Valderi, Valdera

The date was September 29, 2004.  I sat in the right field bleachers with my buddies Patrick and Louie.  We were at Olympic Stadium for the final match of the Montreal Expos.  For as long as I could remember, I was a baseball fan.  Though I wore the cap of the Oakland A's for several years, the real team that had a hold on my heart was the Montreal Expos.  There are so many memories.  Going to the game as a kid with my family, the great players over the years, the moments shared with friends and so much more.  This weekend baseball returned to Montreal with a series of two games between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets.  I didn't end up getting tickets to either of the games, mostly due to my hard head and some hard feelings I'm still harbouring against Major League Baseball.  I figured I'd take my own trip down nostalgia lane by mixing an older passion with a newer one.  The first thing I needed to do was haul my old Expos cap out of the closet and wash a good layer of dust off of it.  Sadly, my old tri-colour cap had died many years ago from years of use.  This cap I actually bought at that last game and I don't think that I've ever worn it since.  I then needed to put my cap on something so that I could get a shot of it.  Luckily, My Lovely Assistant was in the process of baking a cake and had taken out her display stand.  As it was sitting on the kitchen table, I knew I had found what I needed.  I propped my cap on top of the glass cover, grabbed my flash and snapped away.  The first photograph you see was taken at f/11, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  While I was checking out the first batch of photographs that I took, I though it might be nice to take a similar shot, but vertically rather than horizontally.  My only problem with that idea was that my flash doesn't really work out that well shooting vertically.  So, I opened up the blind on the kitchen window to let a little more sun in.  It's a rather grey day over here so not much light ended up coming in.  The second shot was taken at f/8, 1/50sec, ISO 1600 at 42mm.  I ended up playing with it a little bit in Photoshop, using the Curves tool which kind of washed out a little bit of the white fabric in the 'm' portion of the logo, but made the blue of the cap look much nicer.  For those of you wondering how the logo works, it's basically three letter cursively attached together.  The 'e' for Expos, 'm' in the middle for Montreal and the 'b' at the end for Baseball.  I was watching the game on television while working on these photos and this post and kind of wish that I hadn't let my hard head get in the way of my being at the game myself.

Still Playing With My Food

I know that it's considered rude to play with your food, but I can't help it.  It's Mother Nature's fault.  You all know that I've gone on the record several times saying how I enjoy the winter.  Well, one drawback is that other than the snow, there isn't very much more out there to photograph.  As a result, I kind of took to looking around the house for things to shoot, because as any photographer will tell you, the moment you stop shooting is the moment you stop learning.  This winter, my shooting seems to have, for the most part, taken place in the kitchen.  What I like about shooting food is the different shapes, colours and textures that you encounter.  In order to bring all of those things out of these grapes, I began by leaving them in the fridge overnight.  I then poured some water over them, placed them on a place and put them next to a bright window.  I also used my flash and bounced some more light from the ceiling down onto them.  In the first photograph that you see, I tried to focus on the largest grape and them framed the image so that the grape I had chosen to focus on was on the lower third of the photograph.  In the second photograph, I kind of did the opposite, putting the focus on the two grapes just above the other grape.  I wanted to see what the image would look like if the foreground was blurred instead of the background.  I like the little blur of light that we see on that out-of-focus grape.  Sticking with the light, the fact that the grapes were wet kind of ads an overall glow to them that I really like.  Both photographs were taken at f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I think I'd like to play with grapes once again, but next time, maybe play with the shutter speeds to see what kind of effects it will have on the final image.

Back To Candyland

I suppose that if I keep this up, I might get a bit of a reputation for having a sweet tooth.  In the short amount of time that this blog has been around, I've found the time to take pictures of some Smarties, Jelly Beans and some Rockets.  Joining the list of candies this week are those little guys who taste so good and often find themselves stuck to the ceiling of classrooms...or so I've heard, Gummy Bears.  As with all of the other candies I've photographed, you can't help buy be drawn in by all of the colours.  I bought a small amount of the bears and put them on a plate.  I placed the plate in a little corner where the sun was shining and then began to shoot away.  I turned a few of them around so that we could see their faces, and after looking at a few shots, I did move a few around to get a better colour mix.  This photograph was taken at f/9, 1/60sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  I shot it with my Macro lens so that the bears would be a good size and at f/9 so that more of them would be in focus.  A little bad news for my cousin, he won't be getting and Gummies for Christmas this year.  Unlike the Rockets, My Lovely Assistant and I like these little guys.

A Twist Of Lime

Sometimes inspiration can come from a likely source.  I'm a big fan of photography magazines.  I've been reading Digital Photographer magazine for several years now, and have both learned, and been inspired by the things I find within its pages.  This February, I began reading another magazine.  My Lovely Assistant decided to give me a very creative Valentine's Day gift, a subscription to Photolife Magazine.  Upon my first time through the magazine, I was stopped by a photograph of a slice of lime, taken using a Macro lens.  I decided I wanted to try taking one myself.  In order to get the right lighting, I needed to make sure that the lime was lit from underneath.  To achieve that, I took my slice of lime and placed it on top of a plastic ziplock style plastic container.  I then rested that container on top of my flashlight and then began shooting away.  My first slice of lime wasn't quite thick enough, and the light ended up drowning out the colour of the lime.  I then cut a thicker slice and had much more success.  I took this photo at f/4, 1/40sec, ISO 100 at 60mm.  I added a slight touch of green to the image using the Colour Balance tool in Photoshop and ended up with an image that I really like.  I like this new technique, it really brought out the details in the slice of lime.  I'll probably try it again soon.

Happy St. Frozen Fingers Day

Get ready to see some words that have never been seen before on this blog, and have very rarely ever come out of my mouth.  Holy crap was it cold outside today!  It probably wouldn't have been that bad if I wasn't standing still in one spot for a couple of hours and wearing gloves that didn't cover my fingers, but wow was I feeling the chill of winter.  Today was Montreal's 191st St. Patrick's Day Parade.  Beginning in 1824, the parade is the oldest St. Patrick's Parade in Canada.  They say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and I myself have roots that go a couple of generations back on my father's side of the family.  As such, I enjoy going to the parade every year, or whenever possible.  I also like to bring out my camera, because as a photographer, I like getting out and photographing things.  It gets me out of my comfort zone, and with today's weather, trust me, I was out of my comfort zone.  Last year I kind of mentioned all of the things that go through my mind when I take pictures at the parade.  For those of you who don't want to click on the link, here is the short version.  I try to find images that I think define the event.  The kind of picture where you take a look and can kind of figure out that an Irish parade was going on.  With that in mind, here are some of the photographs that I took this year.

 Saint Patrick

f/5, 1/2500sec, ISO 400 at 45mm

Parade Queen Sarah Murphy & Princesses

f/5, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 67mm

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

f/11, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 42mm

f/6.3, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

The first photograph that you saw at the top of the page was shot at f/6.3, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 54mm.  By the time the last float went by, my fingers were nice and red and I was more than ready to start moving again to warm up.  I shouldn't complain though, it was a lovely day for a parade.

Driving Through A Winter Wonderland

We had ourselves a bit of a blizzard Wednesday night.  Blowing snow, high winds, low visibility and the general type of conditions that have the local weatherperson telling people to stay home.  Ofcourse, that meant it was time for me to hit the road.  I was looking for an excuse to get out and take some photos of the storm, and luckily My Lovely Assistant was at work which gave the the opportunity to gallantly go pick her up and offer a ride home.  Aren't I sweet.  The first photo you see here was taken through my windshield as I was driving to pick her up.  Don't worry Mom, as you can see, the light was red so I wasn't actually driving when I took this shot.  It was taken at f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 43mm.  I had to use a wide aperture and a high ISO to compensate for the low light.  I think it worked out pretty well as you can see the effect that the blowing snow had on visibility.  For the rest of these photos, I'm going to try something new.  My friend Pierre had also been out taking photographs and decided to publish them in black & white.  I found it to be an interesting look, so I decided to try going that route with my storm photos as well.  Let's see how they turned out.

f/2.8, 1/30sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm

f/4, 1/50sec, ISO 1000 at 24mm

f/2.8, 1/25sec, ISO 400 at 24mm

There you have it.  The regular photograph and it's black and white double.  I have kind of mixed feelings.  I like the black and white in the second photograph of the three, but I prefer the colour versions of the first and third.  I also got a little bit lucky in catching a snowplow passing by just as I was taking that third photograph.  It kind of adds a little something.  In the first photograph, I think that the blowing snow gets lost in the image when the colour is discarded.  I was able to use lower ISO's for the second and third photographs thanks to the big street/parking lot lights.  Usually, I would have used a tripod and longer exposure times for such low-light shots, but that wasn't an option with the high winds that were swirling around.  So there you go.  What do you think?  Black and white or colour?  Feel free to let me know.

For Steven

Those of you with long memories will remember that this photograph first appeared on this page back in June 2013.  It's back here tonight because this photograph was the favourite of my good buddy, Steven Beaulieu.  I found out this morning that Steven had lost his battle with cancer and I just wanted to put this up as a little tribute to him.  Steven was probably one of the most kind-hearted people I've ever met, and as with most people who are stricken with this terrible disease, he didn't deserve the end that he got.  Steven was a very spiritual person and I'd often end our hospital visits by telling him, "Sometimes you have to go through Hell in order to get into Heaven."  He'd get a kick out of that as myself and several friends tried to raise his spirits over his last few weeks.  One thing I'll always remember is what he said during one of our visits.  He told us that he didn't want to die because he loved life so much.  We should all love life as much as Steven did.  If there is a 'Big Guy' up there, I'm sure that he has a special place reserved for Steve.  If you'd like to find out the story behind this photograph, you can follow this link.  Take care, Little Buddy.  Thanks for your positive attitude, for always being a big supporter of my photography and for having been a great friend.