Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

I went out to the Haliburton Zombie Walk. Last year I got some great Zombie pictures; not so much this time. First of all, there were a couple of hundred participants last year, this time only twenty or so. That's partly because (I think) (a) it was at Pinestone instead of Haliburton Head Lake, (b) they made it an all-day affair, with a party at night (which I skipped), (c) if you went to haliburtonzombiewalk.com they hadn't updated it from last year and it still said the walk was on November 1 instead of October 31 (in the promo videos on the home page. The correct date was inside the site), and (d) there was at least one other competing event. I know there was a party at the Red Umbrella Inn too, and I heard "lots of zombies were there".

So I didn't find anyone taking the event seriously; makeup and costumes were a shadow of what they were last year. Frankly, I couldn't find much that I felt like shooting.

Zombies don't live in the same space-time continuum we do so they're hard to photograph since they move in and out of another subset of the 11 dimensional multiverse. In-camera multiple exposure with a single one overlaid. 

However what they did do right was the "Terror from Wonderland Road" setup underground at Pinestone. Really well done! Photography was somewhat of a challenge, since it was DARK in there! I did get this one, though:

Bloody Terror from the Deep. As I said, it was dark. This shot was with my wide angle (objects are closer than they appear!! Bwa-ha-ha). For my photographer friends, 1/15 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400. Some Lightroom and Photoshop, including added textures, then I was fortunate to have Topaz Glow and Impression to bring out the details. 

That's going on my Top 25 gallery page today. Now I have to find one to delete!

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Musings: the retiree's dilemma

I read a couple of articles recently about "the best places to retire". It's a dilemma and I don't know what to do. I perceive that eventually I will probably have to move, but don't know where.

For many years I had a dream of sitting at a computer, writing the great Canadian novel while looking out the window overlooking a beautiful lake. What I have is not perfect: the window could be bigger, the lake could be closer, the novel...well I'm still working on that. I didn't envision being alone. I didn't think that photography would figure into my life to the extent that it has. But essentially I have realized my dream. Realistically, I have to start thinking about some other factors, health and mobility needs to be considered.

If you don't know me personally, I currently live in an almost-lakefront-property (I'm across the road) on 12-Mile Lake, just North of Minden, Ontario in the Haliburton Highlands. I moved up here from the Toronto area in 2007. I like the area, but I'm not too fussy about the town: it's small, has limited resources and except for emergency services, has no hospital facilities. There's a huge arts community up here, though.

I despise the thought of living in a city. I won't go "South of the 401" unless I must. But I may be forced to do so because medical facilities and services are non-existent out here. Is it inevitable that I'll need them? Well there are really only two possibilities, if I drop dead, then no. If I get sick or if creeping ailments get worse, then yes. By the way, NOT YET. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But I should think ahead.

Suburban Toronto is probably prohibitively expensive, with even a small condo apartment going for $400K. Unless I just rent... which is not totally out of the question.  Ditto Niagara-on-the-Lake, Kelowna BC. Or anywhere outside of Canada (medical insurance issues). Some towns with good facilities are not appealing: Lindsay, Elliot Lake, etc. Five years ago I might have thought about Newfoundland (I love the place) but realistically, winters... and if I'm less able to enjoy nature? I'm thinking about Huntsville. Maybe... but I'll need to do some on-site research.

As I re-read what I wrote above, it comes across somewhat fatalistic. It's not like that: just musing about what my next step might be.

It's a dilemma.

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SmugMug Gallery Update

I watched a video stream from Terry White (Adobe, Lightroom guru) and he gave me an idea. He has an online gallery that shows his favourite images. "Why not," I thought. "I'll make one too". I did, and put it on my Smugmug site.

The premise is this: I have thousands of images, and obviously I have favourites. These are not necessarily my BEST shots, they're the ones I like the best right now. So I created a gallery called "Top 25" (actually it's the top 24 images plus a little video: so it's my "Double Dirty Dozen plus One").  When I take another picture that I like as well or better, I'll upload it and delete one picture to keep the number the same. That's going to be tough...

Anyway, pop over and see my favourites. Here's the link. I'll wait right here.
I dare you...

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Can you stand another fox picture?

I chose to show you this one despite what some people think is a distracting branch because I think it tells a story and it frames the animal. The more challenging branch was actually the one that passes in front of his ears, which I gently cloned partway out. The other fox pictures are more like 'portraits'. To me, this one says (a) it really was shot in the wild; and (b) the fox thinks he's hiding from me and then as he realizes he's been seen, he gives me "the stare". Although his stance doesn't say it, his expression says that he's poised to run away.

I rendered this one a little dark in order to draw the viewer's eyes to the fox's muzzle. I brought out as much texture in his coat as I dared. Almost all the editing was done in Lightroom, just a little Photoshop to do the cloning and add some clarity.

Custom iPhone case

Remember I said I had to fiddle with the iPhone 6 Tough case I had ordered, in order to accommodate the audio plug? The new one arrived, with the same problem. This time I tried using my Dremel tool but those who know me know that I'm useless with tools, and I made a mess again.

Here's the new case. I love it! 

But the audio plug doesn't fit right. 

And this is the mess I made. 

RedBubble acknowledged the fault this time, sent me a credit, and said they would address it, but made no promises. Fair enough.

PS: my pillow arrived too. It's awesome! I'm going to order another one with a fox image on it. One for each end of the couch!

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I really have to give props to 3 Legged Thing, the company in England that made my carbon fibre tripod. If you've been a longtime reader, you might remember that I tripped and almost fell, saved by the tripod which isn't really designed to support 270 lbs! So I broke a couple of bits. The tripod still worked, but not perfectly. Then I did a stupid thing, putting Ron's 600mm f/4 on a gimbal mount on this lightweight tripod. I broke the column. Full disclosure: MY FAULT. It's strong, but that was way overboard.

So I wrote to them and I got a surprise overseas phone call from Danny, 3LT's president. They then shipped me the parts I needed, free of charge. Despite the fact that it was my fault. I fixed it up but not perfectly because I hadn't recognized that I had bent another segment. I wrote again a couple of days ago asking if I could buy a whole new leg assembly. They refused to sell it to me. They're sending it to me for free.

This is the kind of company you want to deal with. Not only do they make OUTSTANDING products, but I can't think of any outfit I've dealt with that is so responsive to their customers. You can buy 3LeggedThing tripods via their website (if you're in North America, choose their US store at the top). You can contact them directly here. Do it. Tell Dave I sent you.

By the way, 3LT's stuff isn't cheap. Not the most expensive, either, but the Brian (named for Queen's Brian May – look up the story on their website. Bit of a search but worth it!) carbon fibre tripod and AirHed will set you back about $500. But then it's virtually weightless, super strong and made by photographers for photographers. My only quibble is that you have to be diligent about locking all the friction nuts and there are lots of them, the price you pay because it folds down from 'this' small to 'this' tall (higher than I can reach!).

If money is no object, then the names "Gitzo" and "ReallyRightStuff" are the way to go. But 3LT makes as good or better tripods. If you want an inexpensive field tripod, look at the MeFoto products. But the build quality isn't the same. And then there's the customer service...

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Everyone should watch movies

And TV shows and commercials... as photographers, it's humbling to see what the REAL cinematographers (and photographers) do. We all seem to try to emulate them, and of course most of us are doing it on our own, with limited equipment and budgets and resources. But not only do they have perfect lighting and attention to detail, but the use of composition to convey a message or mood is inspiring.

The other night I watched "Road to Perdition" (again!), with Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. The photography was mind-blowing, especially some of the black-and-white special effects scenes. It's a good movie, but by all means, watch it for the cinematography.

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— 30 —

More Inspiration

Every time I look at this site, I'm blown away. What better inspiration can you get than to look at the work of some very talented photographers?

I'm talking about the home page for the Richmond Hill Camera Club. This is not news to many of my readers who are members of that club, but to others, I draw your attention to the site. At the top of the home page is a slide show of winning images from recent competitions. Go ahead, click the link above. I'll wait right here.

See what I mean? Every time I look at this, I'm blown away. And by the way, I've watched the development of this club and the work of some of its members for about 10 years now, it's incredible how they've grown. Bravo, RHCC.

I ask myself what do the images that stand out as extraordinary have in common? If I could come up with one single word to describe the, it would be "SIMPLICITY". The subject stands out. There may be other things in the image but the subject is presented to you in its simplest form. That's the inspiration I want to take into my work.

By the way, I'm more and more convinced that we need a camera club up here in the Highlands. I'm going to put some work into making that happen. If you're up here and want to help out or join, let me know.

The Richmond Hill Club membership is full and there's a waiting list. If you live anywhere in that area, get on the list.


Smugmug Galleries

I've been working on my Smugmug galleries. Their new interface is very powerful but like anything else on this computer, if you don't do it regularly, you have to go through the whole learning curve again!

You can basically do anything you want, but first you have to KNOW what you want! My big concern was not to fall in the same trap I was in last time, where I had literally hundreds of galleries and not only was it confusing for outside visitors, but for me too! So what I've done now is to create a few master "folders" and only show selected ones on the home page. For now, I've got my fine art images in one, and other stuff (which for now are the Whitewater images from this summer) in another. Eventually I want to create another one for "portfolio" and take the Whitewater stuff off the home page and link directly to it.

I spent a couple of hours (you know how time flies when you're doing this stuff!) redoing the layout, pop over for a look-see. Oh, and if you see any images that would look fantastic on your walls, drop me a note and Let's Talk!

Credit Card Reader 

Before the show last June, I acquired a credit card swipe reader from a company called "SQUARE", or "SQUAREUP". I didn't use it much but I was not dissatisfied with it, in fact I thought it was pretty slick.

It plugs into your iPhone or iPad and lets you accept and process credit cards. It works through your cellphone or wifi connection. They only charge for transactions, there's no monthly fee, and the money goes directly into your bank account. Simple, effective.

Today a friend of mine tried to get one and was not approved. Some silly reason about not being able to verify his ID (likely his fault, I'm sure he won't mind me saying his computer skills are a little limited). When he tried to contact them it turns out that they do not have any telephone access numbers. I mean literally, you can't contact them except via anonymous email or contact form on their site.

I am a little (OK a LOT) uneasy about them having access to my bank account, without knowing the most basic information about them: who are they, where are they. So I tried to find a way to delete my account with them and the banking access as well. YOU CAN'T. At least I couldn't find it. Tomorrow I'm going to the bank to close the account I gave them access to (update: that was a few days ago. Done, that account doesn't exist any more).

They may be totally legitimate but I'm sorry, something smells fishy. I thought it was a great solution to mobile credit card processing: what is it they say? "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is".

There's something wrong when you can't find out where they are or who they are and talk to them. I don't trust them and I don't think they understand about customer service. Just a heads-up.

Annoying Spam...

I am surprised it took this long, but the fact that I publish my email address here and on various other websites, or printed in newspapers and so on has finally caught up with me (again). Like I said, it's been a couple of years, but the spam is rolling in with a vengeance.

Almost all of it goes to the junkmail folder in Outlook, some of it is blocked at the ISP (if I give them the email sender or domain to block), but because I don't know all the people who legitimately want to contact me, I can't just block whole TLD's like ".biz" or ".us". I'm getting 100 or more a day now. And even if they have an "unsubscribe" link in the email, it invariably goes to some paragraph long alphabet soup URL and I'm not about to click on it.

So I get why people hesitate to subscribe to my newsletter, they don't trust the site or the unsubscribe utility. Just so you know, my list is hosted at MailChimp and their unsubscribe is REAL. One click and you're deleted. People only get added to the list if they do it themselves. The exception is that I sometimes add people to the list whom I've met in person or with whom I've corresponded directly.

Next step, unfortunately, will be to stop using the offending email address and install a web form link for email contact, protected by a Captcha. Hate to do it, but I might have to if this persists.

As long as I'm complaining...

I rebooted my laptop on Wednesday morning in preparation for the workshop this week, and it crashed. Not a BSOD, but half the applications didn't work, including my Wacom tablet. So annoying...

My desktop is about 3 years old (that's what, about 140 in Dog Years?). The laptop is much faster so I actually use it with an external monitor and keyboard for most of my photoediting.  Anyway to make a long story short (too late!) I tracked down the problem to an automatic Mickey$oft Windows "Critical Update". I couldn't even open my control panel to do a system restore, until I rebooted in Safe Mode. It worked fine after that.

Here's the problem: this morning I rebooted and sure enough, the update had installed itself again and same problem! I knew what to do, but that's 45 minutes out of my life that I can't get back and I don't want to have to do it every day! I've disabled automatic updates, but now what?

It occurred to me that I've had my iPad and my iPhone for a few years without even one incident. Sure wish I could afford a Mac.

White Water

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I live 6 Km from one of the finest whitewater kayaking venues anywhere. The Minden Wildwater Preserve will be the venue for the PanAm games in 2015 (don't know where everyone is going to park: the lot holds maybe 8 cars!). So I shoot a lot of kayaking pictures. And I include whitewater canoes in that too.

Last weekend was the annual Open Canoe Race (mark your calendars: it's the weekend after Labour Day every year). On Saturday, they predicted rain (it didn't) but it was cloudy all day. On Sunday, bright blue skies. If you're a photographer, you're way ahead of me: cloudy is MUCH better for pictures, especially with brilliant, reflective water!

I shot an equal number of images both days (300-400). I can count the keepers from Sunday on one hand. Saturday was another story

Remember the girl from last week? This is her again. Now I got some facts wrong last time (serves me right for not talking with her. I did on Saturday). Her name is Morgan Nunn. Her dad is Keith, her brother is Liam. I don't know exactly how old she is, but she's in High School. Rumour has it she's going to run for Mayor of Toronto next year! Anyway, she wasn't "afraid" of the Otter Slide as I thought last week. She was concentrating hard on how to approach a certain wave for the competition and was elated when she nailed it! Here she is in the Open Canoe race, coming into Gate 16, on the Otter Slide.

BTW, if she does run for Mayor, I have a picture of her father in a dress (people wore costumes on the Sunday). I'll bet that will be worth some money to her opponents! LOL

In case you're wondering about the green and white barber poles, they are the gates. If you miss a gate, you get a 50 second penalty. If you touch one, it's 10 seconds. Red and white gates have to be negotiated UPSTREAM, in other words, you have to turn around and paddle against the flow of the river.

Here's another image from Saturday:

Story. The guy in the green canoe lost his paddle during his run.. The fellow in the yellow canoe retrieved it for him and brought it over (he was hanging out in a calm eddy above the fast water). Then they ran down the river together, not actually racing, just trying to get to the end of the rapids. 

Here's a little animation that I shot at the same gate (hope this runs OK in your browser!):

This is a burst of 15 exposures at the 5.5fps frame rate on the D600. Not everyone was able to negotiate that gate without mishap! FWIW, I couldn't create the animation at full resolution, the computer choked when Photoshop told it the gross file size was 2Gb! So I reduced it to 800px wide before merging the frames.

There were a couple of great images (OK, "I" think they're great!) in the middle of that sequence. Here's one of them (this was done at full size):

Obviously, I added some effects. The graduated fog and the grain and the border. This is going to make a dandy large scale print! Watch for a version of it in my gallery. RHCC, watch for a version in competition this year!

Speaking of the gallery, I'm posting images of the race. There are two galleries showing: "Selects", which are shots that I've post-processed, and "Open Canoe September 2013" which contains images before I've done anything to them. Contact me if you see one you like, if you're in one of the picture and you want a copy of it, or if you want a print. Here's the link: http://faczen.smugmug.com/White-Water/September-2013

A few pictures

Just to round out the blog... I did a basic DSLR course this week with some very interested students. I was explaining how "North-facing window light" was the greatest, and Jen willingly posed so I could illustrate the point. Then we got to playing with a few images in Lightroom and Photoshop and this was one of the resulting shots.

Clarity turned down and then a Topaz Clarity layer was added as well starting with a preset called something like, "Flawless Skin". Didn't need much, Jen's skin is pretty good anyway. I finished it with a little vignette. I played them the "Fotoshop by Adobé" clip on YouTube (Google it) and we all had a laugh. 

We then went on to talk about composition. With that in mind, I did this one:

Use of negative space?  Breaking the rules? Leave the viewer wanting more! I dunno, it was just fun. I was just thinking I might composite the other half of her face into the right side of the image!

We spent some time learning about the effects of shutter speed and did a little session on panning with a slow shutter speed. They all caught on and produced some neat images. This is one of mine, though:

It also illustrated what you can do when you shoot in RAW. This was hugely overexposed because I bumped up against the limits when I locked the shutter speed to 1/15 second and had the ISO at 1000 and the aperture at f/2.8! there was lots more to recover, but I liked the tonality of this one.  

And finally, the pièce de résistance: the Angels and Mini-Me.

Someone (I think it was Sandi, on the right) suggested that we do a "Charlie's Angels" shot. Then I stripped in a background from the Old Brick Works in Toronto (who knows what I changed?). That's Cheryl and Harper in the middle. I have some other shots of "Mini-Me" that I'll save for later! 

It was a fun and productive two days! I can't wait to see some of their work down the road!

TTFN

— 30 —

And the beat goes on...

Did you notice the new banner up top? Every now and then I feel the need to change it up. And when I do, I post the previous banner in the body of the blog because otherwise it disappears completely! So...

I chose the new image because (a) I had to find something that would fit in the footprint, an extremely wide pano, and (b) I like the smooth tonality and colour blend of this image. It is a picture taken from my dock on 12 Mile Lake. I've taken hundreds of pictures from the same spot but occasionally one stands out. I like how the shape of the shoreline and its reflection on the left creates a virtual arrowhead that causes the viewer's eye to move from left to right across the image and back again to pick out the structures and detail.

For those who care, it's an HDR merged in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 from 3 exposures, shot with the 17-35mm lens at 17mm and f/8 on the full-frame D600. For what it's worth, here's the original image (well, the merge!) minus a few pixels for better framing.

I will make this available as a fine art print. I think it would look outstanding on a matte art paper. Check out the gallery link at right to find it and email me to order a print. It also makes a fine wallpaper image for your computer. Two sizes, one for normal and one for wide screens. This wallpaper image is FREE for subscribers to my newsletter, so click here or on the link at upper right to subscribe.

I'm going to start today by nagging you.

Backups

Some of my readers are diligent about doing their backups. Some are not. Some people need a subtle reminder to do it. This is intended for you!

Do your backups. My backup strategy isn't perfect but at least I do them. Today I sync'd my two external drives so I have two up-to-date copies of my photo archives. I also copied my Outlook data files to an external drive. Don't forget those, they're in a weird location (on a PC) and you don't want to go through what I did when the original got corrupted...

On a personal note, I have to sit down and create a new Lightroom catalog that contains all my "Keeper" images, then copy the whole shebang to another drive. Reason is, my external drives are getting very full and I'd really like to have a third copy of the important images, at least. 

Update: I just did that. It took about 8 hours for Lightroom to percolate and copy a little over 500Gb of data. FWIW, I have over 15,000 keeper images (ones which I had flagged earlier as 'not unacceptable')! I should have sent it directly to the external drive because now it wants another 7 hours to do that. I feel better, though. Now I have a third copy of my "keeper" files and it's going to be stored off-site.  

Anyway, do it today. I don't know what your backup strategy is, but do it. Just imagine your house burning down to the ground and in addition to everything else, losing all the images you've ever shot.

Emergency Medical Card

If for some reason you have a medical emergency, the important information about you should be available if you end up in an ER and can't tell them everything, or can't remember. You should also have contact information, a list of meds, all that stuff in your purse or wallet JUST IN CASE.

Years ago, I created a .pdf document that you could fill out (on your own computer, you don't send that out anywhere) and put it up as a public service. At one point I had a hit counter on that page and recorded over 50,000 hits: I lost it, so I'm going to start it over again.

Anyway, go to this page: http://www.faczen.com/medcard.htm and fill out the form. You simply type your info into the page, print it out, then run over to Staples and get it laminated if you want, and carry it in your wallet or purse or camera bag...

Note that this is absolutely FREE and we don't record any information about you including the fact that you downloaded the document or visited the page (except that we count how many people have done that). No worries.

You may be one of the rare people who don't have any medical issues or take any prescription drugs or have any allergies, but at least you should carry your doctor's name and contact info and who to call in case of emergency. Please do it now. And if you think it's a good idea, please tell your friends and loved ones.

OK, finished nagging...

Heads Up!

I'm going to be announcing an Algonquin Park Fall Colours PhotoWalk in the next week or so. My initial concept is that there will be no charge for my students and subscribers to my newsletter, just trying to put it together. Watch for the announcement on the Newsletter.

SmugMug has a new look

There are lots of places you can put your photos up on the web for free. Everyone's doing the "cloud" thing now, but most of the free sites have some down sides. Every day, I read about how someone's pictures were stolen on FlickR or on 500px... I've been a SmugMug subscriber for years and because that's the only thing they do and because it's not totally free, they care about you.

I had a "Professional" account there because I wanted to be able to sell images through them with a markup. They had links to a couple of really great labs, like Bay Photo in San Francisco, and you could easily order directly. I stopped doing that because, well, it wasn't a good way for me to market my images (that said, I haven't found one yet!). Anyway, I downgraded my account to something called a "Power" account which costs me $60/year. If you're interested, here's the comparison between the different accounts they offer.

A couple of weeks ago, they totally revised their interface and look-and-feel. It's really, really slick now, IMHO. Check out my site at faczen.smugmug.com. Go ahead, I'll wait right here...

If you clicked on "Browse", you would have seen some other galleries that I've put in place (works in progress...) but what I like is they are for special purposes and the casual visitor doesn't have to be distracted by them.

So one of the other things I like about SmugMug is that when you send an email to their helpdesk, a real live human being responds in short order. And it's someone who actually knows about things, not some CSR in a foreign call center (Hi, I'm Rajesh, and I can certainly help you with that problem...).

One more thing: Lightroom has a plug-in where you can sync with SmugMug. Just drag photos into it and click "Publish" and you're done. Nice. I just added the image at the top of this post to both my "New and Featured Images" and my "Fine Art Prints" galleries with a couple of clicks.

Anyway, I'm happy to recommend them to all my readers. Go to www.smugmug.com. You can play with it for free for 14 days, then sign up. If you mention me in the referral box when you sign up. Two ways of doing that: put in my email address (glenn dot springer at faczen dot com. You know what to do with that, right?) or just cut and paste in this code:  16NrueyZ8KPmc. You'll save $5 on your first year subscription.

Speaking of new looks...
Business Printing

Tell me how this strikes you:

■ 1000 double sided business cards, printed on both sides in full colour, full bleed, on heavy (16.5 point) card stock with an aqueous coating, all for $20 or so.

This is the front of the business card I printed for myself (no black border. It bleeds right off the edges of the card). By the way, shot from the same dock as the banner up above!.

■ 1000 postcards, similar to the above, 4x6 size, both sides full colour for about $50. All superb quality. That's ONE THOUSAND CARDS, folks!

Here's how it works: the supplier I deal with gangs up print jobs so he prints hundreds of cards at a time and trims them out of a big sheet. So each individual card is inexpensive and the printer is happy because he's making money. As long as everyone uses the same inks (4-colour process) and paper, he's laughing.

If you're interested, I'll send you a template. You fit your art in the template and send it back. We print it. Or you can use, for example, my photos for the background. If you want me to do layout and design work, I can, very inexpensively. Starting to sound interesting?

Have you ever seen prices like that for full colour high quality printing? This is a no-brainer, folks. contact me...

Don't say I didn't warn you!

I shot this a couple of days ago. It is coming... 

On to some images!

Kind of an unusual casual portrait... this was a mistake. For some reason I had a HUGE exposure compensation set: more than +3 stops. I think I turned the dial the wrong way. But when I saw the image onscreen, I liked it! I had to do a little work on the faces to bring them back, and it's at ISO 6400 (the D600 is amazing!). I need to try more of these high key images! Rita and Ray Felson are relatives, visiting my mother. 

Internationally renowned photographer Stu Freedman, visiting with the Felsons at my mother's. Stu's wife and my mother are related, haven't seen each other in 80 years or more. Stu is 90, he founded the Toronto Guild about a million years ago, and is still shooting pictures! Don't criticize my background, OK? It was a casual shot while chatting. At least I got the lighting right! (North-facing window, behind the Felsons above, if anybody cares). 

I know, it's just a seagull (Herring Gull, larus argentatus, if anybody cares!). But the 400mm Sigma lens can be really sharp when it wants to. And it's on the cropped sensor D5100 too, so effectively 600mm! I did some birds-in-flight too, that day. I practice on them sometimes when I'm at the dump. 

While riding my ATV on the trail near my house, I came across these giant fungi on a fallen tree stump. I didn't have anything with me to give it a sense of scale, so I put my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 in it. If you're not a photographer, that's about 9" long... if you are one, it's still 9" long but you know that!  

I went back yesterday to try again, this time I brought a tripod. Now do you see how big they are? It's weird because (a) I've never seen one that big outside of a rain forest and (b) there are no other ones around anywhere. Aliens, I tell you... 

Until next time! TTFN

— 30 —

Still going through withdrawal

{whine}. My camera's still not ready. I'll be in Toronto on Friday, so I hope I can pick it up from Nikon  then. In the meantime, the only camera I have is my iPhone.

I took a pano with it: how cool is that? I'm not posting it here because I was just playing, but it works well. Just so I don't leave you without pictures (I wouldn't do that!), here are a couple:

I woke up the other morning to a sugar-frosted world. Not ice, but snow, that stuck to all the branches. About half an hour later, it was gone! Beautiful, though. This is the view from my driveway towards my dock. 

From the same spot, I took a shot of the Red Umbrella Inn. I used the oil paint filter in Photoshop CS6 and I LOVE what it did to the trees at right. iPhone. Who would have thunk it?

... until I met a man who had no feet...
You know the old saw about feeling sorry for yourself because you don't have any shoes... OK, so I had a few dust spots on my D600. That doesn't compare to the pain Dr. Ron felt when a bull elk TRASHED his D3S and 600mm f/4 lens in Yellowstone. I'm trying to get his permission to reproduce the story here. I get mine back from Nikon in a day or so. I think he has to wait a bit longer.

Web Presence revision
I'm working on revising my web presence. I've taken ALL my Smugmug galleries down, they were really silly. I intend to have one gallery for limited edition exhibition quality prints for sale, a gallery for wallpaper images, and a portfolio, and that's it. So far I created the print gallery, and put one image in it, more to come!

Next comes the www.photography.to site, which needs revamping and the 2013 teaching schedule, then my main site, then... it never ends!

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