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.