I can't believe it's been almost a month

Where has time gone? I've been enjoying myself this July, visiting with friends, spending time with special projects and working my buns off teaching in the 50 degree heat. So not a lot of images to share, but I do have a few.

This is my cousin's band, FOG (Four Old Guys). Their first CD is entitled "Eye of the Storm" and I thought this would make a nice cover photo.

Janie's nieces Melanie and Taylor. A little cosmetics in Photoshop (not needed, these are very beautiful girls) and a vignette blur in Nik Color Efex pro. You can't take a bad picture with the 70-200 f/2.8

Janie's son David waterskiing on Lake Kushog

At Furnace Falls near Kinmount. There's something about this picture I like (other than the svelte young female in the black bikini). I tried cropping the photo, but the pail and stick in the foreground really help the image.

HDR image taken at Furnace Falls. Three shots, with the
variable ND filter on the wide angle lens.

Notice all of my pictures have people in them? A departure for me! Anyway, here's one without.

Also at Furnace Falls. BW conversion by Nik Silver Efex pro.

Happy Canada Day Weekend!

It was a great weekend, perfect weather, lots of activity! I didn't actually shoot a lot of pictures, but what I did was interesting. At least I think so!

Before I show some to you: a few people actually asked me where that 'quote' was from in the last blog. Shame on you! "Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses." Blues Brothers. {sigh}.

OK, now some pictures. The Red Umbrella Inn had their grand opening on Saturday and I went over to shoot a few pictures. The guitarist from the featured band saw my camera and told me his photographer didn't show up, would I like to shoot some pictures for them? Oh, okay...

This band had hired a professional stage/lighting/sound company. They set up an incredible array of lights. The concert was outdoors, at night, and all the lighting came from the spots up above. All computer controlled, too! Concert lighting is a bitch. odd colours, fluctuating levels, tough! I got a few pictures I sort of liked, here's a couple:

Could be an album cover, right?

I told you the lighting was a challenge! This was in fact an outdoor shoot but those aren't stars, it's noise which I enhanced in PS. I had to shoot most of the evening at ISO 1600!

But here's the pièce de résistance: I did a montage with the two performers. Each image was treated separately with Topaz and/or Nik Color Efex Pro, and I think it worked!




OK, now picture this: it's an outdoor concert up in the Haliburton Highlands at the beginning of July. In the evening. So there are about 200 people and about 30,000 of these guys!

Attribution: trebol-a at flickr

I only shot one set. Do you know how hard it is to frame and compose a picture when you're getting eaten alive?

I ran back in the house and a few minutes later, heard and saw some fireworks. Again, i only ran out and shot a few pictures before being driven back home. Here's one:

All the fireworks were launched from a boat just off the dock. I stood on the dock, which is free-floating, and rocked every time someone took a step. Furthermore, all the fireworks came from the same spot, so I moved the camera between bursts (with the shutter open). Interesting effect!

Workshops:
I'm not saying it's on hold because it isn't. Problem is, I don't have any free weekends for a while, with work at Humber, guests coming up to visit and a photo trip in a month or so. I have to work it out! Watch this space, and the photography.to site for updates.

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It's June. I'm 180 km from home, it's not dark yet and I'm not wearing sunglasses. Also I don't smoke.

Surely you know where that title sort of comes from...

Did you miss me? I've been kind of busy chasing my tail and doing all kinds of non-photographic stuff, so I didn't have much to blog about. Some people will argue that I still don't...

Well I did take time out to submit some photos for a competition on the NAPP forum and, wonder of all wonders, I won! It's all about being creative on demand and while I won't win any prizes for technical or artistic expertise, I did manage to capture what they were looking for. Here's the deal.

Every month, a list of three (this month it was four) topics is posted. You have 72 hours to shoot pictures, two more days to process and submit them and two days to vote on your favourites. so among the pictures submitted, mine was the favourite in two categories and I was the overall winner. My prize? Well the ongoing adulation of my peers, a certain amount of ribbing which this blog is likely to evoke, and the task of choosing categories for next month's competition.

Without further ado, here they are:

Topic: Wood, Woods or Woody

This one did NOT win. I kind of liked it for the wide angle perspective, the sun, the composition. Not too many others did, I guess.

Topic: Floating

This was a winner. Shot at the Minden Wildwater Preserve, one of my favourite venues. The paddler was concentrating on staying put in the whitewater eddy. Lighting was a challenge, what to expose for? The bright sunlit water, the kayak, the paddler's face? I chose the water, then used a gradient and a blur vignette in Nik Colour Efex to keep the eye on the paddler, and I opened up the exposure on the face by dodging in Lightroom.

Topic: Summer Bliss

I waited quite a while at the Kawartha Dairy in Minden, for someone to order a large icecream. Nobody did. Believe it or not, this is what they call a "Small". There has to be a litre of icecream there. Amazing how only skinny people can eat like this without feeling exceedingly guilty. The effects were produced with NIK Silver Efex. Unfortunately, this did not gain the admiration of the group and was not a winner. PS: I did have an icecream while I was there, but a "baby" size which is only one scoop. A large, is 3 scoops!

Topic: Vanishing Point

This was almost an afterthought. I first tried to zoom my lens with the shutter open, shooting a decrepit shack in the trees but then I got the idea for this shot. I did enhance the texture with Topaz Adjust, and then got the idea of cropping it this way to make the viewer's eye move along the diagonal to the vanishing point. Mikey liked it, it won!

Anyway, there's a little challenge every month and you have to be a NAPP member to log into the forums. I find it a great right-brain stretching exercise. Join in! Everyone can play.

I'm sort of in 'teaching mode'. I thought I'd share some things I've been working on. Lately I've been working on my composition skills. So I've been cognizant of what I'm looking at through the viewfinder. It does pay off, I think! Here are some other pictures for you to (hopefully) enjoy.

Canola Field 1

Canola fields are such an eyecatching bright yellow!  I love looking at them but I'm never sure how to photograph them. This time I stopped, walked into the field with the wide angle lens and composed this shot. Full depth of field, a triangular shape upper left, high horizon, some interesting structure in the sky.

Canola Field 2

It's all about the colour. I enhanced the colours in this image (well, images -- it's obviously an HDR).  Again, I followed the landscape rule of focus from front to back, the tree divides the image in the golden ratio proportion, the horizon is low to feature the sky.

Focus Stacking

This Iris image is a composite of 6 exposures processed in Photoshop. The technique is called "Focus Stacking". Each of the images focuses on a different area of the flower and Photoshop CS5 does an extraordinary job of seamlessly merging them together. Technically, focus stacking is supposed to be done with a macro lens on a rail with measured steps between focus planes: but check this out: these shots were taken with my 70-200 f/2.8 lens wide open and manually refocused between shots. I'm going to write this up in the technical blog soon -- it's a great technique to use when you want to selectively focus areas of an image. The vignette effect was produced with NIK Color Efex Pro.

Back to my favourite technique -- HDR's. These shots were both 'cooked' with Photomatix Pro and enhanced with Topaz adjust.

"Something Old..."

1938 Dodge Pickup truck. Taken at the Kawartha Dairy while waiting for a good ice cream shot as mentioned above. 5-shot HDR, a light standard and a fire hydrant removed with content-aware tools in CS5, as was a passenger in the truck! The sky was added in: it was a featureless bright blue that day, so I took the sky from another shot and layered it in.

"...something New"

Ferrari. Red, of course. Taken at the Vaughan Hospital fundraising motorcycle ride. Oh, look! Same sky! Actually this was where I got the sky for the previous shot. Some people tell me my HDR's are "overcooked". Perhaps. But I like them...

One last topic. I know this blog is getting overly lengthy, but it has been 2 weeks!

I'm putting together some workshops. I plan to do the first session for free, then work in some additional sessions which hopefully people will be interested enough in to pay me something for my time and expertise. Not to mention my extraordinary teaching skills...

Here's the card I prepared for posting on local bulletin boards. I'm working on setting a date for the first session, probably mid-July. Watch this space, and check the photography.to website (nothing up there yet as I write this) soon for more details.

What do you think?

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Devastating Tornado in Minden Ontario

Yesterday, a devastating tornado touched down in a retirement community just South of Minden Ontario. Here are a few images captured less than 24 hours afterwards.

Although Environment Canada hasn't actually admitted that it was a tornado, the residents know it was. One elderly gentleman, who told me he was a padre in the Canadian Forces during the Korean war and is an 80-year old retired cleric said he was in his back yard and saw it coming. It tore up the street one over from his house and although he said he couldn't see a twister per se, there was no doubt in his mind that's what it was. This house was a few doors away from his:

Just across the street was this house. The gentleman who owned it told me that his wife, who was hearing impaired, was laying down on a couch when the storm brought a tree crashing through his roof which threw her off the couch. As far as he knows, her injuries are limited to some minor contusions, but she is recovering in Minden Hospital.

These workers are working out how to seal the damaged building from the weather. It's likely that the insurance company will write off the house, but the contents still need to be protected.

By the way, most of the residents here are elderly retirees. The houses are typically modular homes. Some people were very aware of what had transpired, such as this scooter-enabled gentleman who shook his head and told me, "third time in 3 years".

This lady, though was not the only one for whom life went on. Somewhat in a daze, she was out doing her gardening; pruning her lilac tree and raking the debris on her grass. Her house was spared, but she was oblivious to all the devastation around her.

This was not on the same order of magnitude as the recent tornadoes in the American midwest, nor of course the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Despite the fact that there was no direct loss of life, these people's lives were uprooted along with their precious trees.

An interesting sidebar: I live about 15 km North of this site. I had actually taken my camera and tripod down to the lakeside when I saw a line of heavy rain, presumably accompanied by lightning, approaching on the Intellicast weather map. I did NOT get any lightning pictures and although it got windy, it didn't even blow the big umbrella I had brought with me inside out. Just a few kilometers south: a tornado. By the way, the trees that surround my property are the same as the ones torn down in the photos. I have a few of them over 50' high and more than 4 or 5 feet in diameter. If one came down, my house would be gone. Sobering thought...

You can see the entire sequence of images on my Smugmug site in this gallery. I prepared them for submission to various news agencies, so they have been reduced in size. Also there has been ABSOLUTELY NO POST PROCESSING or manipulation: they are exactly as they came out of the camera.  Enjoy!

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A quiet week in the North country

Late spring is clearly upon us. The weather is great, it's very green out there, and the mosquitoes are back. The good news is that the black flies are pretty well gone, though. I actually sat out in the screen tent having dinner last night but I have to break out the citronella candle. Although there were only a few mosquitoes around, they were hungry!

Yesterday morning I saw the sunlight singling out a dandelion puffball in front of the house: the background was in shade but the flower was in sun. I moved around to where it would be backlit and shot this image

Shot with the 70-200 lens wide open, so it had a very shallow depth of field. I used the soft outer part to frame the crisp centre of the image. This was stopped down more than one stop to hold the detail in the bright areas.

It's been a quiet week for me, focusing on work and not much else. I did get out yesterday though. The most exciting thing was buying a new shower head at the Haliburton Home Show. On the way home, I came across Bambi and his sister out playing in traffic on Highway 118.

I stopped and tracked them for a bit and got a couple of interesting pictures.

These are obviously young, probably year-old deer. Just because they are not mature-sized and because they have very little fear and were much more intent on eating the tasty foliage than on me. This is a full-frame shot with the 200mm so I was about 50 feet away.

I shot the picture at f/2.8. I generally set the camera at that opening so that I can capture shots like that without having to worry about shutter speed, then I dial it down later if I have time. Because of that, the little doe in the foreground is not in perfect focus, so I had to take it into Photoshop and tweak it a bit. That's all I did to it, though — this is exactly what I saw through the viewfinder.

Because the focus wasn't the best, I decided to do a version of the shot without her there and used the magic of Content-Aware-Fill in Photoshop CS5 to remove her. I cleaned up the distracting branches at upper left and cropped the image slightly to get this final image. I kind of like it — you?

That's it for today. Hopefully I'll have some new images for you later in the week. There's a female ruby-throated hummingbird hanging around my hummingbird feeder (haven't seen the more colourful male yet. The flowers are just starting to open in the garden so maybe he'll show up soon).

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Get out of your comfort zone!

I’ve said it often enough: I take great pictures of Rocks and Trees. I don’t take people pictures, I don’t do events. Well last weekend I decided to try something different. I’m glad I did, because I got my creative juices flowing.

I've started shooting more pictures of people. I'm finding it quite rewarding. During the Trillium weekend I think I shot more pictures of my fellow photographers than I did of the landscape. Certainly more than I shot of the beaver swimming across the pond, unlike some other people! This past weekend too — I decided to stretch myself and as a result I'm feeling less stale.

I was in Montreal for a memorial for my father and I decided to drive home via Ottawa. The 417 has a lot in common with the 401: total boredom. But after Ottawa it’s another story. The GPS took me up through Renfrew, then turned me along Highway 60, 132 past Calabogie and eventually 28 through Bancroft. I’d been on those roads before – they’re renowned motorcycling roads. A very enjoyable drive, even in a car – I recommend it. But that’s not what this is about.

At the last minute, approaching Ottawa, I decided to take an hour or so to visit the Byward Market. It’s an outdoor stall-type thing over several city blocks. At this time of year, I guess, it’s mostly produce and flower vendors, with a sprinkling of other tourist stuff as well. I parked, mounted my “walking-about-lens” (24-120) and set out to see what I could see. It didn’t take me 10 minutes before I changed to the 70-200 and I never switched back.

The 70-200 allows me to be a little less – OK, a LOT less intrusive. I can shoot from 20 or 25 feet away without getting in peoples' faces. Add to that the better perspective and the great isolation you get with the shallow DOF at f/2.8 and I'm reminded why this is my favourite lens.

I decided I would take people pictures. Candids, street pictures. Stuff I don’t usually do.

I’m shy. I asked the first interesting guy if I could take his picture. He was made up in whiteface and it turned out, was a sort of a street performer. He asked me for money. I said no, he grimaced and grudgingly agreed to be photographed. I took a couple of shots, and caught his ‘act’ later – he complained that ‘everyone is taking pictures but nobody is paying’. Right. DO SOMETHING, bud. He just stood there and pretended to be a statue. For this he wants payment?

I took candids of other people, but didn’t have the nerve to ask them if I could take their pictures. Again, I have to learn to do that. Here are a few candid images I took. The first one all by itself tells me I have to do this more often!

Sometimes you get lucky. Check out the expression on her face and compare it to her shirt.

These kids were checking out the menu board while waiting in line at the Beavertail concession.

Street guitarist showing a couple a riff that he was playing. To me, this picture tells a great story.

There was another street musician that I connected with. Well actually I threw a Toonie in his case and told him he was in the wrong city — he should have been in New Orleans. So he posed for me for some pictures as he played. He wasn't that good, but he did have some blues in him. The "Pink Panther" theme on the baritone sax sounded pretty good!

OK, I admit to doing a little Photoshopping on these pictures. Just because I changed my subjects didn't mean I had to change my style!

Finally I saw some great patterns in the produce for sale and took some of those shots.

Same image, a little Topaz. OK, a lot of Topaz.

But the most interesting ones were the people pictures! I still did my Photoshop and Topaz stuff but there’s a whole world out there of interesting subjects to photograph. I have to learn to be less shy, and ask permission to shoot pictures of people. The worst thing that can happen is they say “no”, right?

So I’m going to try to do this more. Expand my horizons, do stuff I haven’t done before. What about you? Are you ready to leave your comfort zone?

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Trillium Friday

On the way into Toronto on Friday, I came across this field of Trilliums. The difference was, it was on the verge of someone's property and they had obviously groomed the area, so there was no plethora of fallen dead leaves, no weeds, no messy twigs and branches.

I spent about half an hour shooting (I was under some time pressure). Besides, the blackflies were just out of their winter hibernation and they were voraciously hungry for human flesh. I had left my tripod at home, but I had an old one with me that I use as a stand for my external flash. It has a broken leg latch, but better than nothing!

Anyway, here are some images. I must have shot 50 different views and I don't know which one or ones I like best. I processed these a variety of ways. Please feed back which one or ones you like or dislike!

I actually painted this one using the mixer brushes in CS5

CAF (Content-aware Fill) was used to add flowers in the foreground. There was a gravel path there. I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the detail.

Obviously I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the detail. Not much else -- It really did look like this!

This is kind of over the top but I just liked the look. This was a 3-exposure HDR processed in Photomatix Pro.

Enjoy!

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A weekend shooting pictures with friends

This weekend was supposed to be a workshop for new DSLR users but (a) I left the advertising too late and (b) I had totally forgotten it was Mother's Day, so I didn't have any (paying) takers.


I did have a few friends come up to shoot trilliums. They were just barely open -- we were a few days early -- but we had fun anyway. Here's one shot I worked on, with remote flash backlighting and a reflector dish out front, and some (ok, more than "some"!) postprocessing:

We went out at dawn on Saturday in a huge amount of mist and fog. You always get some shots, though and it was worth it -- more for them than for me. Here's a shot I did of Shannon shooting a photo. The water levels are as high as I've ever seen them so this picnic table site was flooded.

Saturday night we stayed up for sunset shots, and were disappointed. A clear sky, no good colours. But we hung around until the stars came out. This is one of my images, taken above the dock at the Red Umbrella Inn across the road from my house. The moon was just a crescent, but there's no sign of anything but a round shape in this image. It overwhelms the lighting, of course. The orange glow on the horizon has to be the remnants of sunset, because the nearest town is about 60km away in that direction! We were playing around with a flashlight, painting the trees with light during the 30-second exposures. It may not have been necessary in this case.

Thanks to Ron, Shannon, Linda and Liz for making me get up and out at 4:00 am! We need to do this again. And watch this space for my upcoming workshop series!
 

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I must really like this look

I downloaded a copy of NIK HDR Efex in order to compare it with Photomatix Pro and CS5 Merge to HDR Pro. There are some things I like, and some I don't but all in all, this is a program that provides more flexibility. Here are a few examples of images I worked on this week.

I had actually passed over this image before. I HDR toned it in NIK (just a single image, not a bracketed group) and did some additional work in Topaz.

Speaking of waterfalls, here's Ritchie Falls, a bit closer to home. Again it's just one shot, edited similarly. The other significant thing about this shot is it was done with my new variable ND filter. The jury's still out on that.

This shot, on the other hand, was a bracketed 5-shot sequence that I merged to HDR with NIK HDR Efex. I did a bunch more work on it in Photoshop — for instance, the background was a mess of wires and power poles. I blurred the background, brought the ground under the truck into focus, and did some painting in the sky.

To "close the show" today, here's a painting I made in Painter 11 from the mundane loon shot I posted last week. I have to re-learn that technique, it's a lot of fun.

Off to shoot trilliums this weekend! Hopefully I'll have some interesting stuff to show you next time.

If you like this button, see how to make it in a few minutes. Click it!

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