.5".  The third photo was taken at Shot number three was taken at f/11, 10sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and then cropped to 12" x 8".  The fourth picture was taken at f/11, 9sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and then cropped to 12" x 12".  The final photograph you see here was taken at f/11, 6sec, ISO 100 at 75mm and then cropped to 12" x 8".  I guess my biggest disappointment with these photos, is that the smoke clouds block out some of the light from the fireworks and also block out much of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, which I have been trying to get into my backgrounds since the fireworks competition began earlier this summer.  I don't want to seem negative, because I do like these photos.  If I didn't like them they wouldn't be here on the page.  I hope that some of you out there like them as well.

Somebody Might Want To Check If La Ronde Is Still There

This isn't the typical kind of photograph of fireworks that most of you have come to expect when you visit my site.  I once again set out to try shooting from a different location last night and I thought I had chosen a pretty good spot until the amusement park exploded.  Actually, I just wanted to show what happens when the wind suddenly stops blowing during a fireworks show and the spot you thought was perfect ends up getting smoked out.  I still have a couple of shots from the show to share with you all.  They'll be up here before the night is over.