Raise your Hand

"May you live in interesting times"

I've long known that this is translated from an ancient Chinese proverb... or was it? Not according to Wikipedia. Theirs, and other pages make interesting reading.

Donald Trump is the President of the United States. I don't need to comment on the antics of this "stable genius". The White House was quoted today that they would be funding the training of teachers to carry and presumably use firearms. Raise your hands if you think there is no room for firearms in schools. Raise your hands if you think the way to mitigate that is to take the guns away from the bad guys instead of creating a wild west atmosphere where children live. His levy of import duties on steel and aluminium was a transparent ploy to pressure the NAFTA negotiations. I won't even mention "Stormy Daniels"...

And yesterday, the Ontario Conservative Party elected the (alleged) former drug dealer Doug Ford as their leader. Conceivably he could become Premier in the next election. He publicly berated the father of an autistic child because a clinic for challenged kids supposedly degraded his precious Etobicoke community. Shame! Reminds me of Trump mocking a handicapped reporter. Supposedly a "man of the people", he wants to roll back the minimum wage increase, stop sex education in schools and go back to back alley coat hanger abortions. Son of Trump. I hear his catchphrase is "Make Ontario Great Again (one line at a time)". Raise your hands if you think something is wrong here.

And then I read about Elon Musk and his motivation for driving SpaceX. Makes up for the other two! Manned mission to Mars by 2024. I hope I live long enough to see it.

By the way, the spaceship they're working on is known as the "BFR". Publicly, "Big Falcon Rocket". Raise your hand if you think Musk had another word starting with "F" in mind when he named it.

It's March 14, 2018 as I write this. I just learned of the death of Dr. Stephen Hawking. He was an inspiration: He will be remembered not only for his incredible mind but also for his humour and courage.  I wish I could have met him.     

Cataclysmic weather events are taking place around the globe. From Earthquakes to wildfires, hurricanes, cyclones, melting ice caps, all driven by the climate change that Mr. Trump and Mr. Ford deny because they're driven by the almighty dollar.

Interesting times, indeed.

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Is it just me?

Some people are really full of themselves.

Someone (I won't name names) sent me a friend request on Facebook. I looked at her page quickly, we have several mutual friends, she's a legitimate photographer, so I accepted. Suddenly I discovered there's more to it.

"If you want to see my work, you have to join this group. Oh, and the only person that is allowed to post anything on this group is me, that's the only way you can see my work." "Oh, and here's a picture I took. You can look at it, but you can't touch it. You are absolutely forbidden from using this picture, even as source material for a painting or a sketch".

Tell you what, lady: I don't want to join your secret group, I see from the few thumbnails you've posted you're a reasonably good photographer but there are thousands of others out there who don't have your kind of attitude. And as far as I can tell, nobody's ever heard of her. Get off your high horse. Where's the "unfriend" button? Oh, there it is...

What pisses me off is that in my opinion, an artist can use ANYTHING as inspiration. To suggest that your work is so precious that you [attempt to] forbid anyone from using it for that is ridiculous. To quote Pablo Picasso (ok, he was probably not speaking English so technically it's not a 'quote'...) "Good artists copy, great artists steal". Ideas. Inspiration. Not works.

If someone asked me if they can use one of my images as source material or inspiration, I'd be honoured. If someone wants one of my images to use for non-commercial purposes, I'd be delighted. In fact, as I said last time, under Creative Commons, you don't even have to ask.

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My father was a smart man.

He's been gone for almost 8 years now, it feels like yesterday. When he was in hospital before he died, I asked if he wanted anything. He said, "Female Dark Chocolate". Huh? What's that? "No Nuts".

My mom was sharp too. She died at 95 a little over a year ago. She said, "Bob (dad) and I will be together in heaven soon. But he's younger than me now: I wonder if he found a girlfriend up there. If he did, I'll kill her!" 

But he said more poignant and less humorous things which I understand more as I get older. One was, "Everything hurts. Except the stuff that doesn't work any more". OK, there is a touch of humour in that, but it's true!

Then there's this one: "I'd rather move when I can, instead of when I have to". This before he and my mom moved from their apartment in Montreal to the Thorne Mills on Steeles senior home. Anyone who has experienced the hard times when elderly parents become ill and have to move into assisted living, closing their homes and selling their belongings, getting rid of the car, all when they are severely ill or perhaps after their deaths, know what I'm talking about. I don't want to impose that on my children.

It's a lot easier to make that step when you choose to instead of when you must.

With that in mind... I've listed my house for sale and I will be moving back to the city. I plan to rent a nice apartment, hopefully in suburban Thornhill or thereabouts, where I'm closer to services such as transit and hospitals, and to a network of friends (not that I don't have friends up here!). My dad also said, "this is the last move we're going to make". I'm NOT saying that.

 As I write this, the property is listed with Re/Max Minden, here's the link to the MLS listing. If you know anyone who wants to live or cottage in God's Country, pass it on! Hurry! I'm told it's a seller's market up here and it's going to go fast. And the crazy Toronto prices haven't hit here yet. Just sayin'...

I'm ambivalent. I have to come to terms with the things I'm going to be giving up. I love winters here. I love my barbecue. Sitting in front of the fire. Crisp, clean air. Plowing the snow is fun, mowing the lawn, not so much. Going out in my boat. Swimming off my dock. Shooting sunrises and sunsets and wildlife and the proximity to Algonquin Park and Carden Plain. The quiet. I won't have all of those things in apartment living, but there will be other advantages. And I plan to travel, starting with two whole months in Newfoundland this summer. A new phase.

Here's a couple of quick iPhone shots of what my living room looks like now. Hmmm. Maybe I'll stay! Nah... If you think it was easy decluttering it, guess again! And keeping it like this for showings? Another challenge. 

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Online Portfolio
(in the works!)

A few years ago I terminated my SmugMug online gallery because I was paying a bunch of money for really nothing — I don't sell online and frankly, I wasn't using it. But I feel the need to have someplace to show my work. I started a site at PixieSet but they're really geared towards wedding and other event photographers: it was a huge workaround to even get captions to show on my pictures (what I had to do was to created a bordered print with a caption. I did write a Photoshop Action to do that but it took about 10 minutes for each image, 'way too much work!). Their big advantage was the price: even if you doubled it, it still was free! And in the back of my mind was the ability to create an online store for people to buy prints. I might still use them for that purpose.

Here's a typical example. I run the Action to create the mat, the drop shadow, and set up the signature and the caption, both of which I need to insert manually. Then, like in this case, I edit in a new background colour before saving it back. The Creative Commons logos are added by the export routine in Lightroom.

Adobe includes an app called "Portfolio" in the CC subscription for no additional cost. So I started working with that and slowly, I'm creating an online gallery. It's not ready to share yet but I'll let you know when it is. I mention it here because if you're a CC subscriber, you too can have a free online gallery. It's a little confusing to get started but it does make sense and gets easier as you go along.

watch this space...

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Newfoundland trip

Not much new to report except we've firmed up some reservations since I last posted (scroll down to the previous blog posting for details). I did find and reserve a spot in an artist's retreat called "Coffee Cove" that not too many people visit up in the North Central part of the Rock, where I found a 2-bedroom seaside home to rent for the last week of July, the second room is empty as I write this. It would be great to have company there... check it out!

Seascapes and Icebergs off Twillingate 

Basically I have space for visitors from the middle of July onward, in Twillingate, Coffee Cove, Bonavista and Torbay (St. John's area). Huge savings on accommodations if you're considering a visit, although you still have to get there... (mid-week airfares are generally half-price). Contact me!

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Picture time!

With a lot of my attention going to readying my house for sale, working out my Newfoundland trip and getting through the early spring "ugly" season, I really haven't been shooting many pictures. However I need to get out of the house (especially when they're working on it and I'm underfoot) so I've been to Algonquin Park a couple of times and as I write this, Trailer-Hitch Larry is picking me up at 7am for another jaunt up there. Hoping for moose this time... it's been a long dry spell.

(I wrote this a week ago. Since then, I've been back to the Park, spending a couple of days there with Dr. Ron and Rob)

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The new banner photo for this blog was taken at Mew Lake in Algonquin Park this week.

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So without further ado...

Let's start with our perennial favourite, the Pine Marten. So cute, peeking out at us from behind a tree! 

A ruffed grouse, strutting his stuff in the Mew Lake forest. Guess who spotted him? Right. Thanks, Larry!

 

Crossbills are amazing. You have to wonder how they manage with those warped bills. The yellow one is a female, the red one a male. You can click on a picture to blow it up.

When I was up with Ron and Rob we found these beavers (there was a family of 5 of them!). I'm not a high speed shooter — they each took over 1000 pictures of this guy while I shot 20 or 30. I can't imaging editing through that many pictures! I kind of like this shot! 

When you don't find critters to photograph, you shoot landscapes! Here are a few to end the day.

These pictures were all taken around the same place, Costello Creek on Opeongo Road.  Treatment is quite similar on all of them — first of all, they're all merged pano's because I was shooting with the D5500 and the 17mm lens wasn't wide enough with the cropped sensor. And I finished them all in Topaz Studio, with various impressions presets.

Until next time!

— 30 —

Temptation!

...musings

Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

Michael at Red Umbrella Inn across the road from me just got a brand new drone. He was showing it to me then the phone rang and he handed me the controller. Argh!

Damn. You can even tell it where "home" is and it will land itself right there. You can set it to follow you as you drive or ride in a boat. It climbs up to 150m in a few seconds. We couldn't even find it in the sky up there. Take hands off the controls and it hovers motionless. You can rotate it. You can tilt it. You can look through its camera on your iPhone. You can send it to map coordinates or just to a spot you choose on a map.

Thou shalt not give in to temptation. Thou shalt not give in. Thou shalt not...

I didn't. I handed it back to him two minutes later.

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Trends?

It's interesting that every now and then something pops up in the photography community – especially on Facebook – as a trend. I suppose that has something to do with the groups you hang out in, but lately, everywhere I look, people are posting images of the Milky Way.

Some of them are quite spectacular, or they would be if I wasn't seeing dozens, if not hundreds of them. Digitally enhanced pictures of the galaxy with a well-composed, dramatically lit foreground. They set a standard that I sometimes can't reach, since I don't have desert rock arches or fabulous sea formations in range, but they do set some goals.

Hopefully the Weather Gods will cooperate and we'll be able to shoot some star fields up in Wawa during the Gales of November workshops! (Still some space on the second weekend! Visit www.photography.to/gales for details).

Other trends? 360° SmartPhone shots. Long exposure shots of waterfalls and rapids. Fox kits in Algonquin Park and elsewhere. Focus stacked macro shots. And in my case (I'm guilty as well), images altered with plugins like Topaz Impression.

Back to the basics

It's time to get back to the basics. That's really easy to say — when going off in the artistic direction is as easy as clicking the mouse. But it's that time. I'm going to try!

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Last week, I spent a pleasant couple of days with Bruce Peters, a Mississauga photographer friend of Hilary McNeil-Smith. We shot various venues around the Highlands. His presence inspired me to get out and take a fresh look at some places and times I've shot before. 

One of those places was Horseshoe Lake at Dawn. We didn't get a spectacular morning, but the mist on the water and the subtle pastels of the sky were interesting as usual. Here are three images before, during and after sunrise.  I'm never disappointed when I make the effort to get out early!

We visited another spot I like, where Highway 118 crosses Boshkong Lake. I gave into my desire to turn a photo into a piece of digital art...

Topaz Impression 2, Impasto preset (modified). I'm going to try to reproduce this in oil on canvas. Wish me luck! 

We went to some other spots I favour, including, of course, the Minden Wildwater. Then we went to Ritchie Falls. In both places, I mounted my 10-stop ND filter to smooth the water...

Here again I admit to doing a "little" post-processing!

The following morning my attraction to basic landscapes continued and I got up early to shoot this image behind the Red Umbrella Inn. I had actually shot a series of brackets intending to merge them as an HDR but I liked this one on its own, so there's very little processing done here. 

Back to the basics.

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The Highland Yard, 2016 edition

I don't know the actual count, but I'm guessing there were about 150 participants at most, although it looked like there were as many as 50 runners in the 10K race. And that total included a whole bunch of smaller kids in the 2K. Still, it was a nice event and there were some photo ops! I hoped to do some different shots from previous years... at the start, I shot the runners coming at me with a telephoto lens, hoping to catch some good body positions and bright colours. When they returned to the finish line, I shot two ways: wide angle shots from a low point of view, then I switched to a long telephoto to capture faces and expressions. Here are a few images.

 I'm addicted to Topaz Impression among others... here's an image from yesterday's Highland Yard 10K event. However the plugins are so popular now that using them might make you part of the crowd as opposed to showing your individuality. Sort of like Harley Davidson riders who want to be different but they all look alike! 

I want to use my Impression-generated images for inspiration. Maybe I can express myself that way. However, I suck at painting.Harvey has said to be patient... when I have 50 years painting experience, like I do in photography... only problem is, I'll be 120 years old! 

I was a little disappointed this year. With one or two exceptions, there was nobody who had dug deep to run this race. No sweat-stained shirts, no agonized expressions, no ecstatic arm-pumps crossing the finish line. Just a bunch of people jogging in, checking their iPhones or their wrist-mounted stopwatches for their times, smiling and waving to their friends. I'm not sure what that means. Anyway, here are some more images:

Another "artsy" shot that just spoke to me. Candidate for a book cover?

Old man's leg, young man's shoe! 

There were some exceptions. Someone who was proud of her achievement and wanted to shout it out to the world! 

Another exception. This guy crossed the finish line, took one step and collapsed. Race staff hydrated him and he was OK later. 

File this lady under "Perseverance". She should be on a poster with that as the title. She came into the finish line running, not walking and with a look of commitment as you can see. Kudo's, lady. I couldn't do what you did. 

 

I just thought these two ladies made interesting photo subjects. Remember, you can click on any picture to blow it up.

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Focus Pyramid

I bought this "Focus Pyramid" for the club and spent some time micro-aligning my lenses. The 70-200 Nikkor was the closest to zero and the Tamron 150-600 showed the most deviation. Interestingly it was different when I set it to 600mm and part way, around 400mm. I chose the 600mm alignment adjustment because that's the most critical point.

As you can see, you have to look very carefully to see where the lens is actually focusing. This shot was at a setting of +10 and I finally chose +8 as the setting (the range was -20 to +20). HHCC club members are welcome to borrow this focusing target to align their lenses. Contact Gord... 

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Speaking of exercise...

Dr. Ron & Rob K came up for the day on Friday with the intent of bicycling the Rail Trail from Haliburton to Kinmount. I dropped them off in Haliburton (nice car, Rob. Embarrassing how long it took me to figure out that you need to press the brake to start it!), then went home to take a nap while they sweated their way down the trail. When I picked them up about 3 hours later, I didn't join them in their celebratory milkshake/icecream because I felt I didn't deserve it!

The intrepid road warriors, leaving Haliburton. The weather cleared up and it was bright and sunny when I awoke from my nap a couple of hours later! 

Then we went back to Ritchie Falls. It's tough shooting in the bright sun, so I chose to do some abstracts using my neutral density filter. 

A tree at Ritchie Falls that will need a few more visits with camera and sketch pad in hand! 

So that ends another July in the Haliburton Highlands. Lots of stuff going on in August, so stay tuned. And if you're thinking of booking the Gales of November workshop (www.photography.to/gales) better get going, only 4 spots left!

PS: A whole blog post and not one bird picture! Don't get used to it!

— 30 —

I'm back after a few days off

I've taken a few days off. It's very rare for me to have not picked up my camera and I actually had an infrequent visit with my son, daughter-in-law and the grandkids, and left my camera in the car. I wanted to be a participant, not an observer. 

I also attended a wedding last Sunday and while I was interested in watching the technique of the photographer, I had, and still have, zero desire to shoot that kind of event. They did a lot of video and not so much stills, by the way. And they did a lot of shooting from the hip with wide angle lenses. Wonder how those will turn out?

It's not easy for me to be motivated to shoot at this time of year. As I sit here, my light tent is still sitting on my dining room table (it's a lot of effort figuring out how to fold it up!) from when I tested the ring light (below). It's grey and cold and damp outside... but I needed to put down the camera for a few days. 

These first two articles are directed at other photographers. If you're not one, bear with me and try not to be too bored!

Judging Photojournalism

As many of you know, I was honoured to be asked to judge the TCC International Salon, Photojournalism category. It was a great experience, very challenging and really educational at the same time.

We viewed well over 800 images (and re-viewed at least 100 of them!) some of which could easily have appeared in National Geographic. All of the judges instantly agreed on the single best image in the group and after choosing the top 15 images for awards, and about 24 others for honourable mentions, and eliminating 29 out of 100 tied candidates for "acceptances" our eyes were all going in circles.

The category "Photojournalism" is extremely broad. It comprises topical newsworthy images, plus documentary and sports images, making it really hard to stay consistent. So we had to score images captured at a massive and deadly fire somewhere in Southern Asia, cowboys riding bulls at a rodeo, football action, kayakers on white water shots of poverty-stricken families in a Yurt, dancers in flamboyantly coloured costumes and rock concerts! How do you do that and remain consistent?

The only negative was that the organizers had not vetted the images, so we were presented some which were not in-category, for which I felt I had to dock points (it was not our place to disqualify them). That was hard to do since some were really outstanding, just not on-topic!

In the end, out of all these images, there were about a dozen that had the "WOW" factor. So don't be discouraged (fellow club members who are afraid to enter competitions!), this was an INTERNATIONAL SALON! Even here there are images that stand out and some that don't. By the way, when you view 1000 images, there's no provision for comments... I had to bite my tongue a few times!

Two things came out of this as recommendations for you: (1) stay on topic. If the category is "action", for instance, a cow eating a flower isn't going to cut it. Neither is a kayaker paddling in the distance on calm water. And (2) Look at your images as if they were someone else's kids, not yours, as a stranger would see them. I know you think your cat is cute but not to someone who has never met the animal (or worse, hates cats).

I want to take this opportunity to thank the academy, my mother and all the little people... kidding, but I hope I get asked again.

Oh, and one more thing: there's a selfish aspect to being a judge: you get exposed to some outstanding images, you can clearly see the ones that have that "WOW" factor and your own photography can benefit, and you get to meet and spend time with some wonderful people you might not otherwise get to meet!

I Bought a Ring Light

They use them all the time on CSI. But how do you get the details of fingerprints or tire tracks when the light is coming from the same direction as the lens? Turns out, you can. It wouldn't be my first choice, but hey, it looks sexy on TV (ever notice that the serious 'foresnic' folks use Nikons? LOL).

This is the ringlight on the lens. Plus a bunch of sharpening stuff in PS and LR 

In this one I took the ring off the lens and held it at about a 45° angle. You tell me which one shows the detail better.

BTW I decided that if I was going to give you the finger, I'd use the correct one... are everyone's fingers this full of lines and cracks (surface, not the fingerprint)? Or is it because I'm getting old? 

Because you're generally shooting close to the subject, light from the ring will be very soft, despite the fact that it's coming straight from the camera. It's quite interesting.

I like shooting macro and small objects in the light tent (disclaimer: I still don't have a real macro lens. One day...) and the ringlight seems to be a nice way to go. But also, I've seen some portraits shot recently with them and the lighting is excellent, not to mention those great catchlights!

I wasn't able to get the kind of catchlights I wanted, but these are interesting. By the way, I HATE pictures of myself. However today I was testing the new ringlight and playing around, and shot this 'selfie' image. I didn't nail the focus on the eyes so I decided to use Topaz Impression (Degas preset) to make the whole thing painterly. I actually don't HATE this image.

So I found one on Amazon and, for $49, how can you go wrong?

FWIW, here are the links:
     Nikon version at Amazon Canada: http://goo.gl/IpkVQ4.
     Canon version in Canada: http://goo.gl/1oIMeD.
     Nikon version at Amazon.com (USA): http://goo.gl/nT6UVI.
     Canon version in US: http://goo.gl/MoG9QE.
(I think the Nikon and Canon versions have different pinouts at the flash shoe)

You know you "get what you pay for", right? In this case it works as advertised but there are some things you have to work around.

• You mount the 'sender' unit in the hotshoe and the ring on the lens (it comes with a bunch of adapters for different sized lenses). 
• When you turn it on, the LEDs light up and they'll stay that way as long as you're pressing the shutter release halfway (odd, because mine is disabled, I use back-button focusing). 
• If you're in flash mode, it will flash about twice as bright as the continuous light. But the continuous stays on.
• You can adjust the light output continuously over a 2:1 range. The flash output changes too. You can double that effect by turning off half of the lights from the sender.
• To fool it, so the continuous light is not on, I took the 'sender' off the camera. To make it flash, you have to do it manually.
• I can't get it to work with my synchronized off-camera flash. But I did use the continuous light together with the flash.
• The real bad news is that it vignettes like mad. The ring is only 66mm in diameter although the adapter fits up to a 77mm lens diameter; and it extends about 30mm forward of the front glass, so coverage is less than ideal. It works if you switch to DX (cropped sensor) mode.

It's going to be fun to use, though, and I'm looking forward to shooting some people shots with it. Stay tuned!

Here's a macro shot in the light tent. That's not grain, it's the surface of the plexiglass they were on. These are teeny-tiny .22 calibre CB Caps, by the way. 

I set these leaves in the light tent and shot them with the ringlight only. This is actually 4 exposures, focus stacked. Neat lighting!

Here's the actual setup, behind the scene. I shot in continuous mode, 1/8 sec at f/11, ISO 800, lens was the 24-120 at 120mm, but in DX mode.  

If you're not a photographer, your eyes are probably glazed over. Sorry about that!

One more for the Photographers.

Or at least for the photoshoppers! This is an example of how I used Topaz Impression on this image. This is a screen grab from Photoshop.

The intent was to give this shot a painterly look. But I wanted the Christmas tree to be kind of impressionistic, the house to be a coloured sketch and the background to be detailed but muted. So I used several different masked layers. Want to know how to do this stuff? Come take a course! (if you're reading this before the end of the Black Friday weekend, go here; www.photography.to/blackfriday.htm. Otherwise, www.photography.to/photoediting.htm. 

Here's the actual image 

Here are a couple of fresh images for your enjoyment. I was driving home from Uxbridge on Saturday and came across this row of trees.

I actually made a U-turn and stopped to take this shot because something about it caught my eye. This was along Lakeridge Road just North of Uxbridge. Each of the fields that bordered on the road was guarded by a line of sentinel trees (are these oaks? I plead ignorance). I tried to process this a few different ways but I kept coming back to this charcoal look.  

As the sun started to set, I thought about this shot, a bare tree silhouetted against the colourful sky and I actually pictured this kind of brush stroke effect. I was surprised to discover that I shot this five minutes BEFORE the previous (sentinels) shot. I thought I took it much later. The swirling blend of colours in the sky is reminiscent of van Gogh's style (but a bit more subtle). 

I raced to try to capture something of the sunset but couldn't find a suitable spot to shoot from. As a last desperation attempt, I pulled into the Independent store in Beaverton and there was a small lot in the back. I shot this out the car window because I didn't have time to set up before the clouds hid the setting sun. The foreground uses a heavy Impasto style and the sky is more in the style of Edward Hopper. 

Something that Topaz Impression has awakened in me is awareness of painting styles and the techniques of the masters. I'm moving closer to the day that I might pick up a brush and try to paint myself. Stay tuned!

— 30 —

Lemonade from Lemons

You know the old saw about making lemonade when you're dealt lemons? Another way of saying "the glass is half full, not half empty" or just "make the best of it". My D600 is on its way back to Nikon for service again.

The Nikon D600 has dust issues

For anyone who's in the industry, that's not news. I sent mine in to Nikon last February and thought they solved it; they actually changed the shutter mechanism which, I learned, was responsible for throwing oil on the lo-pass filter (that piece of glass in front of the sensor itself). It didn't work, Nikon:

This is a crop of the upper left corner of this image. It's about 2300x1500 px. This image was shot with the 17-35mm lens at f/22, and what you're looking at is a merge in HDR Efex of three bracketed shots. I enhanced it so you could see the spots better. You might ask, "Why did you let it go this far?". 

You can't see this stuff when you shoot at f/8. Well, when you look really closely, you can, but it's not obtrusive. Almost all of my shooting is done at f/8 where I can, because that's the sweet spot on most of my lenses. But this time, I wanted the depth of field.

Here's another couple of images I shot at the same location and you'll understand why. These were in fact at f/8 but I had to fight to get focus on the barn.

Both of these images are HDR merges. They will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, they should be up there by the time you read this. 

Anyway, back to the "lemonade" thing. I recognize that Nikon has had some issues with this camera but I trust that they will make it right. Canon people, stop rubbing your hands together in glee, I can hear you! So the good part is, I'll get my camera back (or a replacement) soon, and it'll be great. But I'm without a camera body and that's not acceptable, so I ordered a D5100 refurb from Nikon and as I write this, I'm waiting for the Purolator man to deliver it to me!

I had occasion to handle the D5100 that belonged to a student last week. It's a nice machine, and it has two features that the D600 doesn't have that I'm looking forward to: it has an articulated LCD that flips out from the side so making those ankle-height shots will be easier (my knees are bad); and it's got an APS-C cropped sensor so when I really need to reach out and touch a distant subject, my 400mm lens will look like a 600mm on a full-frame. Everyone tells me the image quality is great, and, well, the price was right. If push comes to shove, I could resell it for what I paid but I think I'll keep it as a backup. I've been needing one anyway, I'm sorry I sold the D300 (but not sorry I got the 17-35 in exchange, Pete!).

So the glass is half-full. I'm coming out ahead.

PS: according to what I've read and heard, Nikon has solved the issue. Apparently only a percentage of early production cameras had this problem, and they've fixed it at the factory on anything made after April.

Speaking of Students...

I need some. Please go to www.photography.to and have a look at the workshops tab. My advertising hasn't kicked in yet and I need some work. I have some 3-hour and some 2-day sessions available, and a flexible calendar. Please pass this on to anyone you know who would benefit from a workshop. I'll come to you if it makes sense.

Speaking of advertising...

Last week I told you I'm a published columnist! I didn't believe it until I actually saw it in print:

Here it is! It's available on line as well, check it out here. I'm on page 2. 

They originally told me they would print the column every two weeks, but they've now changed it to every week! My faithful readers can preview the next column here!

Tuesday was a great photography day!

I had to be in Toronto on Tuesday, and headed for home late afternoon. When I was in Uxbridge for Ryan's graduation last week, I drove by a spot I marked in my mind to return to. That day was just a bright sunny one and the sky was featureless. I should have stopped but I didn't. So I had the opportunity on Tuesday and headed over that way.

When I arrived, it wasn't great, weather wise, but I stuck it out. There was a storm coming from behind me but the sky over the scene I wanted to shoot wasn't great. I spent half an hour shooting various shots, and then the skies opened up and the rain came down in buckets! I got in the car and headed for home. Not 10 minutes later, I drove out of the storm to see this:

I did boost the colours a bit, but it was spectacular. In fact there was a double rainbow, but the other one was too light to look good on film (OK, on 'digital film'!). I used Topaz Clarity on this one, by the way. I'm using it on a lot of pictures now and I really like it! 

Then I turned to my left and saw this scene:

I decided to make a painting out of this one. It took a lot of work to get it right, but I think it was worth it. Again, it will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, it should be up there by the time you read this. 

Not yet done for the day. Now the sky was interesting, so I turned around and went back to the original spot, it was about 10 km back (the above picture was just South of Sunderland on Highway 12; the original scene was just before the turnoff to 12 on Highway 47 in Greenbank). So the top pictures in this blog were taken after I went back. Those were the remnants of the storm that had passed through.

STILL not done. I spent about an hour there, then headed home again. About 5km up the road from the rainbow spot, was this scene.

This is the scene that caught my eye from the road. It's an HDR, of course. As an aside, when I open Nik HDR Efex Pro, I'm drawn to one preset about 90% of the time: the "Dark" one. Here too: I clicked on it, increased the exposure about 10% and saved it. The only other things I did were to remove a red-and-white OFSC sign in front of the bridge and tone down the greens a bit. Fine art print. Gallery. Check it out.

This is marked as part of the "Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs" (OFSC) trail system. Walking over to get this shot, I disturbed a very large dog at the farm to my right, but the farmer came out to corral him (thank you, farmer!). 

OK, back in the car. Another 90 minutes drive to get home. I needed a pit stop at the Tim Horton's in Beaverton and by now it was getting dark.

Earlier this week I was working on an older image that I took in Norland. I wanted to make it a dusk shot, so I created the lighting effects entirely in Photoshop. It wasn't really late in the day when I shot it:

+Ben Willmore shoots a lot of these, usually abandoned old gas stations. That's what got me thinking about it.  

Back to the drive home and the Tim Horton's:

It really was getting dark, and the lights inside the shop looked so warm and inviting. I did have to enhance it, boost the contrast and detail (Topaz Adjust and Clarity). I had another shot that showed some traffic at the pickup window, but I liked this one better.  

So. One drive home, more than half-a-dozen distinct keepers, at least 4 for the gallery and large scale printing. All with a camera infected with dust-spot-measles. It was definitely a good day.

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