It's All About the Light

I haven't written anything in the last little while because quite frankly, I've had nothing to say.  Sure, I've been clicking away, but if I'm not overly thrilled with the shot or the the story that goes with it, I'll keep it to myself. The past few weeks have been busy with a few things.. Photos, biking, learning new things, travel and continuing with my photo course through NYIP.

The travel has taken me to a couple of campgrounds where I've had some chances to shoot things like bugs at the macro level such as this little fella.

Upon waking up one morning, I discovered this little guy had made a web covering part of the opening to the tent.  I went to the car to retrieve my camera and miraculously he stayed put.  He was even good enough to let me set up inside the tent on the tripod and get within a couple of inches.  I'm not 100% thrilled with it as it is slightly out of focus.  I'm going to lazily blame it on the tiny breeze that was making his web sway.  I submitted this shot as part of my photo assignment.  Remember, you can click on the shots to see a larger size.  If you dare.

During a relatively short hike through a marsh, I kicked myself for not having my macro lens with me.  I was really hoping to spot a dragonfly who would cooperate enough to allow a shot, but that just wasn't meant to be.  Instead, I had my 24-105 on when this little guy presented himself, sunning on a hand rail.  This lens is a great go-to lens, but isn't the best for super close-ups.  This hornet/wasp/whatever did let me get to my minimum focus distance without killing me though.  And because of that, I had shot #2 for my assignment.  I'm pretty happy with the shot.

My third shot here was a little fun with some bubbles.  Sure, it may be made with 3 year olds in mind, but they look nice on film too, and it became the subject for my third shot of my assignment.

I won't bother going into what the purpose was of each shot, I'm really only sharing them because for their own reasons, I think they turned out pretty well.  As I've said in the past, I really don't have much of a creative side, so it's my attempt to change that.

Now, what would a summer trip be without some shots of the night sky.  I think this one is my new favourite shot of The Milky Way.  The angle of the trees is the same as our galaxy and the distant clouds make me think of the Northern Lights so I think it comes together pretty nicely.

While shooting this, a nice gentleman was kind enough to give me some pretty decent instructions on how to find the Andromeda Galaxy in the night sky.  This is one of my next high-priority assignments for myself.  I've made some initial attempts to capture it but they have been less than impressive - certainly nothing I would publish here, but I'm learning more about deep space photography, so expect to see it soon.

Now, as I was capturing the Milky Way with a big smile on my face, I should mention that the Perseid meteor shower was going on at the same time.  While I was clicking away and making adjustments here and there, I was turning around to take in the "shooting stars".  I had seen a few in the past, but this night was really something special.

This shot, if you zoom in very close, there are 3 contained in one 20 second exposure.  That's pretty thrilling to my ever-growing nerd side.  I only hope that there are more clear skies ahead that might lend themselves to more of these streaks of light.

Now, as a couple of weeks passed by, a thought crossed my mind about a shot I took that I felt could have been better.  This path is along a trail that circles Island Lake in Orangeville, Ontario.  In a previous blog, I took a shot of this path while it was snow-covered with a mild mist obscuring the end and I really liked it.  But I think what this path is to me, is a place of mystery.  This mystery will always be unsolved, and best read in a more black-and-white page.

I'm not sure I have it perfect yet, so it won't be going on my wall but I see that there is still a little more potential left to pull out.  I'll be back.

This brings me to another trip - this time to Manitoulin Island, Ontario, otherwise known as Cottage Country.  I don't have a lot to say about this shot.  I've already revealed in another writing that I have an unhealthy fascination with waterfalls, so this one just keeps proving my need to stop and see.  Sadly, I don't remember what this one is called, but when I look at it, I feel sad that man has felt the need to put a bridge directly over what could have been a beautiful scene.

It's the same sadness I felt when I found out that the pyramids in Egypt are almost entirely built up nearby with businesses, residences and infrastructure.  Sad.

Yes, you'er right, this one has been "Shopped".  Great eye, Detective.  Well, you know what? Virtually all shots on the web have been Photoshop'd.  It's for a greater good.  It makes an alright shot a memorable one.

I was extremely happy with this shot untouched, but with the milky screening and white vignetting, this one gives a certain feeling to my eye and makes me quite happy to share it.  I had taken other long-exposure shots where the water was turned into milky streaks, but I prefer this one much more.

This shot was particularly lucky in that there was a constant flow of people hiking down the stairs from this perch, behind the falls, and ultimately into the water.

Hopefully the next blog will have as many shots, and a slightly more interesting story :)

Printing

So the photography thing is taking more of a hold. With the shoulders being questionable and a foot that is on the mend (finally!!) I've really needed something to fill time that was spent in the gym before (and will be again soon!).  With summer here, I'm biking lots on the road and on the trails, and spending lots of time on the water in my outrigger, photography gives me an excuse to go to other places.

For anyone who has been in my house, you know that I am not one to put stuff on my walls.  It seems weird to buy someone else's stuff and hang it.  I'm clearly in a very tiny minority on that of course.  I've always been weird - I can say it.  I always figured that it would be much nicer to hang my own stuff.

Over the past few months I've finally got some pictures that I'm truly happy with and have taken the step of printing them.

This first shot will be submitted to a contest in the very near future.  I won't go into details, but I wanted to show it because it is the first shot I've had printed.  It's a scary thing sending a shot to someone to print it.  Will it look the same from my screen as it will in the store? On paper?  If it doesn't, it's pretty pointless.

To make sure I get the results I want, I bought something called "Spyder 4".  It is a monitor calibration tool that hangs on your screen and analyzes the colour and brightness as it goes through it's own diagnostic patterns.  With it, it helps you adjust so that you're seeing what it truly is, and when you're in Photoshop, you know exactly what tweaks need to be made.  Through this, I was fairly confident when I printed to paper that it would look how I wanted.

I chose Walmart to do my first ones, and I have to admit, I'm pretty happy.  Paper looked just fine and made me want to take it to the next level.  Canvas.  It's a nail-biting experience to do that though.  It's expensive.  If it's wrong, you have yourself a mounted piece of garbage for pickup on Wednesday morning.  Well, as luck would have it, it came out just fine as well, and this one is now the first shot I've hung on my wall.  I added the black framing around it because of the wrap-around that is done . I didn't want to lose more than I wanted to.

This shot I just finally finished this morning and it is now waiting in the queue for printing.  I don't remember if I've blogged about this morning or not, but when I got the series of shots that included this one, I knew I was done at this location.  I was blown away when I saw it, and thrilled that I captured it.  I only hope it looks nice when it's on the wall as well.

Printing has given me incentive to learn a couple of Photoshop finishing techniques as well.

Usually when I edit shots, it's to bring up (or down) the exposure level, crop, perhaps remove an undesirable duck, re size and then post here or on Facebook.  Pretty quick, pretty easy.  Re-sizing down will take care of plenty of imperfections.  If focus wasn't quite right, re-sizing down will make it look very sharp.  Printing it at 30" x 20" though, you really have to get it right.  I've now learned how to selectively add/remove some blur, remove chromatic aberration and a few other things.  It doesn't mean I have any skill compared to the real editors, but I can take a shot that was an "almost" and turn it into a "got it!".

My current project is still on the go as I eluded to in a previous post.  More to come on that later.

PS If you're wondering why on earth I put the watermark where I did, it is to ensure that when the wrapping is done on the image, that my name shows up on the canvas in the very bottom right :)

Nothing to See Here

You just had to click didn't you? Well, now you're going to have to read this and see nothing.  That's right.  Nothing. I've been in a slight rut lately when it comes to blogging.  Sure, I've taken some shots.  Some I liked, some, not so much.  My equipment inventory has exploded lately as well, but sadly the weather hasn't cooperated to get something really interesting or eye-pleasing.

Fine, I'll show some pics.  But they're not going to be great.

Normally I like any blog I write to stick to a particular point or story, but I find that my shots have been so sporadic or really didn't have any story behind them that I haven't written a thing.  So I'll break that rule this time and share some random shots and you can either like them or not.

I'm pretty happy that the green space behind me has finally started to bud, bloom and show real, green signs of life.  The maple trees behind me are young and healthy and thanks to running my sprinkler a bit, produced this shot.

This little fella has been a frequent visitor.  Early in the year I picked up a bird feeder at the Royal Botanical Garden (supporting them more than anything).  Thanks to a healthy dose of bird seed, I have frequent visitors including an elusive cardinal who is very skittish.  So much so that he doesn't allow any photos.  But I'll get him.  Oh yes.  He will be mine.

Relaxing in my lawn chair with the t2i in hand with a 500mm lens, I hard a lot of noise in the air.  A sea gull was following a hawk with dinner in his talons and blood on his face.  I suppose he was hoping that there might be some discussion about sharing, or perhaps leftovers, but I didn't get to find out.  They both flew off but not before I managed to get a couple of shots.  Sadly I wasn't quite prepared for it and didn't get a particularly sharp shot.  But it's a start.  Truth be told, I wish I'd had 30 extra seconds to get it right, but.  Oh well.

Visiting my sister, bro in law and the little critters (who are taller than me now (*@$%(*$!!) we took a little walk to the back of the farm and my sister showed me this bed of ferns.  Very prehistoric looking to see them growing wildly.  I do see them occasionally when I'm mountain biking and I love how vibrantly green they are.  Makes me wish I could take my camera with me when I'm on the trails, but sadly, I'm in no hurry to see it smashed to pieces so I take home only memories unless I happen to have packed my Nikon point-and-shoot.

Nearby the ferns are a collection of trilliums (the official flower of the Province of Ontario).  I wish I could pick some and grow them at home, but... something about a law or something that prevents that from happening.  Not that I'm always the most by-the-book kinda guy.  Maybe I'll visit again with a bucket and shovel... Mwahahaha!

Oh, this is probably a good time to mention that I'm playing with Watermarks.  Not that my pics are "all that" or anything, but every now and then, we all come up with that one pic we're proud of and would prefer to not have someone else take credit for it.  I don't know that I've come up with that shot yet, but when I do, I'll have that watermark ready for it!  Nothing huge, just a plug for the site.  I wish I was a bit more creative to come up with a logo but... oh well.  Maybe someone will read this stuff some day and be interested in creating one.  Hint?

What can I say about this cat.  Who could look at Patches' face and not love those markings.  It reminds me a bit of Braveheart.  I wish I'd got it just a bit sharper but, that's the breaks.  I wonder if Parkinson's  is in my future.  I never seem to get that "tack sharp" image I'm looking for.  Frustrating.  Regardless, he's a great cat to work with.  Very calm, doesn't seem to mind a lens in his face and no sudden movements.  Good boy!! (or girl??)

You can't shoot one cat without shooting the other.  This one was pure luck and probably my favourite of this blog.  They say a good photo should be of something interesting.  A cat about to pounce on an offending dandelion hits the mark for me.  It may not be the best shot in the world either.  I think what I like most is the demonstration of how aperture works.  A small patch of grass is crisp and sharp and the rest is blurred.  Cool stuff to a geek like me.

Finally, the moon.

Remember the inventory I mentioned above? The first thing I picked up was a new camera body.  A giant leap forward as it is a full-frame camera which really opens up a new world for me as far as printing goes, so I'm really excited about that.  I need to revisit some places to re-take some shots so I can frame them for myself.  My walls are bare anyway, so it's a good learning thing with a reward for me!

The second thing I picked up was a 2x extender for my sigma 150-500mm lens.  This effectively turns the lens into 1000mm of zoomy goodness.

It does come with some drawbacks though.  Auto focus? No, it's gone now.  Aperture? Nope, lose two stops.  Those might be of  huge importance to anyone else, but fortunately for me, my goal is mostly for shooting the skies.  Perhaps the moon!

The sky was pretty hazy last night but this shot didn't turn out too badly.  Sharpness isn't perfect but I'm hoping that on a clearer sky... Well, we'll see.

If we can get a cloudless night soon, I'm dying to say hello to Saturn and see if it turns out better.  You'll have to stay tuned to a future blog post to find that one out.

Thanks for reading.

Devil's Punch Bowl

Seriously - You can't have someone tell you of a place with a name like that, and not be intrigued.

You can? Okay, you're dead to me.  Leave my site and never come back.

Oh! You're just kidding.  I thought so.  Alright, fine.  Stay.

So on with the story.  I'd been interested in finding this place for a month or so after my last adventure into waterfalls of Hamilton, Ontario.  A friend at work mentioned this spot and I knew after a Google search that it was just a matter of time.  That time came a couple of days ago.  It was late afternoon, a little cloudy - Perfect.  I wasn't prepared for the site when I got there though.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but this place is massive.  I can only imagine what it was hundreds of years ago! Anyway, the odd thing about this is, I've ridden on my motorcycle past this place probably 30 times and never knew it was there.  That's probably because I was far more focused on the roads and the turns coming up than on being aware of the scenery around me.  Pretty sad when I think of it!

This shot is a panorama of the falls.  It is 5 shots glued together. I'll do it again (perhaps after a night shift) when the sun is just coming up.  When it comes to water falls, I like at least a 2 or 3 second exposure to get the water just right but in late afternoon, it just isn't going to happen without being way over exposed.  (Mental note, buy a ND filter!)

A few feet away is another cliff that overlooks the city of Hamilton and is really quite breathtaking (even if it is Hamilton ;) ).  I wasn't about to do any pictures there.  It was freezing and the wind was howling.  Even with the protection of the surrounding walls, you can see how much the water was being pushed here.

On heading back from this short adventure, I couldn't help but notice the sky was looking a bit angry to the south.  This shot shows an extremely localized snowstorm.

I couldn't help but stop the car and take a few shots.  Not much I can say about this that the picture doesn't say for itself.

More to come when I find something entertaining to shoot!

Friday Morning Hike

My job has me working rotating shifts which include days, afternoons and nights.  This time around I decided to take my final night shift off, and as luck would have it, after finishing my final shift, I slept the entire day instead of getting up a bit early.  While I felt awake and refreshed, it meant I was going to have a rough time switching back to a normal sleep pattern.  I crawled into bed around midnight, and slept like the dead until about 3 or 3:30am when I swear I heard my phone buzz.  This irreversibly woke me up. The night before I had found myself on Youtube and had seen some waterfalls near home.  Near being a relative term of course.  By 4:30am I decided today would be a good day to shoot a couple that were close at first light.

Little did I know that my shoot would result in the money-shot right out of the gate, and the following hike would be little more than an adventure in carrying gear in difficult conditions.  It turns out that right at the parking lot, maybe 50 feet away is a lookout perch.  A few moments setting up the tripod, affixing my 200mm lens and I had my shot, and I'm pretty happy with it.  Sure it would be much more beautiful on a summer morning, but I like the cool tone of this shot of Albion Falls.

From here I headed south towards what is known as Buttermilk Falls.  This waterfall is located maybe 1km away so I packed up my gear, shouldered my tripod and bag and set out down a snow and ice-covered winding path through the tree-lined path.  Numerous paw prints could also be seen along the way which made clear that this area was popular for the view.  It's unfortunate then that when I did reach this waterfall, it was little more than a trickle of water, no doubt affected by the time of year.  No shots taken.  Following the map, I made my way along the trail to the end where I see a note indicating a crossing of the creek roughly 80 feet below where I standing.

Back and forth I went trying to locate a path down to the waters edge where there was a bridge crossing, but I gave up.  It was at this point where I found a spot that I thought would be safe to make the trip down.  Tentatively I inched my way towards the edge and carefully went step by step, lowering myself down, holding a rock here, a branch there, anything that seemed solid enough to hold me.  I don't mind admitting I was nervous on the wet, snow-covered ground as I made each step lower.  When I did reach a point where I could safely unpack my camera again, I felt it was necessary to take a picture of what I had just decended.  The wide angle lens doesn't really do it justice, but I can assure you, it was not an easy trek.  With open hands, sure.  Not with gear!

Anyway, I finished my trek downward to the water and made my way along the stream to the bridge, eager to find this third waterfall.  I couldn't help take a couple of shots of the water below my feet.  Nothing particularly spectacular really, but there was something striking about standing down in this canyon and the calm water passing by.

Looking upstream was just as nice.  Again, nothing particularly spectacular, but calming just the same.

The rest of the hike was fairly uneventful.  I never did find that third fall.  The climb back up the icy hill was enough to remind me that I was probably lucky to have not taken any falls yet.  The climb was fairly steep and footing was unsure at best, so I decided to err on the side of caution and let the third one go.

Unfortunately as I made my way closer to my car again, and from the other side of Albion Falls, I set up my camera to get a shot from the other side.  I didn't notice at the time, but a couple of drops of snow/rain landed on my lens, ruining the few photos I did take.  A short walk to my car later, and a quick shot through my iphone, and my morning was finished.

My hope is that while I enjoy my week off, I will have clear skies to shoot, and my next blog entry will contain something along those lines.  Stay tuned!

Light Art

I had my first glance at light art, light painting, whatever you'd like to call it at a photography course recently. The premise is to use a light source and a long exposure to create designs by moving it around in patterns or anything eye-pleasing.

That in mind, I experimented with it for fun in my living room after the sun went down and came up with this.  Nothing fantastic, and in fact, quite crude, but for me, when I saw that it was rather simple to do, I have to admit I was pretty excited.  A little time in Photoshop to make the light bulb tungsten colour more pleasing, and I think I may have become hooked on yet another facet of photography.  For anyone who may not know, the camera is on a tripod, an exposure time of 10 seconds, and I (wearing black) stand directly in front of the lens.  With a remote in my hand to activate the shutter, I turn on a pair of flashlights which are hanging from a couple of 2 foot black wires.  The flashlights are swung side to side in front of me in circles, the shutter activated and I repeat it until the shutter closes.  That forms the image you see.  As the shutter is only detecting the light from the flashlight, anywhere the bulb is in the frame is recorded.  What a concept.

Now that's all well and good and very simple, but quite by accident, and in doing more research, I stumbled on this guy who has taken light art to an exciting level.  Please check out his site and look at some of his photos.  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherrenfrophotography) I don't know of a place where I could try some of these things without the fire department becoming involved, but when I do, you can bet I will.

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely places.  Google, YouTube, and even just a simple course can really open your eyes to new things, and I'm pretty excited about it.