Craig's Photographic Journeys and Ramblings

The Medium is the Message...and stuff

2012-02-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

"The medium is the message."
- Marshall McLuhan

The best camera is the one that you have with you and for most people who enjoy photography that maxim is nothing remarkable. How you approach taking pictures though, is heavily influenced by the camera in your hands.

My educational experience has a lot of communication in it especially considering that I have a degree in English. (Will that be paper or plastic?) We speak differently than we write. We write differently depending on the subject. If I was writing a formal essay my tone and style would not be the same as how I present my words here. In the ends its just words but the medium still matters.

The same applies to photography. Oddly enough, this very topic came up while I was learning how to develop film with Heather Simonds and Samantha Chrysanthou under the guidance of Hiroaki Kobayashi. We all agreed that when you're walking around with a roll of black and white in a Holga you see the world a heck of a lot differently than if you were to walk around with ... I don't know...the new Nikon D4? (In case you're just tuning in I shoot Nikon.)

When I shoot black and white I tend to look for dramatic skies and I like to look for very strong lines such as those found in architecture.

If I shoot slide film I try to look for bright punchy colors. It might actually be the one time I go out of my way to photograph flowers.

With Polaroids I tend to take pictures of people just being people.

So where does my SLR come in? Being digital the result is far more malleable. It can create looks that approximate the film look but it doesn't quite get there. I tend to try to go for a technically sound image when I shoot with my D90. Sharp focus, good exposure. I'm in the driver's seat and I have full control of the whole creation. With film, the creation process tends to end for me with the release of the shutter. With digital, its just the beginning.

Battles are War!

2012-01-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

Two Sundays ago, I was privileged to be invited to help with the shooting of the Battle at F-Stop Ridge sequel. I was just a "regular Joe" out in -25 degree weather with a bunch of the Camera Store staff, former staff members, and a Canon rep. So how did I (a.k.a. "Just a Guy") get in on this? Well, the Camera Store had a contest on their Facebook page where they asked followers to post what they'd like from the Camera Store for Christmas. Naturally a lot of people posted what lens, camera or flash they'd like. I wanted to stand out so I said that I'd like to see the sequel to the Battle at F-Stop Ridge and be in it. Jordan Drake, who directed the last one, contacted me and said that they saw my post and they could make it happen. It seemed like a lot of fun and and a great opportunity to learn so I asked Jordan for details etc.

Sunday rolled around and I was excited and nervous. I hardly slept the night before and I had no idea what to expect. With camera gear and extra warm clothes packed I headed out to the location of the shoot which was about 15 minutes outside of Turner Valley, Alberta.

Shooting in the cold always has its challenges and this was no exception. The cold weather drastically shortened most equipment's battery life. Oddly enough, the first battery I had in dropped two bars without even shooting a frame. I swapped to my other battery and after shooting a lot of frames during the action, and doing some video all with my Sigma which is notorious for killing batteries, I only lost one bar of power out of five. Others weren't quite so lucky and there were a couple of times between shots that Jordan had to call for another battery to keep the camera rolling.

Some people forget what happens when you take cold glass and bring it into a warm room. For myself, I was smart enough to leave my gear outside so my lenses wouldn't fog up but I wasn't smart enough to remember to bring my batteries in. Fortunately it didn't come back to haunt me later but its definitely lesson worth remembering.

Another challenge was the footing. With the extreme cold, the ground was quite hard and with it being covered in snow it was slippery at times. During on the earlier scenes, our illustrious director took a tumble while running alongside our group and damaged his gear. (Hopefully not beyond repair!)

After the initial shooting of the group I was in ("The Attackers"), I hung back and took some behind the scenes video. I had my camera rested on the hood of a truck which should have been relatively stable. With the cold and because I wasn't moving around to keep warm anymore I was shivering badly. I am surprised I didn't hear my teeth chattering on the audio!

All in all, it was a lot fun to do. If I were asked to help with the third one I would probably do it...unless its -50 next time. :)

So ...hi?

2011-12-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

Its been a long time since I posted. It strange how the longer I go without posting the more I feel guilty about not posting and the harder it is to actually post something. Its like I've waited so long to post something it now needs to be monumental. But I also think it ties into how my brain works at this time of year. Its like the movie Groundhog Day where there's this repetition. For me the scene goes like this: The leaves fall off the trees. Everything turns brown. I go into a funk. I get a bit of snow and cold and I hunker down for winter waiting for a shot to magically appear in the warmth of my home. So I don't shoot as much. The quality goes down. My confidence wanes. It gets tough. Its this time of year when I am glad I don't pay my rent with a camera because I'd probably be homeless and hungry if I did. I've probably plugged this Zack Arias video a few times on this blog (edit: Hmm..just once). Zack pretty much describes how I feel but gives me hope at the same time.
I know I'll get out of the funk but it isn't going to be easy.

So here I am. The beginning of December and the funk is here with me. But I haven't been entirely idle and I have made shots I have some pride in.

I had one idea for a photojournalism shot involving coffee beans for a while and I finally accomplished it. Fun idea and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm also happy I learned a few things during the process.

My wife and I also went to Vancouver for a quick vacation. Its hard to believe that was over a month ago. I'm happy to say that I got a few shots. I still haven't really looked at all of them but I'm happy with a couple I took.

Not too shabby I'd say. Maybe not my best work but it certainly isn't my worst either. I guess I can shoot and weather be damned I can take some pictures. I guess that's the thing with these funks. They really are all in your head.

Turn around

2011-10-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

My wife and went to Banff the weekend of September 24 -25 for her half-marathon. It was a beautiful fall weekend and we had incredible weather. You really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. I would have like to go out shooting more but I was there to support my wife in her run. However, we were staying over night in the town so it created an opportunity for me to get out for some sunrise shots.

Moraine Lake is one of the most photographed lakes in the Canadian Rockies. (Probably only second to Lake Louise). I've shot it a few times but never at sunrise. I got there plenty early, climbing up the rock piles in the gray pre-dawn light. I set up my tripod and took a few shots. Ho-hum. Not a lot of color or dramatic lighting. I took down my tripod and was going to leave when I began a conversation with another photographer who was shooting there. She said that her best shots the day before came after sunrise. (Which somehow seemed counter-intuitive to me but anyways...) I was just about to put my tripod back up when another photographer asked if he could setup right in front of me. I said that I was about to put my tripod there. He decided to use the spot anyways. I firmly but politely indicated that I was going to shoot there. He moved on and I finished setting up.

The light show I had hoped for didn't quite happen. The light was nice enough and there was a bit of color in the sky. I got my shot. Just like everyone else does.

Moraine Lake - Banff National ParkThe "Iconic" shot

Then I turned around and looked the opposite direction. The skies were a lot more dramatic. The vista was incredible. Added bonus? Though I am probably not the first to take this shot, it would be a lot harder to find one to compare mine to.

Moraine Lake RockpilesThe "Other" Way

The first shot? They're a dime a dozen. Heck, here's the Flickr search if you want to compare.There's a lot that look like that first shot.

Maybe the next time someone wants to take my spot to get their iconic shot I should let them do me the favor.

Ethereal Photographic Art Show

2011-09-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Sometime this spring, Hiroaki Kobayashi asked if I'd be interested in submitting some prints for a gallery. Naturally I said yes (I mean why not right?). Well its crunch time now and I'm getting prints made, canvasses stretched and basically getting everything together. Sure, the gallery is a few weeks away but like any event the last few weeks are always the most stressful. I've also had a couple of bumps that have added to my stress. I uploaded the wrong version of the one image I wanted to print 16" X 24". It was grossly undersized for a print this large. Fortunately, this mistake didn't cost me as much as I thought it would and oddly enough the print turned out quite well considering how undersized it was. Still, it was something that stressed me out for a couple of days. Hopefully everything else goes smoothly from here on.

The Ethereal Photographic Art show will be held at the Resolution Art Gallery in Calgary from October 11th though 29th. The opening reception is on Saturday, October 15th from 5 pm to 9pm. Its going to be a great display of emerging and top photographers in Southern Alberta.

Check out the web gallery at http://www.widebrightpass.com/GalleryExhibition/Ethereal-Photographic-show The gallery's website can be found at http://www.resolutionartgallery.com/welcome.php (our exhibit isn't on their site yet but should show up in the coming days).

Lots of stuff happening!

2011-09-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Its been "Go! Go! Go!" for me over the last few weeks. Last weekend I went to Dinosaur Provincial Park and got some great shots. The badlands are rugged but also so beautiful.

This weekend I hope to get out hiking somewhere. If I don't for some reason, I still have Lake O'Hara to look forward to. Andrew Petti, a friend from the Foothills Camera Club, had the foresight to get us into the hostel in Lake Louis on Thursday then we're off to Lake O'hara early Friday morning. We'll hopefully get two and a bit days of good shooting there. I had a lot of fun last year and I hope that I can get some great images.

I am also excited to say that I have a link to a great series of e-books on this site now. How to Photograph the Canadian Rockies was one of the best photography /guide books I have ever purchased. The newly updated e-books have more information including GPS locations. By clicking on the link above and buying you'll help support this website and little ole me AND get some great information in the process. Everyone wins!

More film fun - Ilford HP Plus

2011-07-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting to get my roll of Ilford HP5 Plus back from London Drugs so I could share my images and talk about the experience of shooting with it. I got it back on Monday after almost three weeks. In fact, let's maybe talk about the more negative part of the whole experience first before going to the fun. (Pun not intended).

So yes. Almost three weeks to get my film developed. I wasn't expecting one hour or anything like that but I was expecting it to be sooner than that. Alright, its film so I can probably overlook that. When I got the call and picked up my package however, I was floored by the price. Developing, printing, scanning and the CD for the images with tax was a grand total of $52.42. If I include the price of the film ($7.65 with tax) this takes me to over 60 bucks. I am pretty sure a mistake was made because rolls I have had developed in the past were around half of that. 34.95 of that total is for the prints which they apparently charged 99 cents per image for. I am not sure why they asked if I wanted 1 or 2 prints and failed to mention that each would cost my 99 cents.

Then I had a look at the images and it appears that a) they made their prints from the scans and NOT the negatives b) they made contrast adjustments to the images. I can kinda see why they would make contrast adjustments but I am really angry that they made the prints from the scans and not the negatives. Had I known this I would have elected to get no prints and just go with the scanned images. If there was anything I wanted to be printed I'd do it myself or send it in at that point. On this point, I may go in and raise a ruckus and get it done right. Suffice to say I won't be getting them to do any more rolls for me.

Update (July 29th, 2011): I went in today to raise my ruckus. It wasn't much of a ruckus I have to admit and I did learn a bit. Am I doing a retraction? Nope. However I cleared up a few things that I'll put in here. First off the prints were from the negatives. Secondly the cost for the prints was indeed 99 cents per print. They used to be 79 cents so London Drugs was kind enough to credit me the difference. I should have realized this before but London Drugs has another company do their black and white prints and processing - Custom Care in Vancouver. What I found interesting is London Drugs charges me 99 cents per print. Custom care will develop my roll for $5.50 a roll and prints appear to be $10.75 for a roll of 36. I'll have to look into this some more.

Which brings me to one more point before I carry on to the happier part of this post. I am going to have to learn how to develop my own film. The only thing stopping me before was a fear of messing up a roll of good shots. However, if I can do it faster and cheaper myself and have control over the process why the heck wouldn't I? If I botch a couple of rolls learning how to develop my film so be it. I guess I need to give myself more credit and know that I can probably figure it out and not botch any too. In fact I think there's a link on this very page to the section of Ilford's website that talks about this very thing. And on that note...I'll put my happy face on again. :)

Shooting black and white is a little challenging in that you have to try to see your subject in monochrome. Some subjects work well in black and white. Others do not. I find that landscapes and architecture work really well while portraits have a nice classic look to them when shot with black and white film. For all of my shots I used my Nikon N8008S for the body and used my 50 mm f/1.8 (as opposed to my 50 mm f/1.4 I did with my last batch of slide film). For a lot of my shots I used a red filter to try to achieve greater contrast in the skies.

The results are far more subtle than my digital images converted to black and white. These two images are of the Alberta Art Gallery in Edmonton. There is a slightly different perspective but you can definitely see a difference between the two images.

Alberta Art Gallery - Ilford HP 5 Plus

Alberta Art Gallery - Nikon D90 image converted to black and white in Silver Efex Prod

Interestingly enough (and I admit this grudgingly) London Drugs did rescue one or two of my shots. I had one of the falls at Big Hill Springs Provincial Park that I had grossly underexposed that they managed to get a decent enough image from the negative. It lacks a lot of contrast but aside from that it is a usable image.


A better exposed version of the same scene


A salvaged under exposed image

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this roll. On the one hand I got some pretty interesting shots. On the other hand, it cost me an arm and a leg and some of the results were skewed by London Drugs. I have another roll sitting in my fridge but I think I will wait until I am ready to develop it myself before shooting with it.

To check out all of the images on the roll check out the set on my Flickr Stream

iPhoneography

2011-07-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Like many photographers, I pack my camera with me pretty much everywhere I go. Great shots are all around us and you need to be prepared. Even so, there are times when I want to take a quick picture but I don't want to dig my camera out of my bag. For these occasions, my iPhone is perfect. At 4MP I can get a decent shot. Certainly it has a small sensor to stuff those pixels into which affects the quality but sometimes good enough is good enough.

The other thing I like is that it has integration with photosharing and social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. My creations can be shared immediately but they can also easily add a visual element to what I am sharing.

Camera+ for the iPhone

The iPhone also has a lot of different apps so I edit my shots in creative and interesting ways that I may not even attempt with Lightroom or Photoshop. A lot of the effects tend to replicate old film but some of the effects are more modern. Camera+, Instagram, Hipstamatic, and Photoshop Express are a few of my favorites.

High Contrast scenes like this one are difficult to capture with any camera.
The in-camera HDR option allowed me to successfully get this shot though

I also like the in-camera HDR that the native camera app allows me to use. The iPhone has limited dynamic range so high contrast scenes are hard to capture. The HDR option allows me to compensate for this to a certain extent.

One small feature, which actually made me decide to get the iPhone instead of the Google Android is the flash. Yes it's right beside the lens so it's not ideal but it does allow me to add a bit of fill light. One knock against the iPhone is how it performs in low light so the flash helps. I haven't tried triggering another flash with it so I am curious to try.

The iPhone isn't going to replace my dSLR however it's good enough to act as a point & shoot and give me another way of expressing myself photographically.

Check out my iPhone images on my Flickr steam

Shooting babies in front of their moms! Eeek!

2011-07-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Catchy title but not as bad as it sounds. Perhaps it would be better stated to say that I took pictures of baby geese instead but what the heck. I may as well go for the cheap laugh.

All kidding aside, this was a great shoot back in early June. The babies are a lot cuter in the beginning of May but I didn't get out at that time unfortunately. These guys were in their "tweens". Now that we are in July, they are definitely gangly teenagers and are starting to get their feathers so they look awkward and a little ugly. Kinda like human teenagers I would say.

The goslings are pretty much an annual event for me. To be honest, they all look the same but its hard to resist sitting down and watching them. There are certain subjects that I find interesting to shoot and the goslings are one of the big ones. I haven't tagged all of the shots I have taken of them but I probably have about a thousand or so frames of their fuzzy yellow cuteness.

Black and White is sometimes right

2011-07-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've been shooting Ilford HP5 plus film for the past week or so. Naturally I haven't got any examples because the roll is still in the camera with eight or so frames left. This weekend, my wife and I went up to Edmonton for a run she was doing and it was a great opportunity to shoot some of the buildings in the capital city's downtown.

Naturally, I also brought my digital camera with me and I was pretty pleased with the images I got. For fun and because I was inspired by shooting black and white film, I processed some of my favorites using Silver Efex Pro. The program does great monochrome conversions and can emulate a number of well known black and white films. While I didn't try the HP5 option I was pretty pleased with the results.

I always find it interesting how you can get different looks with monochrome by changing a few settings. I remember when I used to process image I would select grayscale if I wanted to do a black and white image. Heck I didn't even know about desaturating to get a black and white! I love the graphic look I get whether its via the channel mixer in Lightroom and Paint Shop Pro X2 or the filter options in Silver Efex Pro.

A great book to learn about digital black and white photography is Michael Freeman's Mastering Black and White Digital Photography. You can also check out the eBook The Power of Black and White over at Craft and Vision for $5.

Some of my other images from this weekend can be found here.

Velvia - I made a prediction but how did it turn out?

2011-06-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I made a prediction about how my Velvia slide film shoot would go. And in terms of what I wrote, all three predictions were correct. Sorta. The first 16 were indeed keepers. I did end up tossing a couple of shots that came after I wrote my prediction though. Apparently shooting 50 ISO film with a telephoto at dusk isn't really doable at least hand held. Despite this there were only 2 that didn't make the cut. You can check out the set on Flickr here.

My exposure did turn out to be pretty good and there weren't a lot of noticeable exposure problems which I am quite pleased with.The images did indeed have rich colors. I don't think the digital version actually does the slides justice but then again I got the low res scans. If you compare the image above to the one in the set you can somewhat see what I mean.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the results. The old 50 mm f/1.4 I used for most of my shots is pretty soft especially wide open but it seemed to suit the images I got. I think I am going to try using my 50 mm f/1.8 next time as it is far sharper and its only 1 f-stop slower.

Digital? I don't need no steenkin' digital!

2011-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

Following a personal trend that I have been following the last few weeks, I went out shooting today. My wife was at the spa in Kensington and she suggested going to Riley park to photograph the flowers. What a great idea! I had a roll of slide film I wanted to use and bright colors tend to work well with slide film. Interestingly enough, though I packed my dSLR with me the whole time I did not shoot one frame with it. Every shot I took was with my film camera. So right now I have nothing to show for today. Very sorry about that. I know it sucks coming to a photo blog and there's no pictures but they are coming. For now I want to predict what I got though.

First off, as mentioned previously, I think the slide film is really going to show off the colors well. I was using 50 ISO Fuji Velvia which is legendary for how much it makes colors pop. Of course, the subject matter doesn't hurt either.

Secondly, I think that despite the bright day, I handled the exposure well. There is no way of knowing until its developed but I was extra careful with the exposure. Certainly, slide film doesn't have the latitude of dynamic range that color negative film has but I made sure I didn't have any excessively contrasty situations. I shot in the shade when I could and made sure there wasn't anything overly bright or dark when I couldn't shoot in the shade.

Thirdly, I shot about 16 frames today and I think that I am not going to have to junk any of them. I got my exposure correctly and I careful with focus. There were a couple of frames I shot where the wind was moving my subject but I was patient and I waited for the wind to die down. I took my time to get interesting compositions too so they should definitely be more than snapshots.

Its interesting but when I shot film back in the days before I shot digital it was pretty much a crap shoot. I'd load a roll of film and snap until I ran out of film. Most of the time I got an OK shot but a lot of times it was just plain bad. There were even a few times where I hadn't even loaded the film right so I got nothing. It just goes to show that taking the skills I've developed with a digital camera are certainly applicable to the film world.

Commitment to the Shot

2011-06-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

One of the photographer's in the Foothills Camera Club made reference to being committed to the shot - doing whatever it takes to bring your vision to life. It makes sense because that it is probably the biggest difference between a snapshot and a great image.

The best shots are the result of planning, preparation and committing to getting everything in place to give your camera the best chance it has to get the image the way you, the photographer, want it. And really is this much of a surprise? With any endeavour the more you put into it the more you get out. Whether its scouting a location or finding the perfect model or getting up with the sun you have to not only want to get the shot but you have to put effort into the getting it. Just because the actual exposure is often measured in tenths or hundredths of a second, doesn't mean you can't measure the effort of getting the shot in terms of hours, days or even weeks and months.

An example of this was a shoot I did yesterday. I have photographed Vermilion Lakes a number of times, at different times of day and at different times of the year. On one level its kinda "been there done that" but I still find I can get markably different and unique images so I keep heading out there. Thus far, for all the times I have been out there I haven't shot the lakes at sunrise. The challenge, however, at this time of year is that sunrise is especially early. Try 5:29 am local time. Added to this is the fact that I am about an hour and a half or so from Banff and of course a sunrise isn't something you want to arrive "just in time" for. So in light of this, my day started at about 2:50 am.

So my personal commitment to this shot meant getting up extremely early and driving a fairly long distance to get the shot. I even got my feet wet to get my tripod and camera in the position I wanted. The image I wanted deserved this commitment though.

Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes

2011-05-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

I finally got to check out the Yousuf Karsh exhibit at the Glenbow Museum here in Calgary. I have to say I was amazed and its unfortunate I didn't get to see it sooner. Like most people I have seen a number of his images but to see them in person, full sized on photo paper was unbelievable.

Karsh emigrated to Canada from Armenia as a teenager at the age of 17. After working for his uncle in his studio, Karsh apprenticed to H. Garo in Boston. In 1931, Yousuf Karsh opened his own studio in Ottawa and ten years later, he photographed Winston Churchill creating an image that truly ignited his career as a photographer.

Winston Churchill - Image from Wikipedia.org

Karsh's images draw heavily on film noir atmosphere and dramatic lighting. Looking at his images online you see the deep shadows and the simple non-distracting backgrounds. Seeing it in person you get an even better appreciation of this.

I was also struck by the prominence of the subjects hands in his portraits. It was interesting how much importance he put on them and you really got a sense of the character of the person.

This exhibit is definitely worth checking out before it ends on June 15th.
http://www.glenbow.org/exhibitions/

Shooting for the Special Five

2011-02-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Each year the Foothills Camera Club here in Calgary has a competition called the Special Five. You are allowed to enter one picture for each of five themes. (You could theoretically enter one shot that conveys all five themes and though it has been suggested its never actually been done). I had some shots in my collection that could serve but I wanted to get something unique for the competition. Here are three images that I shot this weekend for the competition.

Abstract - "Lyrical Destruction"

This was probably the most interesting shot and despite the work, it was pretty easy. I took a dead CD and beat it with a hammer and cut and scratched it with a pair of scissors. Next I put a couple of drops of grenadine and olive oil on the reflection surface. My SB600 to camera right provided a flick of light which showed off the crazy colors. I got in nice and tight with my macro lens to (hopefully) disconnect the viewer from what the scene really is and transport them to this place.

Eye(s) - Mechanical Iris

Again, I had a macro in mind with this. This shot actually had a few incarnations in my head but eventually I decided to go off the beaten path and hope that the judges were open-minded enough for my interpretation. To add to the idea I decided to color the aperture blades in Lightroom 2 to make them look more like an iris.

Isolated - "Inmate for a Day"

This was another quick setup. Hudson gets put into his kennel each day when my wife and I go to work. Suffice to say he really doesn't like it. I wanted to convey his feeling of isolation in this shot and wanted to make it look prison like. (Now I feel guilty for putting him in his kennel.)

I put my SB600 to camera right near the kennel and more or less killed the ambient light I had in the room. In Lightroom I cooled the shot off and boosted the contrast to really give it an edgy look. I was going to remove the water dish but as soon as I opened the kennel Hudson made a run for it. My dog is nothing if he isn't smart.

My latest iStockphoto reject and what I (and you) can learn from it

2011-02-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

I submitted an image to iStockphoto a few weeks ago that I thought would possibly be a good seller. Sad to say, it got rejected. I've shown the image to a few people and generally people wondered why it would get rejected. When you look at the image at around 25% there's not a lot wrong with it. At least not from the layman's perspective.

Reviewers look at images a 100% though. Unfortunately if there are any issues they will be glaringly obvious at 100%. The first item they mention is artifacting. In the case of my image it was from digital noise. I believe I shot the image a 1600 ISO. If you click on the image below you can see that there is a fair bit of noise.

The other issue they had was with focus. I had to disagree a little with this one but once again when I viewed the image at 100% I could see that my focus was not on the candy or even the fingers but rather on the upper part of the hand. That being said, I recall that the writing on the candy itself was blurry which might explain why the reviewer thought the image was out of focus. Regardless of whether it was because of being out of focus or bad printing by the candy maker the bottom line is that the part that needed to be sharp was blurry.

The last issue was with the "overall composition" of the image. That I couldn't disagree with. Their explanation went more with the shadows and the overall exposure. I have to admit that while it wasn't bad it certainly wasn't great. I also think that the background, while not distracting also wasn't useful in most applications. It had a definite color cast to it (pumpkin orange - yuck) and there was some odd shadows in the background that limited the image's usefulness. I also had my subject just below dead center in the image.

So naturally there is a lesson to be learned here. Simply stated I need to start thinking like a reviewer. Now in hindsight, I personally thought this was just an okay image and nothing more. I did however get a few hits for this image on my Flickr stream from Google searches which was a big reason I decided to upload it. While it conceptually it was good, though, the execution was suffering. All in all however it was a good image to learn from.

The Challenger Disaster - 25 years later

2011-01-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I find it amazing what events have occurred in my life time. One such event was the Challenger space shuttle disaster. I was in grade six at school at Ponoka Elementary when I learned about the shuttle explosion. I remember feeling stunned and shocked. Being a 12 year old boy I was fascinated by the space program and for some reason I thought that NASA was infallible, that there was no way a shuttle could simply blow up. But it did. The 7 crew members died that day on January 28th, 1986.

The Big Picture website as some pictures that really hit home for me.

Kauai Remembered

2011-01-28T23:53:00.000-08:00

I was reminded today that my wife and I flew to Kauai one year ago. The island is so beautiful and the people are so friendly. I can't describe the connection I feel with the places we saw and the people we met there.

This image was taken right across the road from the condo we stayed at. If I could do the trip over again I would have stayed longer of course but I would have also gone snorkeling more because it was so much fun and we had a great location right here.

Hot Wheels!

2011-01-18T00:21:00.000-08:00

I had an idea for a fun little project and its been cool to have it evolve from the concept in my mind to an actual image. One of the upcoming competitions for the Foothills Camera Club is Digital Creative where not only is digital manipulation allowed its encouraged. My thought is, why not do the wild and crazy stuff in camera? Okay, so this idea I had wasn't that wild and crazy but for the folks at the FCC its certainly off the beaten path.

I had in mind taking a picture of a Hot Wheels car on a mirror with two parallel lines of flames extending from the tires. I wanted more of an orange flame so I had to come up with something that was flammable that would burn the color I wanted. I thought of using hand sanitizer but since it has a high alcohol content it would burn blue. (The gel itself, it turns out is quite conspicuous in the shot too.) Along my travels this weekend I came across a cleanser called "Goof Off" which is basically a alcohol and petroleum based solvent.

Sunday my wife and I went to the mall and I made a stop at Toys R' Us for my car - a 2010 Infiniti G37. (Sweet ride for a toy car!).

The mirror I had wasn't going to work so I bought a cheap door mirror from Wal-mart for about 7 bucks. I removed the frame from it that it wouldn't show up in the image. (The thing was practically falling apart so that part was easy).

The next part I had to think about a bit more. How the heck would I light it? I initially thought of just bouncing flash off my umbrella but I knew it would scatter all over and hit my background. I also wanted a fairly edgy looking light. I settled on going with a bare flash zoomed out and snooted to get the beam nice and tight on the car. I decided I wanted a blue look to the lighting on the car so I put a blue gel on it.

With everything setup (and my fire extinguisher handy) I did some test shots of just the car to get my lighting down. I noticed that the front side of my car was a little dark so I just used a small reflector to throw some fill light on that side. The results were pretty good. I was shooting at f/9 and everything looked like it was in focus when I did a depth of field preview. It turns out it wasn't...f/11 might have worked better but my flash was having troubles keeping up anyways which sucked.

Once I had my lighting down I played with different flame configurations. I quickly learned that the flammable liquid I had chosen was quite thin so I couldn't run the two parallel lines I had envisioned. It also burned quite quickly so I had really only one shot before it burnt out. Once it was out I had to clean the mirror and set everything back up again. Grrr....

I did try the hand sanitizer and while it burned slowly the flame was blue as I expected and as mentioned above, you could actually see the gel in the shot which wasn't going to do.

After a couple of tries to get even a single line of fire behind the car I realized that my original idea wasn't going to work so I decided to make an arc of fluid on the mirror behind the car and I was a bit more liberal with the application. Bingo! Lots of good flames and I had a chance to shoot a couple of frames.

Hot Wheels!

You can check out the setup here.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-12T20:12:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! it's a new year and with that comes a period of reflection and looking foreword to how we want to make this year better than the last. As mentioned in the previous post I wanted to put up 10 shots on iStock. Naturally that didn't happen but I really didn't expect it to either. The whole point of that was to at least get me thinking of getting some submissions in. In that I succeeded.

I also mentioned in my previous post that I hadn't been shooting. That actually isn't true. I've been using my iPhone and while it's not exactly my SLR my wife reminded me that it's just another format like shooting with my Holga so it certainly counts.

I plan on getting out to Banff in the next couple of weekends. The nice thing about this time of year is that you can get great sunrise light without being up at 3 am. The days are getting longer so that's one goal I best not put off for too long.

All in all I know I will improve as a photographer. To put this into a resolution I plan on getting out shooting more and sitting in front of a computer less.

Taking Stock of Stock

2010-12-21T09:04:00.000-08:00

I've been looking into stock photography a bit more lately and while the idea of shooting what I want and making money at it is exciting it is also pretty scary and intimidating to be honest. Right now I have two images on iStockphoto.com. No sales and just 400 or so views together. Those kind of numbers aren't exactly inspiring.

I think the biggest obstacle is me right now though. I want learn how to do the research into what sells so I can produce marketable images and maybe raid my existing shots for potential candidates too. I have shots that could make me a bit of money and maybe once I make that first sale I'll be confident enough to try to sell some more. In that vein, I am going to try to submit ten image to iStock by the end of the month. Its an attainable goal and it will be a step in the right direction.

I think stock photography will fit in with my overall game plan. (I have one of those???) One of the things I've read and heard from pro photographers is to diversify. I think selling stock, doing some weddings and family shots, and selling the occasional fine art print would be a great start.

Photography? What photography?

2010-12-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Its almost been a month since I posted anything here. I think its been almost a month since I uploaded any pictures to my computer. Aside from a few snaps from my iPhone I don't recall actually taking any pictures since November 10th.

I attended a workshop done by Joe McNally in the middle of November. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Joe as he went through setting up his lights and creating great images but I also learned a lot even when he failed. It made me realize that I just have to get out there and try things. Take some risks. Sometimes things blow up. A lot of times they don't. And that's OK. I was motivated and I was inspired.

And I did nothing.

Back in June I posted a link to a video that Zack Arias did called Transform. Its powerful and I'll load it up once in awhile to inspire me. But its not a lack of inspiration that's struck me. Check that. Its not only a lack of inspiration that's struck me. I've also been busy with work, with hockey, with catching up on editing on previous photo projects...heck with just life in general. I've been run down and run around and I just don't have the energy. Its been cold and dreary. My desk is a mess and my shooting space down in the basement is a disaster area. I haven't even really looked at pictures done by other people.

Just looking at that paragraph you can see what I've been doing. I've sabotaged myself. I've come up with all these reasons why I shouldn't or can't or won't shoot. Throw in some thing that aren't in that list.
"I'm not good enough."
"Its too much work to get a good image."
"I don't have ____ so its not worth trying."

Just excuses. And just more reasons not to shoot.

Today I got off my ass and went out shooting. Maybe 15 minutes of photographing the ducks near Prince's Island Park here in Calgary. I've probably shot between 500 and a 1000 snaps of ducks and geese since I got my first dSLR so its not like I was covering new territory here but it was something simple and uncomplicated. I put my telephoto lens on my camera and started shooting. I just took the images as they were presented to me. Nothing fancy but it felt good.

Once I am done writing this post, I am going to watch Zack's video again and remind myself that it is a privilege to be lucky enough to enjoy photography. I will remind myself that I should, I can, and I will shoot.

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month

2010-11-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine from work and I went today to the crosses that line Memorial Drive here in Calgary. The 1500+ crosses were placed in recognition of the sacrifices Canadian soldiers have made in the wars. Each year more names are added partially because more soldiers are laid to rest but also because people come forth with information about friends and relatives they want to commemorate.

Each of the crosses has a name on them along with the person's unit and what year they passed away. I was surprised at how many crosses were from World War I. I was also surprised that I remembered one man's name amongst all of the ones that I saw.

On August 3rd, 2006 Pte. Kevin Dallaire was killed by a rocket propelled grenade while fighting with Taliban forces west of Kandahar in Afghanistan. Pte Dallaire served with the 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

While my grandfather fought in World War II, I always think of the sacrifice that our soldiers have made in a very broad and faceless sense. But seeing Pte. Dallaire's cross today reminded me that it isn't some faceless soldier who died in a land far away from his home but a person with a family. A family who still feels his loss and feels that their son may have died in vain.

The crosses are just that. These aren't graves. They're pieces of plastic covering steel stakes. But they still remind us of how a few set aside everything they held dear and everything they loved to put themselves in harm's way. So to those who serve and those who made the ultimate sacrifice I thank you. I won't forget you.

Some Chuckwagon shots

2010-11-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

My dad has been racing chuckwagons for over 40 years so he's been doing it longer than I can remember. I've seen a lot of photos of him and to be honest they all kinda look alike. I did up one shot of him for the "This is Alberta" Presidents challenge last year and I really liked the processing. It was edgy and more importantly it was different. The Digital Sports competition came up and I thought that while I can't submit that shot (I technically could but I wouldn't) I could apply that processing to some other shots I took that day. I love the results:

Wagons East!

2010-10-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well, a Westjet plane east anyways. My wife and I are flying out to Ottawa to begin our well deserved vacation in Eastern Canada which will include stops in Montreal and Quebec City. Lots of photo opportunities in the cities and we hope to catch some of the fall leaves. (You can't see but I am crossing my fingers.)

Interestingly enough, I had a goal of getting Jessica and Garrett's pictures done before I left and I am happy to say that not only did I get them done last night I also didn't feel especially rushed. I just kept on working on them and got through. I am quite pleased with how they turned out too! Jessica and Garrett were great models and were a lot of fun to shoot. Heck they even humored me for some of my more unusual ideas.

Yup...I still have Lake O'Hara shots to go through but those can wait until I get back since they're for me anyways. Of course I'll have another boat load of images from this trip too....

Flash!

2010-10-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

I read an article by Joe McNally on his blog and it made me realize that I have been playing around with flash photography a lot lately. During Jessica and Garrett's wedding I had to use flash if only because the venue was so dark. But I also had a lot of fun and got some pretty cool results even when there was plenty of ambient to work with. I found it gave the shots an edgy look and feel to them. I have to say that I absolutely loved this shot when I saw it on my LCD and I was ecstatic when I saw it on my monitor.

I still think there are a couple of areas I need to improve upon. One is that, while I can do edgy, sometimes I want soft. Sometimes you want that light to wrap around your subject like a warm blanket. While the image above isn't the harshest I have ever seen, its definitely not soft.

The other problem I have is using flash so it doesn't look like flash. One of the comments on my self-portrait back in the spring was that it looked like I had been photoshopped in. So again, a softer more subtle touch with the light goes a long way. I need to work with the ambient and not against it.

Am I lot better with flash now? Absolutely. But I also recognize that I have a lot to learn. Maybe when I take Joe's two day workshop in November I'll learn even more. Did I forget to mention I was attending that workshop? Silly me! I am definitely looking forward to it.

Congratulations Jessica and Garrett!

2010-10-03T00:29:00.000-07:00

Its been a long day but a lot of fun. I had the privilege of shooting Jessica and Garrett Blakely's Casino themed wedding and they were a lot of fun to work with. I also have to give a shout out to my wife. She takes care of a lot of the little details and keeps me focused not to mention how much help she was with lighting and doing a lot of the little things that go a long way to making a shoot successful.

So Jessica and Garrett...congratulations! I know you are leaving later today but if you happen to check out the blog before or during your travels here is a really quick sample (click on the image for a larger version):

(No editing or anything. Just a quick export and upload)

Fortune favors the prepared.

2010-09-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

I was checking out a post on Flickr where someone was asking about doing his second wedding shoot with a Canon PowerShot SX110 - a decent point and shoot but a point and shoot nonetheless. There were some posts gently and not so gently suggesting that he not even attempt a wedding with the camera.

Switch over to yours truly. I am doing my second wedding shoot this Saturday and I booked a D700, a 24-70 f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/2.8 about 6 weeks ago for the event. I checked out the venue last weekend and it is dark but the ambient light is really cool. I am still playing around with the idea of using some flash but the nice thing about the D700 - crank that ISO up and the pics will still look nice. I have my D90 as a second body and my 50 mm f/1.8 just in case. It might not be my first choice but it'll definitely do the job if I have problems with either the body or the lens I am renting.

Now we know that it isn't the gear that makes the photograph. The person posting didn't have a lot of shots in his portfolio so I can't comment on his ability. There is however a point where gear can either help you achieve your creative vision or prevent you from realizing it. There is a reason why high end professional spend thousands on their gear. Every lens, camera or piece of equipment has its limitations and the better photographer you are the more you can push those limits.

And the big reason to get higher end gear? Fortune favors the prepared.

A Few Fall Photos

2010-09-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

Last autumn I felt gypped by the leaves. We had a couple of cold nights that froze the leaves on the trees and they turned black and brown. This fall, however, has been incredible for color. Bright yellows, reds, oranges with subtle hints of green dispersed throughout really make it easy to enjoy this season. The fact that we're hitting temperatures in the twenties doesn't hurt either! (Celsius not Fahrenheit you crazy imperial folk!)
Click on an image to see a larger version.

A bit of lighting fun

2010-09-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't posted any of my own images for awhile and I think I'm over due. No, its not the Lake O'Hara shots thought that is definitely on my agenda for the next few days.

I haven't shot anything just for fun for awhile and I think I've submitted to DP Challenge just once or twice in the last month not to mention I haven't played with my lights for awhile. Alright...I actually got a little stir crazy and/or narcissistic and set up my lights to photograph myself. The challenge topic over at DPC was "Portrait with Chair" so I sat down and cranked out a few frames.

Lighting:
Sigma 530 Super Flash gelled with a full cut CTO and bounced off an umbrella camera left. SB600 with a Stofen diffuser behind me and to camera right. I flagged it with a Honl snoot just half wrapped on to keep the light off the background.

I used the Nikon wireless TTL to trigger. The Sigma was set to -1.3 EV and the SB600 was set to -3 EV

Processing might seem like a lot but it wasn't really. I have a "300" preset in Lightroom 2 to create the basic dark moody look and then I dodged and burned to bring back the details.

Phew?

2010-09-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've been stupidly busy the last few days. I've been up to my eyeballs in photoediting and work leaving me little time to work on the images I took at Lake O'Hara and even less time to shoot anything new. I hate to say it but for the last few days, working on images has been a chore.

Like I previously wrote, if you can do things in camera to reduce the amount of editing you need to do it will save you a lot of time. Unfortunately, the scavenger hunt for the Foothills Camera Club necessitated a lot of editing. Typically I think 5 minutes an image is a lot. These images were more like one hour per image....on average. And to be honest there was no way around it. One of the images we needed was to have our main character "Chris" jumping across the railroad tracks just in front of a train. While we could have done that in camera we may have ended up with one less group member as a result. And since I was the one doing the jumping...

I do have to admit that the results were pretty cool and I learned a lot during the process. That being said however, I will be happy to get caught up on all my editing projects so I can refocus on new images and maybe sharing some of my stuff from my getaway to Lake O'Hara.

Beyond Craft (initial thoughts)

2010-09-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

Yes...I am still up and should be sleeping in preparation for my trip to Lake O'hara tomorrow. Just going through e-mails, checking blog posts and just wrapping stuff up before going to bed. After all, its not like I am going to have access to a computer for the next three days.

One of the articles that really spoke to me is David duChemin's article titled ("Beyond Craft"). The article speaks about the difference between the craft of photography vs the Art and vision of photography. Its a really powerful article and definitely worth a read. Its actually funny but Carol Blakey from the Foothills Camera Club and I were talking about a few things related to this very topic.

More to come...(i.e. when I return!)

Lake O'hara! Here I come!

2010-09-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about my upcoming trip to Lake O'hara in Yoho National Park. Lake O'hara is roughly half way between Lake Louise and Field, BC. Everyone tells me how beautiful it is and I know its going to be a lot of fun. So yes, I should be in bed instead of posting but I am so excited! For the next three days I am going to be away from it all and I'm gonna love it!

Busy? Yes. Yes I am.

2010-08-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I haven't posted for a while. That isn't for a lack of postable material but rather the time to post it. I am in the midst of wrapping up a number of photo editing projects to clear my plate for new projects.

I made a post on DP Challenge awhile back and while the numbers I used were arbitrary I think the notion itself is sound. It was something like this. If I have 100 pictures after sorting etc to edit and it takes an average of 5 minutes per image that's 500 minutes or over 8 hours. If I can spend 30 minutes longer shooting to get the images right maybe I can get that average down to 2 minutes? Even if I include the half hour extra time I'm still well under 4 hours.

So what sorts of things can I do to "get it right"?

Exposing correctly. Getting close is "good enough" but I don't want to have to fix my exposure in post. Read that histogram during shooting and get it closer.

Get the lighting right. I tend to do a lot of dodging and burning in post. If I light my subject correctly I don't have to dodge and burn because I'll use my lighting to get the effect I want. Any modifications will be minor and relatively quick. This one's a little tougher because I am still learning about lighting and there's only so much I can do with two flashes and an umbrella.

Pay attention to the background. It absolutely sucks having to mask the subject so I can blur the background because its too distracting. It takes time to load the image into an external editor (since most of my editing is in Lightroom) and it take 15-20 minutes to get it right. BIG consumer of timer. (Like I said, the numbers above were totally arbitrary and while I haven't actually calculated my average time on an image its probably more than 5 minutes)

Look for distracting elements in the scene. Bad shadows are killer to remove. That branch over someone's head is terrible to remove. Even those blades of grass that don't fit in the scene. All of these things can be removed before I look through the view finder.

Get the settings right. Oh my god. How many times have I gone on a shoot and come back and realized afterward that I had my ISO cranked to 3200 in broad daylight. Then I would have to run noise reduction on an image that shouldn't need it at all.

Get different images. My numbers above are assuming that I have already run through my images and selected the keepers. A lot of times though I need to pick one of six images that are nearly identical. True, you want to have that extra shot to prevent missing an important moment but six? And they all look pretty much the same? Work the image and move around and explore. I'll get better images and actually be able to make an intelligent decision on what to use.

Sometimes its just for you

2010-07-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, sometime you shoot for a purpose or a reason. You have a project or a client to shoot for and that's why you take on a shoot. Other times, you shoot for the sake of shooting and just play around with making an image.

Then there are those special times you make images just for yourself. There are moments that you capture just for you. Apertures, and shutter speeds and all of that becomes very, very secondary to just recording the moment.

This was a particularly emotional day for me. My dad was knocked out of his wagon last fall and broke his hip and was expected to never race again. Well, at 71 he is a tough old fart and he's in remarkably good shape and he climbed back into the wagon box again this spring. Its hard to get out and see him run though so this might very well be the last time I get to photograph him racing. This is something he has done since before I was born so if he isn't racing I don't know what he'll do.

I have to admit I played around with these images a fair bit when I got home but at that moment all I could do is hang on and go along for the ride.

Zena Holloway Shoots Underwater

2010-07-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to shoot high quality images underwater. Naturally, underwater photography conjures up mental images of fish, sharks, scuba divers, and sunken ships. Zena Holloway does more with the underwater environment. She actually uses it to shoot high fashion and artistic imagery. Check out this beyond the scenes video here at fstoppers and Zena Holloway's website for her amazing underwater photography.

Sometimes you just gotta try things

2010-07-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

A lot of times I will go out and either look for a shot or have something in mind. That is to say I have a purpose or a reason. This shot was one of those cases. I shot this for a DP Challenge entry and I had the whole setup in mind pretty much end to end and the result was close to what I had envisioned.

But sometimes you just want to try things out, experiment and play a little. Its not always about getting the next gallery image or ribbon winner. Sometimes its fun just to pull the camera out and shoot for the sake of shooting. This is is one of those shots that I made just for me.

Tired little cowpoke!

2010-07-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

Its Stampede time here in Calgary and my wife thought Hudson should get some Stampede spirit. I'm not sure if he enjoyed being dressed up but he sure does look cute!

Happy Canada Day from the Provincial Capital of Alberta!

2010-07-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

I celebrated Canada Day by driving three hours to Edmonton with my wife and her friend Jessica the night before. My wife and I got up on Canada Day at 6 am after which she ran 15 kilometers. If I am going to be up that early on a national holiday I may as well get some shots out of the deal. The run started and ended at the Alberta Legislature buildings and went down into the Edmonton river valley. So of course, I had to take some pictures of the buildings.

Insane weekend!

2010-06-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend is hectic to say the least. I did a shoot with Paul Hughes who is running for mayor in the Calgary civic election this fall. I completed an engagement shoot today with Jessica and Garett which was a lot of fun. Tomorrow I am photographing my nephew Quinn at the zoo. Of course pictures are forthcoming and yes I am little tired.

A brief rest along the path

2010-06-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

I have had a lot of success with my photography over the past six weeks or so. I shot my first wedding and I got some good results. I won two trophies at the Foothills Camera Club's annual banquet. One was for top points overall in the Division Two digital competitions. The other one was the Anne Pikering trophy for Human Portraiture. Last week I also won my first ribbon at DPchallenge.com in the "Churches" challenge. (It only took me about 205 entries.)

DPchallenge is something of a yardstick for me. There are some amazing photographers from all over the world and while anyone can join the site I feel privileged to be part of such fine company. If I can make an image that's successful there it can be considered good pretty much anywhere.

When I first got my Nikon D50 roughly four years ago I looked for free online competitions and came across DPC. I paid my $25 dollars and bought a woody from Ikea for the woody challenge. Good thing a bruised ego heals quickly or else I may have quit shooting. This image was my first and while it was pretty bad / down right terrible it got me started. I learned from the experience and I have been learning ever since.

I've learned about aperture, shutter speed, ISO. I've learned about different lens lengths and filters. I've learned the controls of my camera inside and out. If I include my point and shoot days, I've taken my camera to New York, Scotland, San Francisco, Kauai, Banff, Jasper and my own backdoor.

I've taken pictures of buildings, animals, flowers, landscapes, apples, ice cream, cars, trucks, and people. Yes I've photographed a few people. I've posed them and lit them. After the shooting was done I've processed them. I've shoved around more pixels than I care to remember with dodging, burning, blurring, sharpening, saturation, desaturation.

I've been using a DSLR for almost four years and I continue to learn and grow and develop my own style. I can't say that I am a portrait photographer, or a landscape photographer or an architectural photographer. I love to shoot. My image catalog has hundreds of shots of things that most people wouldn't think of photographing. Bottle caps, fence posts and bears oh my!

The journey is still continuing and at this point I am merely pausing briefly to look back at the path that got me to where I am before heading up the trail some more. I won't and can't rest on my laurels. The journey will only end when I stop traveling up this path.

Zack Arias: Transform

2010-06-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the handful of blogs I follow, I read about a video made by Zack Arias called Transform. I have to say that it is a powerful, thought provoking soliloquy about photography.

Photographers, and artists in general all have those time when things are rough. You don't think what you are doing is good enough. You think that what you're doing isn't original or worth looking at. Sometimes it's just a rut and sometimes that rut seems to be as deep as the Grand Canyon. Through that hardship you find a way through it and you learn and grow as an artist. Or else you pack up shop and call it quits. Its that simple.

Zack's message is mult-faceted but one thing is clear. At the end of the day we can't complain about this art we do. We aren't curing cancer. "The only job that cures cancer is the job that cures cancer." There are far more important things to worry about in this world.

Sigma 530 Super Flash in Wireless TTL? Check!

2010-06-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

After playing around with my Sigma 530 Super Flash I wanted to use it and my Nikon SB600 and use them both in TTL mode. Using both flashes in TTL means I can put the flashes where I want them and not worry about adjusting their outputs or anything of that nature. The camera will take care of the mental gymnastics and I can just take pretty pictures. Initially I thought there was no way this was going to work and I'd be stuck with my cheaper than dirt Cactus trigger. Thankfully I was wrong. The unfortunate thing is the steps are rather convoluted and tricky to perform.

Put your left foot in
Take your left foot out
Shake left foot all about
Now do the "hokey-pokey" and turn yourself about (no one can do this but you!)

Alright, so its not the hokey-pokey but the steps do require some manual dexterity. The camera needs to be metering while you are adjusting the settings. If its not then you can't get the flash into TTL mode. Basically it means just periodically pressing the shutter half-way to "wake-up" the camera. I suppose one could go into the menu and adjust the "Auto meter-off delay" to a higher value than the 6 second default but that would also suppose one would have thought of that while one was trying this out the first time. That aside, with the flash mounted on the camera and the metering on follow these steps (described on this Flickr post):

Press the MODE button to select the TTL / flash symbol / SL icon.
Press the SEL button to make the channel indicator blink and press the + or – button to set the channel
number (either C1- C4).
Press the SEL button to make the group number blink and press the + or – button to set the group number. Press the SEL button to confirm.
Detach the slave unit from camera body and place it in the desired position.

One thing I had to grump about when I performed step three was that I bumped open the battery cover on the flash. Of course the flash turned off and then I had to start all over again. I might be tempted to put a couple of wraps of hockey tape around that sucker to prevent that. At the very least it would help keep my quarters in my pockets and out of the swear jar.

Once all those steps were performed correctly I was able to trigger my Sigma wirelessly with TTL. I powered up the other flash and proceeded to blind the heck out of my poor dog who was the only model available at that moment. Okay, I must confess that he is a bit of a diva and does like to be in front of the camera and probably didn't mind a bit.

There are a few things I can try next. One is to simply control the output manually from the camera itself. That should be simple enough but you never know. It would be handy because then I can have greater control over the lighting. The other thing to try is the Auto FP option. This will allow me to use shutter speeds higher than 1/200 second such as when I want to shoot with wide apertures.

Outdoor Self-portrait

2010-05-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days, I've experimented with the commander mode of my D90 with my SB600 flash. Commander mode not only allows you to wirelessly trigger your flash but also allows the D90 to control the output. In essence, you could allow the camera to completely determine the flash output. The results I got with iTTL (i.e. where the camera completely controls the output of the flash) were okay but not quite what I had in mind. In the end I set it to manual mode.
I had intended to use my Sigma as a second flash for fill but the preflash that the commander mode uses fires the Sigma before its supposed to. As such, I used the SB600 as the key light and used the on-camera flash for on axis fill.

I have to say I enjoyed the results. They turned out pretty much exactly as I had hoped. Granted I would have liked a more attractive model to work with...

6,697 Polaroids

2010-05-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

6,697 Polaroids. Jamie Livingston took one Polaroid picture a day from March 31, 1979 until he died on October 25th, 1997. What started out as a fun project turned into a visual biography of the photographer's life. In fact the last picture is of him on his death bed. Touching and sad but also encouraging as well. I think any of us would be proud to have a legacy like this.

The pics can be found here:
http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/

And this blog speaks about the story behind the images:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15131

Oh the places you'll go (Little Red Lowe Pro)!

2010-05-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

I suggested "Camera Bag" as the challenge topic over at DPChallenge.com. It was chosen but a lot of members really REALLY didn't like it.

When I thought of the challenge I looked at my little red backpack I take with me everyday to work. I've had it for 4 years and I've taken it with me to some pretty cool places. My wife even commented that she had better not see it on our wedding day or she would walk right back down the aisle without me. :)
So 3 replaced snaps, a little salt and dirt, and thousands of miles and that bag is still with me.

Mountain Majesty Exhibit- Resolution Gallery in Kensington

2010-05-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Its been an exciting week so far with my first wedding shoot and now I am doing my first gallery showing at the Resolution Gallery in Kensington. The Mountain Majesty exhibition runs from May 5th to May 31st with the opening gala scheduled for Friday May 7th from 5 - 9 pm. I'll have a couple of images in the show so I am quite excited!

For more information, phone (403) 452-5285, or email resolutionart@hotmail.com. (You can also go to http://www.mountainladdiephoto.com/19.html)

First wedding shoot done!

2010-05-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

My first wedding shoot is done and I am currently uploading the pics to my computer so no pics. I did however want to record my impressions of the day while they are still fresh in my mind. (The impressions are fresh however my mind and body are quite pooped).

First of I really really want to thank my wife for her help. She performed admirably as a MILS. (Mobile Intelligent Light Stand). Actually that was the least of her contributions. She gave me confidence in my abilities when I doubted myself. She pointed out things for me to shoot and gave ideas on how to shoot. She thought of things to bring like blankets which turned out to be brilliant. (12 degrees isn't bad but you are wearing a sleeveless dress? Chilly!) She has that remarkable attention to detail that most women seem to have.

I was able to go to the rehearsal which was great. I was able to speak to the gentleman who was handling the music and he was able to get me some more light. I did a few test shots without the lights on and I was shooting wide open (f/1.8 on my 50mm) and 3200 ISO and I still couldn't get a decent shutter speed. With the lights on I was able to shoot at around 1000 ISO with no problems so it made a huge different.

I know photographers don't normally go to the rehearsal but it really helped me out. I was able to know the sequence of events and where everyone was going to be coming in from and where they were going to stand. It also gave me an opportunity to figure where the heck I was supposed to go.

No one ever tells you that sort of thing by the way. Here's how to pose them. Here's how to light them for the formals. But for the actual ceremony? No chance. Its something you have to figure out yourself. The biggest concern I had was getting the shots I wanted without blocking the view of the ceremony. While I might have buzzed all over the place hopefully it was as a fly on the wall.

The gear? Very nice. I rented an extra body and a 24-70 mm f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/2.8. An extra body was a must I think. True, I didn't shoot nearly as much with the 70-200 as I did with the 24-70 however there was no way I was going to be able to switch lenses that quickly. For some of the procession shots I would shoot with the telephoto and then drop that body to my side (thank God for the Black Rapid strap!) and grab the other camera and start shooting again with the wide angle.

Speaking of the telephoto. That sucker was heavy. In an attempt to lay back and get my shots from further away I ended up using it a lot for long (or what seemed to be long) stretches. My arm would tire and my hand would start shaking.

There were some tricks I tried out and some I figured out. The first one was one of the cooler ones. My friend Sig is often hard to photograph because he always seems to have his eyes closed or closing. One trick I read about was to have them look down and then after a count of three look at that camera all the while keeping your eyes open. It worked really well. Nice big open eyes without having a crazy surprised look.

One problem I had which I came up with a trick for was getting everyone looking at the camera. Kids especially seem look every where which of course is what kids do. I had everyone actually point at me and look where they were pointing. When they put their hands down everyone was looking right at the camera. It was amazing! Not sure if it was fluke or this brilliant idea I came up with is anything new or not but I am going to put it in my bag of tricks for future shoots.

What else? I learned you have to move and shoot very quickly. Everything happens quickly regardless of how slow people try to do things. Kids get impatient as do their parents. Heck I wouldn't want to sit around watching a guy fiddle with the controls on his camera either. Again, the two camera system for the ceremony was a god send. My wife helped keep things moving quickly and efficiently for the formals.

Some final thoughts. It was a great day and I couldn't have asked for a better couple to work with. Devon and Brenda were so much fun and had so much energy it made my job so much easier. Clearly, the two are in love with other and I hope the images I took today reflect that.

Stages of a Photographer

2010-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I should take this seriously at all but I think its funny because its true:

Original image from http://robertbenson.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/photographer-graph-1024x858.png

HDR - Another attempt

2010-04-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't tried HDR since Boxing Day which also means I haven't tried with my new camera. I gave it a try this weekend and the results were pretty good. The higher shooting speed means less chance of movement between frames and the bracketing on the D90 can be set two steps higher than the D50. I also updated my version of Photomatix and that may have contributed to the better outptu.

Opteka 500mm f/8 Telephoto Lens ....for 80 bucks???

2010-04-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

My current telephoto is a Sigmas 70-300 f/5.6. While not even close to being high end glass I certainly didn't pay 80 bucks for it either. The Opteka 500mm f/8 Telephoto Lens runs for that amount on Amazon. From what I have read 80 bucks might be all its worth. Optically its terrible and is soft and prone to bad chromatic aberration. Its maximum aperture is f/8 so its slow and its reported to be quite dark when looking through the viewfinder. Sure, a 500 mm lens might be fun especially at $80. On the other hand, good friends don't let friends use bad glass. At least not that bad....

Nick Brandt

2010-04-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

I first read about Nick Brandt in an article in Photolife magazine. On DP Challenge, someone posted a link to a web page about an exhibit he is doing at the Young Gallery in Brussels. In his biography I thought the following snippet to be quite interesting:

Few photographers have ever considered the photography of wild animals, as distinctly opposed to the genre of Wildlife Photography, as an art form. The emphasis has generally been on capturing the drama of wild animals IN ACTION, on capturing that dramatic single moment, as opposed to simply animals in the state of being.

His images wouldn't be found in National Geographic however they are remarkable as fine art images. The way he shoots he effectively isolates his subject and draws you into the scene. The animals themselves are depicted as noble creatures rather than savage beasts.

You can check out more of Nick's work on his website (http://www.nickbrandt.com)

"For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path"

2010-03-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

The field of photography, as a profession, is both expanding and contracting at the same time. More people than ever are creating publishable images. And while most of them will never see a dime some do make a small sum of money doing what they love. On the other side, choosing photography as a career option and sole means of income is becoming less and less viable as the demand for images shrinks and the number of sources increases. The pie is getting smaller and more people want a slice.

This article from the New York Times explains the issue.

My belief is that photographers will need to combine their skills with something else in order to survive. (Now if I could only figure out what the something else is so I can quit my day job!)

How do you use a monopod? (or "Tripod? We don't need no steenkin' tripod!)

2010-03-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

We all know that to get maximum sharpness its best to use a tripod. However, lugging around a tripod isn't always an option. In such cases, a monopod might allow you to stabilize your camera without weighing you down. I've personally found that when using a monopod I am only marginally more stable than hand held. There is apparently a knack to shooting with a them. What's the trick? How do you shoot with a monopod? This links explains:
http://www.outdooreyes.com/photo5.php3

My monopod is this one for those interested by the way.

Hawaii - Day Three - Sunday, January 31th 2010

2010-03-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

Day three in Hawaii was the beginning of better weather and more fun than I could ever imagine. While we putzed about and just were kinda on the island for blah weather for the first two days, day three was really the turning point.

My wife and I, along with my brother, my sister-in-law, and my niece started the day by visiting Waimea Canyon. Located on the west side of the island, it has been described as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Unfortunately, I've never been to the Grand Canyon but even so I can say that this description is probably accurate. The canyon is over 4000 feet deep at its deepest point despite the fact that it is only a few miles long.

My brother took his family to Barking Sands beach while my wife and I carried on the trail to catch a view of the cliffs of the Nepali coast from the top. (Nepali simply means "the cliffs" so in a way that statement is somewhat redundant).

Day three was also the day I first tried snorkeling. My wife thought that I should at least try swimming in the ocean before I tried scuba diving. The experience was remarkable. Unfortunately, I had problems with my snorkel so I swam without it and just used my fins and mask. Nevertheless, my first view below the waves will remain in memory forever. There were dozens of different types of fish and many were very colorful. It was almost like swimming in an aquarium. Sadly, my first shots didn't turn out that great as I wasn't used to framing a shot while being moved along up and down and side to side by the waves.

The Flickr set can be found here

Time for an upgrade

2010-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

I have thought long and hard about upgrading. My Nikon D50 has served me quite well since I purchased it in the fall of 2006. Unfortunately, she isn't going to cut it for some of the images I want to take. I'm not one to push the megapixel count but 6 MP is holding me back from doing some of the things I want to do. I went to The Camera Store today to reserve rental equipment for the wedding I am doing in May and I thought "Why not?". I wanted to have time to get used to the new body before the wedding and before spring comes because I love to go out take pictures at that time of year.

I got home and charged the battery that came with the camera plus the extra one I purchased. Unfortunately the D90 takes a battery that is almost identical to the one in the D50 but not quite. They do however both use the exact same charger which is kinda handy. After the short charging period (alright it was only short because I had a nap while it was charging) I gave it a try. First impression? Not bad. I haven't uploaded any pictures yet but I like what I see so far. I thought Live View would be a gimmick that I wouldn't use but I can definitely see some practical applications for it. Video mode? hmmm...the jury is still out on that. I'll have to play with it some more. The ISO range is from 200-3200 and a "HI" mode. I take this to mean that you get usable images up to 3200 whereas HI you are taking your chances. The D50 went to 1600 and a lot of time those images weren't usable.

It also supports my IR remote that I used on the D50. I'd be pretty disappointed if I didn't have a means of doing long exposures (i.e. like several minutes long).

The weight and feel are nice. A little heavier than the D50 but not a brick like some of the higher end models.

The controls are going to take some getting used to. The D50 has only got one command dial. The D90 has a command dial and sub-command dial on the front. I am used to adjusting everything with the one dial so having two will be a little weird for now. The one control I do like is the depth of field preview button. I have it on my film SLR but the D50 was lacking it.

So why the D90? Well I thought about holding out for a D700 or its replacement thats been rumored to be around the corner. The problem is the D700 is triple what I paid for the D90 and that would be body only. The 18-55 kit lens I have would only work in cropped mode which would put the pixel count around what I have on the D50 which somewhat defeats the purpose of upgrading. The D300 and D300s were also options I looked at however everything I read indicated that the image quality of the D90 is comparable to the D300 and D300s. True, it doesn't have the metal body or the fast shooting rate (4.5 fps for the D90 vs 7 for the D300) but I couldn't justify that additional cost. My goal is also to go full-frame so I decided to get a smaller upgrade and start saving for and a full frame body a good lens to go with it.

When I purchased my D50 I read a lot of reviews and went for the most bang for the buck. I spent about the same amount for my D90 as I did for my D50. (Sadly, a quick look on Ebay shows I could get about 130 bucks for it now). Once again, I think I'm going for the best bang for the buck. Is this upgrade going to make a better photographer? No. Certainly not. Its a tool to allow me to create my images. It is however going to create new opportunities.

So thank you so much Nikon D50 for really teaching me how to shoot. I've shot over 70,000 images with you. I've been to San Francisco, Banff, Jasper, and Hawaii to name a few places I've been with you. It was a sad day when I put you on the shelf.

Still working on the Hawaii pics but in the meantime...

2010-02-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I am still wading through the Hawaii pictures. There's only about 1300 to go through so please forgive me while I take my time and enjoy revisiting my images. For DP Challenge, the topic for this week was Shoes. I took this to mean foot wear in general and not shoes specifically. In honor of the Olympics I decided skates were a good choice so I spent 15 minutes or so shooting me in my skates. The image I entered, in retrospect, was ok but the one I did after my submission was better. The focus is better and I think I like the editing more on this one.

Hawaii - Day Two - Saturday, January 30th 2010

2010-02-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

Day Two was another overcast day at least for the north part of the island where we drove that day. In Alberta there's a saying: If you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes. In Kauai, if you don't like the weather drive somewhere else but it generally doesn't rain everywhere on the island and this day was no exception. Despite the rain it was still pleasantly warm though and our trip to the community of Hanalei was worth the drive.

Along the way we stopped at Kilauea and checked out the lighthouse and bird sanctuary. Well by checked out I mean we stopped at an outlook along the road and we didn't actually drive right up to the lighthouse.

There were so many birds along the cliffs it was unreal. At this point I was still thinking the cattle egrets were something cool and unique. By the time we left I would learn that they're as plentiful as gulls are here.

On our way to Hanalei, we stopped at a farmer's market in Kilauea. It was quite different from what my wife and I were expecting. Farmer's markets here in Alberta tend to be semi-permanent stands with throngs of people and vendors. The one we stopped at in Kilauea was three vans parked on the edge of field. Nevertheless, we got some great deals and the people displayed the friendliness we were learning to expect on Kauai. Because of the rain, the vendors weren't getting many visitors so got amazing deals on the fruit we purchased and got to sample a lot of different things including rambutans. These red, spiky fruits have a tough skin you simply nick and then peel open. The fruit inside tastes a lot like a lychee nut. (Rambutans are actually part of the lychee family so I guess that makes sense)

We continued our drive to the Hanalei and checked out the beach. I'll probably kick myself until I got back but we didn't get to the Hanalei pier. Its been featured on so many postcards not just for Kauai but the Hawaiian islands in general I am disappointed I didn't get to see it myself.

(I have a picture to put here but um...the computer is being dumb again)

Once we were done splashing around on the beach (the little bit we did anyways) we decided we need to get some lunch. We made our way to small bar and grill in Hanalei called Kalypso. To our surprise the second game for Hockey Day in Canada was on the TV. If you guessed that it was the Leafs playing you would be right. Even in Hawaii we had to watch the Leafs before anything else.

We decided to have Mai Tais since that seems to be the thing to do when you're in Hawaii. My wife, however, doesn't drink and after having half of hers declared herself unfit to drive. That made me the designated driver which apparently meant my Mai Tai was hers. Funny how that works out.

We headed back to our resort on Lawai Beach where we were greeted by blue skies and no rain. By the time we made it back (we took our time naturally) it was almost supper time but I finally got to see the sunset I had been waiting for.

You can view the the set on Flickr or a slideshow of the images.

Lensbaby 2.0 - For 70 bucks???

2010-02-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

On DP Challenge, someone posted a link to Amazon for the Lensbaby 2.0 listed for 70 dollars. That is incredibly cheap and give you a chance to try them out. I've always enjoyed the images I've seen. Plus the creative aperture kit is 10 buck. Nice!

Hawaii - Day One - Friday , January 29th 2010

2010-02-09T22:20:00.000-08:00

My wife and I recently enjoyed a fantastic trip to the island of Kauai. Technically the first day was when we landed however that was right at sunset (sadly it was really overcast) so our task was to get a car, grab something to eat after our long flights and get to bed. We started at 7:50 am Calgary time and arrived in Kauai, about 6:30 pm Hawaii Time (which is 9:30 pm Calgary time). A long day to say the least!

However, we were up pretty early after a good night's sleep at our resort and made our way over to Spouting Horn, about 5 minutes away. Yes, day one did not entail any long expeditions. Spouting Horn is named for the geyser-like stream that shoots up from rocks along the coast at that point.

There is also a few stalls for vendors to sell relatively inexpensive jewelry. A lot of pearls, and coral was found at the stalls. It was almost like the Farmer's markets here at home.

And of course there were chickens. Chickens are the Official Un-Endangered spcies on the island of Kauai. During hurricane Iniki the chickens got loose and with the all the destruction, rounding up chickens was a low priority. That's of course just one theory. In any event, I don't remember hardly any part of the island that you didn't find the darn chickens!

It was also on this day that we got to view the "Tunnel" coming to our part of the island. This tunnel is made of Eucalyptus trees planted by the Scottish rancher, Walter Duncan McBryde over 150 years ago. The treetops were damaged in the last two hurricanes however, as with most vegetation on the island, they have grown back nicely.

Which brings me to another point: The Flowers. Hibiscus blooms can be seen everywhere. The original flowers were brought by settlers at different times and have evolved over time into different species. (See this Wikipedia article for more info).

To view all the images I've uploaded so far check out my Flickr photostream.

Amazing but true

2010-02-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my prior post I have been having difficulties with my computer. My hard drive that holds all my photos is going kaput. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but you shouldn't backup in case of hardware failure but for when it fails. Its just a matter of time before anything with moving parts (i.e. hard drives) will fail. In other words, its not a question of if a drive will but when.

Fortunately, most of my images are backed up. I was in the process of backing up my Hawaii images when the drive started giving me problems yet again. In fact it looked like about 350 or so images were missing. When I uploaded them originally to my PC it took hours. It royally sucked knowing that I had to do the whole process over again. I decided to purchase a card reader. I used to have one but found that it wasn't any faster than transferring from the camera. My printer has a card reader but it only operates on USB 1.0 which is really slow. However, I wasn't going to spend my whole evening once again transferring the same image so I gave SanDisk's ImageMate a try. Wow! I've already uploaded my 2 - 2GB cards and I just finished transferring a 1 GB card while I wrote half of this paragraph. I'll probably have all of my photos transferred before I am done writing this post.

I really have to wonder why I didn't get a good card reader before. This gizmo is SUCH a time saver. In less than 15 minutes I transferred over all the files that it took me hours to upload before. Amazing...but true!

Aloha from Hawaii!

2010-02-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

Alright. I am already back from Hawaii so its not aloha from Hawaii. I'm sad because it was around 24/25 degrees Celsius when I left Kauai and its around -10 here now. Lovely. Good-bye shorts and "slippahs" (sandals). Hello parkas and snow boots.

My computer has been giving me troubles so I haven't been able to go through my images. I do feel I owe this blog at least ONE picture however. This image was taken at about 6 am one morning. Exposure time was about 30 seconds. I packed my tripod in my 60+ liter backpack because it wouldn't fit in my suitcase.

It was absolutely beautiful. I hope this does the scene justice.

This is Alberta

2010-01-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that four images does not even come close to encompassing all there is to see in this province I live in. Heck, the four might not even be categorized as stereotypical at all. Its not even a taste, perhaps just a half whiff of a fragrance that you can't quite place. Nevertheless, the president of the Foothills Camera Club gave us this assignment for this month's President's Challenge. Perhaps with contributions from each member we'll give the viewers of our slide show (a photo club in the UK) a taste of Alberta.

I took this shot last summer on an outing to Banff and Lake Louise. Not your typical postcard image but then again, who wants the typical shot?

Another Lake Louise image here. It was one of those "Holy Crap! There's something cool happening!" type of shots. i.e. I turned and saw the sled and shot.

Yup. I submitted this and I have posted this on the blog before. I think one of the highlights of Alberta is the Canadian Rockies and this is one of my better shots.

My dad has been racing chuckwagons for around 40 years. This shot was taken at the Red Deer Exhibition last summer. The processing is more than I usually do because I didn't want the same old same old shot. Then again, for people who have never seen the sport it would be new anyways!

The set can be viewed as a slideshow on Flickr.

How do you like them Apples?

2010-01-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

In this case that's not a quote from Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting but rather a reference to the subject for this week's submissions in the Work Mini-Club. Apples are a simple subject but offer a lot of creative possibilities.

This shot was deliberately plain Jane and safe. Light was from a 45 degree angle with a bit of fill provided by a reflector.

Contrast the simple safe picture with the craziness of this shot. I have a small flash that can be triggered by another flash. (Check it out here). It has no way of controlling the output but its good for throwing light on a background such as this case. True, this shot is pretty overexposed but I like it because it has an almost "I was abducted by alien apples" feel to it.

This is the same shot but with a little more fill light. It still has the backlighting I liked in the previous shot but with a little more detail.

A little more "normal" and of course I had to try some water droplets. I couldn't find my spray bottle so I took a bottle of water and held my thumb over the end to create the spray. Unfortunately, I ended spraying water everywhere including my background and mat. Lovely.Lighting was from the side to try to emphasize the water droplets.

This was my favorite shot of the night. It has that backlighting I liked plus it has a good amount of fill to provide detail.

Check out series here

Straight from the Camera - A Kensington Adventure

2010-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

A few of us at work decided to form a sort of mini camera club to encourage us to get out and shoot and to also share knowledge, information and provide constructive criticism of each others images. Today we headed to Kensington to do our shoot this week. Today we had just one rule: we had to shoot JPG and we have to present our images straight from camera with no editing. Ideally I'd tweak the levels a bit in post however these aren't too bad. I used my 50 mm f/1.8 throughout the day as I feel that its a lens I don't use often enough.

One of the things I like to shoot (when I don't have in particular to shoot) is things with a notable texture like this old power pole. (ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/800 second)

I also try to look for patterns. This one is a little underexposed but its not too terrible given the subject matter: (ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/3200 second)

We also took turns posing for each other. Here's Charles in the foreground with Bao in the background. Kensington has some interesting buildings with wild vibrant colors. I have yet to shoot it but the alley behind the Chicken on the Way has this terrific blue wall. (ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/1000 second)

You can always get interesting shots in reflections. Unfortunately, this particular puddle had a fair bit of slush in it and it happened to line up with Bao's face. It was still a fun shot so I felt it was worth keeping. (ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/1000 second)

You can check out the rest of my picks here:

10 New Years Resolutions Every Photographer should make

2010-01-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

One of the blogs I try to follow is Lisa Bettany's "MostlyLisa.com". She is a modelographer (i.e. model/photographer) who also works for the the Vancouver Province. She was also named on the top 10 hottest geeks by Wired. Maybe a strange introduction but unfortunately photography is a male dominated industry and hobby so maybe its not so strange to point this out. Did I mention she is Canadian? Never hurts to put in a good word for a fellow Canuck.

In her most recent post (as of this writing) she wrote about "10 New Years Resolutions Every Photographer should make". I have to agree with all of them however I was really struck by number 4. I will not be hindered by the gear I do not have.

That is an incredible notion. I mean, how often do we have thoughts like "if only I had this lens" or "if only I had that camera." A better camera doesn't necessarily mean better pictures. And in fact if you don't get your butt out there and shoot it doesn't matter what camera you have collecting dust.

I always laugh and get slightly offended when someone says nice picture --you must have a nice camera. After all, its the photographer not the gear that makes the picture. Yet I have no problem feeling gear envy when someone else takes a nice picture with a newer/ more expensive camera, lens, or lighting setup.

I think the other resolution that made me think was I will learn how to process my shots. I still feel quite inadequate with my processing. I can do the basics and know enough to wreck a perfectly decent shot. That's one resolution I think I'll have to work on.

Muttart Conservatory - Edmonton, Alberta

2010-01-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

My wife and I traveled north to Edmonton to visit my brother and his family for New Years Eve and the weekend following. My sister-in-law took my wife and I for an outing to the Muttart Conservatory in the Edmonton river valley. Its really a neat place especially seeing lush tropical plants, and cactuses that you would see in an arid desert all while its twenty below outside.

I played around with my macro lens and tried to get some different plant based abstract images. One of the pyramids is also the "feature pyramid" which has a display that changes throughout the year. The theme at this time of year of course was Christmas.

Check out the complete collection here.

Rocky Mountain High

2010-01-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

I have to say that Banff National Park is always a favorite place of mine to shoot. Whether its revisting places I've shot before or finding something new I am always generally pleased with the shots I take there.

I have to thank my sister-in-law Holly and her boyfriend Daniel for inviting me along with them on their trip. I played tour guide to a certain extent but in a lot of ways the day kinda unfolded on its own.

We stopped at McDougall Church on the way out before we stopped at Johnston Canyon.

I've never been to the canyon in winter and it was absolutely breathtaking. We only made it to the lower falls but it was definitely worth the trip.

Lake Louise is another place I've been to in the past but always in the summer. We finished our trip just outside the Banff town site at Vermilion Lakes.

Check out the rest of the pictures here

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T22:09:00.000-08:00

So with it being the eve of Christmas Eve, this will probably be my last post for a few days. I wanted to keep my mini-streak alive by posting and what better way to say Merry Christmas AND post something photography related than to post a picture of my favorite dog in the whole world. That's right...Hudson has come to the blog!

Hudson will normally ignore the TV entirely. That is until we ask him where the puppies are then he'll look at it to see if there are puppies. If there are? He goes a little nuts. He was barking at the TV just after I shot this.

So from Hudson, me and my wife -

Merry Christmas!

Revisting images

2009-12-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had an image that was pretty good, did your processing on it and then left it for months? Have you come back to that photograph and tried new processing techniques out on it? That's one of the things I love about Lightroom. I can create a snapshot of an image and start my processing over again from scratch and compare the two images to decide which I like more. And revisiting your shots is always a lot of fun.

Take this image I shot this summer in Banff National Park. When I first looked at after getting home there were a few problem areas. I was shooting into the sun somewhat and it was hard to keep the highlights from blowing out. I did try bracketing and then using Photomatix to create an HDR image but I didn't really care for the results.

Tonight I tried good old fashioned dodging and burning. I've also download a bunch of camera profiles for Lightroom and the Camera Landscape profile really punches up the colors.

If I had one book on photography....

2009-12-21T18:26:00.000-08:00

If I had could only have one book in my collection of photography books I would have to go with Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Your camera does a pretty good job with focus on its own. Composition can be learned but its hard to teach it. Exposure however is something that can be taught and a good creative exposure can make the difference between a snapshot and something you would hang on the wall.

Star Trails - Second Attempt

2009-12-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

I tried some star trails this summer with not really the greatest results. Its hard to gauge what your exposure should be and takes more luck than skill to get a good result. I went out last night on Highway 40 west of Cochrane to try again and the results, while varied, were more satisfying. My first attempt was a 30 minute exposure which was far too long for the aperture I had chosen. This attempt was a 7.5 minute exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 200.

I tried some shorter exposure times (1600 ISO and f/1.8) and still had about a 24 second exposure. Its astounding how much the stars move even in that short of time. (The larger size really show the motion)

Scavenger Hunt results are in!

2009-11-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

Finally after months of waiting we got to see the results of this year's Scavenger Hunt. The theme was North of the Tracks and took place downtown between the tracks (duh!) and third avenue here in Calgary. Each team had to come up with a witty name starting with a letter we drew randomly. I (who was somehow team captain) drew the letter W so we decided to go with WUT? from our last names Wong, Untershultz, and Taylor. We managed to get most of the images but had a tough time with some of them. There were a few that when we found out what they were made us groan because we had seen the subject that the clue referenced but didn't make the connection. Nevertheless we did pretty well getting second overall and I ended up with the best overall image in the competition. (Did I just toot my own horn? Toot-toot! Yes I did!)

The rest of my shots can be found here. Kevin and Jim had some terrific shots. If only we had been able to find all the subjects...

Here are Jim's shots
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41772474@N03/
Here are Kevin's shots: http://picasaweb.google.ca/FloatingImitations/200908fccscavengerhunt?authkey=Gv1sRgCJSfn4qJ_6OEMA#

Sepia No More - Revisited

2009-06-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

In a previous post entitled Sepia No More, I discussed an article on the NY Times where a Henri Cartier-Bresson was posted to Flickr where the image was slammed. Not for taking credit for the shot but for things like blurriness.

Thanks to the folks on DP Challenge I found the image!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366/

The comments on the photo are hilarious!

MTV Movie Awards - Fashion 360 powered by 48 NIkon D700

2009-06-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

The Nikon D700 is a sweet camera. They run about $3000 CDN. Big Freeze took 48 of them paired with 28 mm lenses to do a motion freeze movie ala The Matrix.

Check out the clip and info on the system here

Some fun with film

2009-06-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I bought a Nikon Film SLR from a friend at the Foothills Camera Club. My first roll was some black and white C41 process Ilford XP-2. I wasn't overly inspired when I was shooting and the look of the black and white on the prints was rather blah. This image of my boots was one of my favorites.

The nice thing about the film is that its relatively cheap and easy to develop if you need to use a lab since its C41 which is what color negative is. (I.e. what you can take to ANY photo lab).

I had also purchased a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus. I loved the results I got. Of course I should have. After taking in the other roll to get processed I went out shooting on Stephen Avenue with the HP5 plus loaded. And it was 20 degrees below Celsius. I was using my 70-300 mm lens that day. The problem with it is that it has no aperture ring so everything was shot at f/22. (The camera body isn't new enough to control the aperture either) Fortunately, since its such a long lens I was able to control depth of field easily enough.

Can a machine rate your images?

2009-05-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

So I am back...hopefully with more posts per week than before! So here's a quick one.

Can a machine rate your images? The makers of Acquine (Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine) believe it can. http://acquine.alipr.com/

User have thrown some really well known images at it with strange results. The famous Afghan Girl that is one of the most famous National Geographic magazine covers ever gets a modest score of 78.1 My own personal best shot at DP Challenge and ribbon winner at the Foothills Camera Club gets a 96.9.

So what does this mean? Nothing really. The engine can be somewhat fooled. A larger image does better. (e.g. I rated my image using a link from the FCC website and the score drops to 93). In a thread on DP Challenge, users have indicated that bumping up saturation will also increase scores.

That being said, looking through the top rated images on Acquine, I think that the shots are pretty good with most being exceptional.

Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light

2009-03-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Its crazy. Darkrooms used to be found all over. Its hard to find them any more. Their demise in the face of digital reminds me a lot of gradual disappearance of grain elevators here in Alberta. There is just something magical and special about the old film days. Taking a roll of film and with one part science and one part alchemy breath life into it and turn it into a print.
Here is a photo essay on some of these fading icons:
http://www.richardnicholson.com/darkroom/

Left Brain vs Right Brain

2009-01-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

Not exactly photography related but definitely on topic about creativity in general.
This link is to an interesting test for whether you are right brained or left brained:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

Apparently, if you concentrate, you can see the dancer change from anti-clockwise to clockwise. I apparently lack that ability and in fact only see her going clockwise which indicates that I am right brained. I guess I should be satisfied that I can see her spin at all because that might indicate that I have no brain!

Photojournalism entry...

2009-01-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

Last night, at the first meeting of the Foothills Camera Club in 2009, we went over the results of the photojournalism competition. I am happy to say that I did pretty well and received a second place ribbon for one of my entries.

One comment that came up for a couple of entries was that the judges felt that without the title there was no story. After the meeting there was some discussion on this point and to be honest I could see both sides point. I think that a photojournalism shot should have enough to make the viewer want to know more. That is, the shot should stand on its own. The title or caption, can be used to help convey the story or message that the photographer was striving for.

On the other hand, if the whole story is told by the title I think it weakens the effectiveness of the image.

Edmonton Oilers Skills Competition

2009-01-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been a lot of fun for me and my wife. We went to Edmonton yesterday and spent the whole day at the waterpark. I think we both agree that the slides and the wave pool are definitely a lot of fun. We stayed over night with my brother and his wife and went to the Oilers Skills Competition at Rexall Place. We didn't arrive as early as should have so we sat in the nose bleed section but otherwise it was a great afternoon and I got a few shots that turned out all right.
The problem with shooting sports in a stadium is that as bright as the lights are its still quite dark so I had to shoot at 1600 ISO so I could get my shutter speed up to 1/500 second. Consequently some of the shots are fairly noisy. Overall I am content with what I got though.

Quinn Nathaniel Galbraith

2008-12-29T20:55:00.001-08:00

On Christmas Day, my nephew Quinn was born at the Foothills Hospital here in Calgary. He got home last night with his mom and dad. His auntie and I finally got to visit today. Here are some pictures of him.

Previsualization to Reality

2008-12-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

Again, I am reading a bit of TWIP tonight. This post was about how Scott got his picture he had previsualized: http://twipphoto.com/cranes-in-the-fire-mist

Its a great story and its well told. This brings to mind a shot I have in my mind that I want to shoot. Unfortunately, its a shot I would have had if my batteries in my camera hadn't died. My folks live on the top of a valley that's full of trees. One winter the temperature dropped rapidly resulting in hoarfrost. It was the night of a full moon and as it rose in the sky I saw that it was a bright neon pink and it cast its glow on the white trees below. Breath taking. Phenomenal. But how often do you see a neon pink moon? If I ever see it again I will photograph it.

One Tip. The one to remember

2008-12-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

I had a quick look at TWIP tonight. One question that Scott Bourne received recently is "I am just getting my first camera. What’s the one thing I should try to remember to get the best photos I can possibly get?"

His response was to shoot with the light behind you. Its astounding but I remember my Aunt providing me with this tip when I was really young. (Like 5 or 6???? I also recall her saying not to try to shoot through glass because of the reflections.) Its such a simple thing and yet, with digital cameras we have somehow forgotten this tip. Or at least it hasn't been drilled into us like it used to be.

Imagine in your mind a building. You are on the north side of that building at noon on a day with a few clouds but mostly blue sky. Are you going to get a reasonably exposed image? Probably not. (Unless you use HDR which is a whole other topic). If you move to the south side of the building, you can then expose the building and the sky correctly. Simple. Important.

A lot of beginners see their subject, and fire. Armed with this rule in mind, even if you have your camera on auto it will be able to handle the scene. The other nice thing about this rule is, once its in your head, you start seeing light differently. You see that hard light from the front kills shadows and makes your subject lose depth making it look flat. You'll see that those last rays of sunlight when cast from the side or at an angle are absolutely beautiful.

While I call it a rule, its a fun one to break now and then. The thing about photography rules is that 95% of the shots you do should follow most of them. When you break a rule, though, make sure its obvious and deliberate. Backlit subjects turn into silhouettes quite nicely. If your subject is backlit you can let it go completely black. The other option is to use some fill flash.

Why black and white?

2008-12-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

A lot of my more effective images are ones that I've converted to black and white. Part of this comes from my own fondness for monochrome. Part of it too is in what I shoot. Some subjects work well in black and white. Obviously some don't.

So what is it about black and white that is appealing? One way to think about this is to think about what's left in an image once you've stripped away the color. A red square for instance is even more uninteresting when converted to monochrome. This tank however seems to work well in black and white.

When we take away color, we are left with lines, shapes and textures. In black and white, lines are more apparent. Shapes are easier to see. And textures come alive in monochrome.

In this image you can see the form of the gun barrel. You can see the texture in the treads. Even the sky has a defined shape.

By removing color, we shift the emphasis to these basic elements. That's not to say that these elements aren't important in color photography. Far from it. In color photography these elements complement the image and a well crafted image utilizes all of these to convey a central message or theme to the viewer.

A trip down memory lane - Mom's Olympus Trip 35

2008-11-22T22:37:00.001-08:00

The very first camera I ever used was my mom's Olympus Trip 35. Olympus made over 10 million of these handy little camera's between 1968 and 1988. She got it back in the 60's or early 70's so its older than I am. My first shots, if I am not mistaken were taken at my cousin's wedding when I was a ring bearer. I'd estimate that I was 3 or 5. Based on that fact, I have been taking pictures for around 30 years. Crazy!

When I got my Nikon D50 my mom gave me the camera as she is using a digital point and shoot now. (Prior to that she had a "modern" film point and shoot). I brought it home and took a few pictures with it. Unfortunately, when Renae and I moved into our new house I wasn't able to locate it. At least until tonight.

Renae and I were cleaning up our basement this evening. I've been looking for the old camera at least once every month or so. In the one container I was sure it was in I found it. I swear I had tore that Rubbermaid container apart at least 8 times in the last year without finding the camera.

So besides being significant in that it was the first camera I ever held in my hands, it also gives me another way to experiment with film. I enjoy my Holga but this allows me to use 35 mm film and, if I use a flash, I can even adjust the aperture.

The thing that has appealed to me about this camera since my mom gave it to me is the fact that it doesn't require batteries. It has selenium cells around the lens to power the light meter.

The manual can be found here:

http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~rwesson/esif/om-sif/camhistory/manuals/olympustrip.pdf

There's even a site dedicated entirely to the Trip.

http://www.tripman.co.uk/

The image I've uploaded isn't quite the same as the one I have. Apparently the ones with the black shutter release are a little newer. Mine is chrome.

A fine day for photography!

2008-11-18T16:19:00.001-08:00

I had a great day for photography yesterday. Renae has baby shower for a friend. Naturally, baby was there and of course I had to take some pictures. He seemed quite fascinated with me for some reason, even when I was talking about photography. Ethan was a great little model.

So while the baby shower was on I banished myself. I had promised to help my brother-in-law stack his new dryer on his washer. After that we went outside and I took some pictures of Finnigan: Wonderdog Extraordinaire!©

So after playing Frisbee with Finnie, I ventured forth to Banff. I had never been on the Lake Minnewanka loop so I thought this would be a great little trip. With all the snow and ice it was marvelous.

Of course, being Christmas time my wife and I need to find great gifts for that special someone. (In our case, like most people, someone is pluralized many times over). On the way into the Banff town site I saw a cow elk grazing by the highway. There are signs all over the park cautioning motorists about them but this was the first time I had actually seen one.

It was getting late in the day (late for photography anyways) so I decided to give Vermillion Lakes a try. This is probably the most photographed bit of scenery in Banff and maybe even the entire Canadian Rockies but I still love to go out there to shoot. This time was also great.

So with the sun pretty much gone I headed for home. In retrospect, I wish I could have gone home a bit earlier. Just outside the Banff townsite there was probably 100-200 elk. Like I said before, I had never scene one elk. Here was an enormous herd. It was too dark to capture them and I was concerned about the weather. Maybe next time. After all, with this bounty of picture opportunities I guess I can't get too greedy.

Woodies! Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter...

2008-11-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

So DP Challenge has a new challenge called Where In The World Is Art Roflmao? Art has a peculiar photographic style that incorporates humor and um...lots of woodies. Woodies being those little wooden posable figures used for art. He also uses a lot of rubber ducks and stick on "googly eyes". Yes. Its strange. Ecletic might be a better term. Maybe strange. I dunno. You can check out his DP Challenge profile here: http://www.dpchallenge.com/profile.php?USER_ID=28742

It was for this reason I went outside to a nearby playground with my two woodies. My initial idea was to pose them either "pointing" to where Art might be found or shrugging indicating they didn't know where he was. When I got there I found that there was some convenient rocks around the edge of the sandbox. I also found out that shrugging doesn't work with my particular woodies.

The rocks almost looked like caves so I considered putting Art with Osama Bin Laden. We'll see. There's time for retakes I guess.

The rocks also presented a different opportunity. I removed the base and stand from one and hung him from the edge of the rocks making him (hopefully) look like he is rock climbing.

Remembrance Day Ceremony

2008-11-13T23:02:00.000-08:00

This Remembrance Day I attended the wreath laying ceremony at the Central Memorial cenotaph in downtown Calgary. It was a tough decision but I did bring my camera. On the one hand, it is a very solemn ceremony and my focus was to remember the sacrifice the men and women of our country have made in name of freedom. On the other hand, it is also a celebration of that same sacrifice and the victory they helped the Allies achieve in the wars.

Unfortunately, I, like most people , remember the sacrifices made during the World Wars and seem to forget that Canadians have laid down their lives in other conflicts. We forget that those who fell in Korea and Afghanistan made no small sacrifice and deserve to be remembered no less. That message hit home when, during the wreath laying, family members of soldiers who died in Afghanistan layed theirs wreathes.

In attendance were members of the Calgary Highlanders, as well as members of the Calgary Police Service, Calgary EMS, the RCMP, and the Calgary Fire Department.

Lightroom 2 fun

2008-11-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've started using Lightroom 2 for my editing. I am really enjoying using it as it is quite powerful yet simple to use. Strangely, the biggest feature for me is something that's available in pretty much every editing program: dodging and burning. Lightroom, all edits are non-destructive including this one. Since you are also dealing with the RAW file you also have a lot more data available making it easy to pull out the detail in the shadows and highlights. As an example I took this picture of an old house and worked the image a fair bit and converted it to black and white. I burned the sky and dodged the house itself.

South of Cochrane, Alberta. Nikon D50. Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED lens at 18 mm. ISO 200, f/8, 1/50 second.

And...the winner is...

2008-11-06T12:15:00.001-08:00

Well...I didn't win per se but I did get a third place ribbon and my second image was considered for a ribbon in the recent Foothills Camera Club "Animal Portaiture" print competition. There was some fantastic images and I think the lowest score I saw was 20 (The scale goes up to 30).

The other remarkable thing was that the image I believed was better was the one that didn't get the ribbon. Both were well received during the viewing at the end of the meeting though so I guess I can't complain.

The gosling I took in early May and I believe he was only three days old at the time. His mom put her head in the water for a drink or a bite so this little guy thought he would try it. He ended up going end over end in a continuous somersault. Eventually he dove under and swam back up to the surface obviously disoriented. In the shot just before this one, a water droplet under his eye looked like a tear-drop and was soooo cute! Unfortunately my depth of field was a little shallow and his beak wasn't as sharp as I would have liked.

The colt I found during an impromptu trip to Spruce Meadows in June. One of the staff told me that the pastures across the road from the complex had a lot of babies to photograph. They were really quite inquisitive which was cool but also problematic. They always came right up the fence so I had to shoot around posts and wire etc. Still it was a fun afternoon of shooting.

Lightroom 2

2008-10-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

So over the past few days, I've been using Lightroom 2. It manages my photos and allows me to edit them non-destructively. Yes I had to say that emphatically and it even bears repeating. The changes you make in Lightroom are non-destructive. All of your changes are stored in a side-car file. (i.e a separate file that's linked to the original). This file contains all of the "instructions" for the edits you've done. If you aren't happy with them? Hit the reset button. Poof. All gone. Back to square one. You can also go through and selectively undo steps if need be.

I wouldn't call myself a guru yet but what I have seen so far has been impressive. The spot remover is probably my favorite gizmo. Select the tool, size your cursor to the size of the dot and click. Lightroom hunts around for an appropriate spot to match and fills in the blank. Its that easy. I was stumped temporarily when I came across a hair or some kind of fibre in some of my shots. In those cases I just used multiple points.

Black and white conversions are done nicely and you can fine tune them easily. There is a preset to do either high-contrast black & white or low-contrast black & white. From there you can go into the grey scale menu and adjust sliders for 7 different hues (Red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, and magenta).

Dodging and burning seem more intuitive for me in this program. I don't think its any harder than other programs but the way the controls are setup just seem to work for photography better. e.g. You adjust the exposure by the amount you want and the value is measured in stops.

There is a myriad of options and features I haven't even scratched the surface on such as keywording and ratings. I imagine you can do selective desaturation but I haven't figured out how yet. I also haven't figured out how to export pictures to JPG with any degree of control. I dumped out about 37 Jpgs in high quality full size. I'd like to be able to control the file size and output size as well however.

Overall however, my experience has been favorable and I am certainly contemplating making Lightroom my tool of choice.

I am sooooo happy!

2008-10-21T21:59:00.001-07:00

Tonight, the Foothills Camera Club showed the results of the Digital Architecture Competition. My image, "Black and White - A Study in Architecture", managed to earn me second place! So not only is it a personal best in DP Challenge it also got me my first blue ribbon. My other image, "Shell Tower" received a score of 21 points. The judges seemed to be pretty tough with a lot of images scoring 15 points and very few above 20.

Calgary Digital Photo Expo 2008

2008-10-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the first annual Calgary Digital Photo Expo. I was supposed to volunteer at 3:30 pm at the Foothills Camera Club booth but I came early to look around. As such I was drafted to volunteer early so I didn't quite get to spend as much time at the exhibits that I would have liked. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the whole day.

I managed to talk to Darwin Wiggett briefly during his book signing. We talked a bit about Panther Falls a bit and we agreed that as cool as it is its a dangerous place thats not for everyone. It would certainly not be appropriate for a bus load of tourists.

I was able to take in his first presentation Beyond the Documentary - How to Create Mood and Emotion in Landscape Photography. In the presentation he explains that as hard as we try to document what we see in a landscape we aren't able to. Each photograph we take a snapshot of the reality that we perceive. Using various photographic techniques, we are able to express our vision of what we see in a scene.

I was also able to take in a short presentation on Nikon NX 2. It was technically supposed to be on workflow but it seemed to me just a plug for the program. Still, it was interesting to hear about other software that I haven't tried out yet.

The rest of the afternoon I helped out, as planned, at the Foothills Camera Club booth. If half the people we talked to show up...well..there will be a lot of new faces in the seats on Tuesday night.

Oneexposure - 1x.com

2008-10-01T21:18:00.000-07:00

While I was wandering the forums of DP Challenge, I came across a link to http://1x.com/
It sounds like a different photographic community.

From their FAQ

What is Onexposure?

Onexposure is an artsproject and a photo community with a difference. Take the most talented photobloggers of the web and other famous photographers as well as many serious amateurs, select their best work and put it all in one place - there you have Onexposure. Everyone is welcome to contribute, but every photo is screened, which means it has to be approved by an editor before being published. Onexposure is like a constantly evolving high class photo gallery with new art every day. We don't judge over good and bad, or over art, we merely decide if a photo fits into our gallery or not. Like in an arts gallery, you can buy many of the photos as prints and hang them on your wall. Onexposure also offers a premium membership, which includes unlimited image hosting and your own professional homepage with complete control over what photos to display.We created Onexposure because we missed an online collection of only high quality photos, we thought the photo critique was too brief on other sites and we wanted a site that was elegant and easy to navigate. Our mission is to be a source of inspiration and ultimately finding the sublime together, but if the latter doesn't succeed we believe that everyone will develop as photographers and make some friends along the journey.

Fall shots

2008-10-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

Autumn is upon us. The leaves are turning colors. The ducks and geese are eating as much as they can in preparation for their flight south. The days are shorter and the nights are cooler. All of this leads me to ask: "Why am I not out there taking pictures?". Actually I have been.

Abstract Photographs. Now with more feeling!

2008-09-27T22:40:00.001-07:00

One of the current challenges on dpchallenge is "Abstract Emotion". It sounds simple enough however abstracts are hard to create effectively - at least ones that speak to the general public. However, with this topic in mind I played with creating some really funky abstracts and hoped for the emotional appeal.
These images were all created using the same shooting technique but used different subjects and different editing. The technique was basically zoom burst (zooming while shooting) and twisting the camera. I found the effect to be almost whimsical and airy and light in the first image and almost rather dark and ominous in the third one.
In the first shot I was shooting fall leaves with the technique. The third shot was of a flower bed. The second was also fall leaves but with more sky involved.
Personally I really like the pastel colors in the first one. It almost feels like a painting to me. The second and the third one especially, feel darker and as such aren't quite as enjoyable to view. (Kinda like looking at a train wreck. Not nice but you can't take your eyes away).

iStock Photo - MY FIRST ACCEPTED SUBMISSION!!!

2008-09-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

Goodness gracious! I submitted a couple of shots to iStockPhoto.com and they were accepted. I tried a couple of shots a few months ago and they were rejected. Not that they were terrible shots, they just had some problems that made them not useful for stock. (One had a trademark on the subject, the other I had some editing artifacts)

To view my iStock profile go here.

Selling and Publishing your photos

2008-09-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

The extent of my photography sales is pretty limited. I've donated a couple of pictures to the Progressive Alternative Society of Calgary (PASC) for their annual art auction. Certainly its satisfying and helps me put a value on the work that I do. However, it would also be nice to have an opportunity to sell my photos and keep the money.

A podcast on This Week in Photography spoke about the whole subject of selling and publishing your photos. (http://twipphoto.com/archives/524). A lot of good information and sadly some of it was somewhat disheartening.

The average photographer in the US makes $26K a year.

Professional photographers actually spend only about 15% of there time shooting.

The other 85% is spent "smiling and dialing" (i.e. selling and making contacts).

The expectation for professional photographers is that there work is great. In fact, the ability to sell your work is more important than your ability to shoot to it.

And the five steps to getting published? 1. Show the work. 2. Show the work. 3. Show the work. 4. Show the work. What’s #5? Yep. Show the work.

Singh-Ray Graduated Neutral Density Filters - How the heck do you use em?

2008-09-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

The concept of using a graduated neutral density filter (i.e a grad filter) seems pretty straight forward or at least why you would use one. Say you have a beautiful landscape scene before you however the sky is quite bright relative to the foreground. If you expose for the sky, the foreground will be dark. If you expose for the foreground, the sky will be blown out. A grad filter allows you to darken the sky thereby allowing you to get the whole scene exposed well.

The problem, however, is that you don't just slap the filter on to the front of the camera and expect to get good results. Here is an article on how to properly use a grad filter (and why with more information than my tidbit contains).