Stairway To Apples

Sometimes when I'm playing around with some of my photographs I like to take a few seconds to see what they would look like as black and whites.  When I first began to take photographs, it was exclusively using black and white film so I will probably always have a little soft spot for those colourless photographs.  After finishing up with this photograph of a ladder up against a tree that I took while out picking apples with My Lovely Assistant this Fall, I thought that it would probably look as nice without all of the colour.  While I usually just press the Grayscale button in Photoshop to get rid of the colour, I also like to use some of the other functions, like Curves, in order to darken or lighten the photograph.  Doing those little steps brings out a little something extra in the photograph and keeps me safe behind the computer instead of being out in the world getting into trouble.  Not that I'm a troublemaker or anything. Wouldn't want my Mom to be getting any bad ideas.  The photograph was taken at f/9, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 24mm and I actually climbed up on one of those things at one point to grab an apple.  See, this is an example of the kind of trouble that I get into, and those of you who are aware of my complete lack of balance should be well aware how much trouble my being on a ladder without adult supervision can be.

Well Deserved Treat

Those of you who live in my neck of the woods are currently shoveling out of our first snowstorm of the year.  This was a fairly mild one at about 15cm's of the white stuff, but it still needs a good deal of shoveling to clean everything up.  After doing my fair share of shoveling both at the Day Job and afterwards at home, I felt that I was due a little treat.  Since I like to share, I have a little treat for you as well.  Some nice Jujube candies.  It's been a while since we've had some candy on the old blog, and the bright red kind of fits the season.  The photograph was taken at f/5, 1/60sec, ISO400 at 60mm.  I focused on the design on top of the candy and then framed it in the bottom corner of the photograph so that it would stand out from the others that blur away the further they go into the background.  Now I had best see if the snow is still coming down and if I'll be needing another little treat later.

Head In The Flowers

Visiting the parents always provides an opportunity to grab a photograph or two along the way.  My Mom always has a variety of flowers around the house.  They're very colourful and prove to be the perfect addition to the blog when we're going through a series of grey days.  This moth orchid was on a table during one visit and the colours immediately grabbed my attention.  The purple on white made for a nice pattern, and then the yellow on the long petals.  Then, after giving the whole thing a look-over, I noticed what looked like the head of a bird right in the middle of the darn thing.  That became the focus of what I tried to look at while I'd play around, looking for just the right light and angle.  I not only wanted to capture the nice colours, but I wanted to get a good look of that bird head as well.  I grabbed my Macro lens and took the photograph at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm, trying to keep as much of the head in focus while letting the larger purple and white petals fade off and flow into the background.  There's always fun to be had photographing flowers.

Coming Soon

Over the Winter months I sometimes take a few extra photographs that I save to be posted a little later in the Summer when I need a little mental reminder of cooler days ahead when dealing with a sweltering hot day.  Luckily, in my opinion anyway, this was a more comfortable Summer than usual in these parts, which is good news for me.  It's also bad news for the archives as it means a few photographs that should have been posted, have not yet appeared.  With another Winter season about to knock on our door, it means there will likely be fresher snow photographs to come, so I had better get this one posted up before it ends up getting forgotten on my hard drive.  The photograph was taken during a snowy walk at f/9, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I like the peacefulness that freshly fallen snow gives to things.  A fresh layer of snow just seems to make things look a little bit nicer to me.

Spotlight Montreal

I mentioned a little while ago how I was trying my hand at some silhouette style photographs.  I found this one in one of my many file folders and thought it might look good with a little treatment.  This was a photograph that I took while on a ferry ride back home after spending the day biking in Montreal with My Lovely Assistant.  The photograph was taken at f/8, 1/3200sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  I then used the Curves and Colour Balance tool in Photoshop in order to adjust the contrast a colour of the photograph, darkening the skyline of Montreal and adding a little bit of blue to what was an otherwise grey sky.  All of these adjustments aren't usually my cup of tea, but I must admit that it is kind of fun, especially since I'm enjoying the final results.

They Turned On The Lights

Last week I made my way up the new staircase that links Longueuil to Montreal via a sidewalk on the outside of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  When I went up there the first time, I was disappointed because though some new lights were installed on the bridge and have been lighting it up at night, on that evening it seem like a bare minimum of them were being used.  Having a bit of a hard head, and being disappointed because I didn't get what I wanted, I decided to climb back up those 108 steps a couple of nights later and just moments after sunset, the lights came on and I had a smile on my face.  Over the next several minutes as the sun disappeared, I snapped several photographs as the sky went from red to light and then dark blue.  I still didn't understand why the lights were suddenly back to normal, when the last time I had been there, they seemed frozen.  It was My Lovely Assistant who finally was able to find the answer to that question.  She read that the first night I had gone up the bridge, the lights were purposely dimmed due to it being Remembrance Day.  Mystery solved.  The first photograph was taken at f16, 3/10sec, ISO 100 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/16, 5sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took while I was up there.

f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

f/16, 30sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

Obviously when looking at the shutter speeds involved, I used a tripod, but I still ended up getting lots of blurry photographs.  This was because the passing cars were causing some vibrations on the metal staircase.  It was a little frustrating at times, but as you can see, I still came away with some nice shots.  Much like the other update, I used the Curves and Colour Balance feature in Photoshop a little bit to get the sky to be a little more red, but as usual, my manipulations were limited to that.  Even though it seems this bridge has been featured several times on the blog this year, it was still fun to be shooting from a new spot.

Red Sky, Black Buildings

Mother Nature hasn't been as generous with the sunsets this year, so I've had to give her a bit of a helping hand.  I took this photograph of the skyscrapers of Montreal while walking along the bicycle path just off of the Victoria Bridge that leads to Île Notre-Dame.  There was a bit of reddish glow still behind the buildings as the sun had just set, though not quite as much as we see in the photograph.  I used the Levels and Curves tool in order to adjust the colours and contrast, while also adding a little more red to the sky using the Colour Balance tool.  I also cropped the photograph to give it a more panoramic look.  In order to show the differences, here is the original.

The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Just so that you're not overly disappointed, I did purposely underexpose the photograph while I was taking it in order to bring out the most colour possible from what was left from the sunset.  So, while they was some trickery involved, there was a little bit of knowledge involved as well.