Day 119, 365 Day Project.

Decided to take a quick walk at Nose Hill park on my way home from SAIT to get a photo of some Crocus flowers before it is to late. Did not have to walk to far from the car before I found a nice patch of flowers. Using the Canon 7D and 24-70 f2.8 lens I got down close and shot a few images. This one was my favorite, I used my body to cast a shadow on the Crocus to help make the colors jump. Focal length was 70mm and I switched to manual focus as the distance was right on the edge of the focus range. f8 @ 1/160 and 100 ISO.

Day 118, 365 Day Project.

I love the way the evening sun comes through our front windows creating all sorts of interesting shadows. I saw this shadow of my wife's "Money Plant" cast on the brick wall of our fireplace. Decided to use the iPod touch camera today and process it in "Pictureshow" was able to choose a frame that I like and bring out the red a little.

Day 117, 365 Day Project.

April shower's brings May's, er, ah, April's snow covers the flowers. That is what is happening on April 28th here in Calgary. I can't believe that we are getting another dump of snow. I have lived here all my life and I can not remember a time when we have had consistent winter. I know we have had late snow falls in previous years, but usually we had a long warm stretch in between. So far we have only had stretches of a day or two. Any way, enough of the rant. Went out in the snow and grabbed two images for today's challenge. The above is of the berries on the rose bush. I chose a shallow depth of field to throw the wall out of focus. This is f2.8 on the 24-70 lens on the Canon 7D at 1/250 sec and 100 ISO.

The bottom image is what is happening to our poor tulips as they get covered in snow. f18, 1/60 sec at 1600 ISO.

Day 116, 365 Day Project.

Another fantastic class with my students at SAIT for the Basic Lighting Class. Tonight was Low Key and the lovely Krystal returned to be one of the subjects once again. After my lecture I like to give the student's as much time as I can so they can shoot and work with the model's. It is only after they have all shot that I will jump in and grab a couple of images before breaking down to bring the equipment home. I loved the way her red dress and lipstick popped out against the black background and so I shot this image quickly.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f8, 1/125 sec, 100 ISO. Lights were two Balcar mini-Z's. Main was to the left with an 18 x 48 Larson Strip Soft Box and a fill with an umbrella behind camera position. Ratio was 4:1 between the two lights.

Day 115, 365 Day Project.

Tonight was the boy's first night for soccer. It has been a long cold spring and the snow finally has left so they started a week late. I was able to get a few good shots of Cool playing. It was still chilly but he played well for the first night out. Canon 7D set of shutter priority and 1/200 sec. F stop was f8 at 400 ISO with the 24-20 mm f2.8 lens at 70 mm.

Day 114, 365 Day Project.

Sometimes the simplest things can make for an interesting image. As I was looking for something to photograph I saw that my wife had left her tape measure on top of the purple material she was working with. I like the random curves of the tape and the jumble of metric and imperial numbers. Shooting with the Canon 7D and the 24-70 F2.8 I choose f4.5 to give some depth of field but not to much. Focal length was 68mm at 1/60 sec and 6400 ISO.

Day 113, 365 Day Project.

Here is an image of my 7 month old niece Jaden during our Easter visit to my parents. iPod touch processed with Instagram app and the earlybird filter.

Day 112, 365 Day Project.

Today's image is one of a silk flower set that we have down stairs. Shot with the iPod touch in front of a mirror and then processed with instagram using the Heff filter.

The answer to what yesterday's image was of, the front of my wife's hairdryer. The piece itself is plastic but the filter gave it a metallic look.

Day 111, 365 Day Project.

Still in the mood of experimentation today so I decided to go a little abstract today. The idea for this shot was to find an everyday object and make it look interesting. Can you guess what this is (answer in tomorrows blog)? Shot with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 lens @ f2.8 and 68mm, 1/60 sec., 6400 ISO. A filter was added in photoshop that added to the abstract quality.

Day 110, 365 Day Project.

One of the things that digital has given us is the ability to change the white balance based on what our light source is. In the days of film we had basically daylight balanced and a few tungsten balanced films. If we wanted to play or change the color temperature we had to use gels on light sources and/or filters on the camera. In the spirit of play and experimentation I wanted to see what the extreme would look like on my Canon 7D. Thus I set the white balance to 10,000 kelvin. My light source for this experiment was a compact fluorescent bulb behind a frosted cover. ISO was 1600, shutter speed of 1/25 @ f2.8 on the 24-70 f2.8 lens. I love the rich orange colour produced and am looking forward to experimenting with white balance in other lighting situations.

Day 109, 365 Day Project.

Had a most excellent class tonight at SAIT. The first style of lighting I introduce to the students is High Key and I show a couple of ways to go about achieving this. We had the lovely Krystal as a subject and I took a couple of quick images before giving the students the rest of the evening to shoot. The above shot was with four lights. Two Alien Bees on the subject creating a 3 to 1 ratio and a shooting aperture of f5.6. Main light was a 3' x 4' Larson soft box and fill light with an umbrella. Then two small Multiblitz minis on the background and reading 11 and 5/10 of a stop to blow out the background.



The second image was using two Balcar Mini Z's with umbrellas to create a wall of light reading f11 across the scene and then keeping the subject close to the background. Produces a fat but pleasant light.

Both images with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 at 1/125 sec and 100 ISO.

Day 108, 365 Day Project.

I have an idea!!. Actually I didn't and I was so busy today with a variety of projects that I almost forgot the 365 Day Challenge. So scrambling to find something I picked up a light bulb and brought it into the studio. The challenge was how to make if glow with out plugging it in. The solution was to stand it up using some of Luke's play dough then using my Alien Bee 800 with the 3 degree grid spot on the bulb and a reflector on the other side and photographing it against black muslin. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f4.5 at 66mm, 1/125 sec, 100 ISO.

Day 107, 365 Day Project.

Went to Banff National Park today to take in the Professional Photographers of Canada trade show at their annual convention. It was nice to catch up with a number of friends I have not seen in a long time. After visiting for a couple of hours I had to head back to Calgary as I have my advanced lighting class at SAIT. However, since I had some time I took a bit of a scenic route to see if I would see any wildlife. Sure enough I game across a couple of Deer grazing along the side of the road. I was able to snap off a number of frames but I liked this one the best as he is so upright and the ears pointed.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f10 and 68mm focal length, 1/320 sec at 160 ISO.

Day 106, 365 Day Project.

When setting out on this challenge I know there would be day's when I had to dig deep down in order to get the shot. Today was looking like one of those days and I was scrambling as the night went on. As I was looking around I noticed that this plant that was in the corner of the basement had a bloom on it and decided it would be today's subject. Still I did not want a straight image, I had to be creative so I brought it in to the studio and decided to back light it using a 3 degree grid spot on my Alien Bee 800. The first shot I took gave me part of the effect I was looking to achieve but the pistil was to dark. To remedy this I added a small mirror on a stand with a magic arm and then bounced some of the light that was going past the flower back into it (see set up image below). I love the results and the detail that remained in the flower. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f16and focal length of 63mm, 1/125 sec., 100 ISO Set up image 12,800 ISO, f5 at 1/80 sec.

Day 105, 365 Day Project.

While teaching my classes today I left my boy's with my mom to babysit. Well you know grandma's. She took them to Market Mall and Toy''s R US and got them the classic Mouse Trap game. Well of course as soon as we got home after I picked them up they had to play it. So after an exciting round which Luke caught both Cool and I we took a break and had supper. I was looking on this structure and thought "Wow, what vibrant colours". Pulling out the iPod touch I framed up the game board and shot an image. Bringing it in to Pictureshow I add some noise with the sand filter over the original to give it a retro look and then used the transparency border.

Day 104, 365 Day Project.

While I was at the eye doctors today having my pupils dilated, Cool was taking a day off school to sing with the Cantare Children's Choir. They sang at 4 schools and one Seniors home. I was able to catch up with them at their last stop which was the Seniors home. Wearing my sunglasses as my eyes were very sensitive to light I watched their performance and I know I could hear Cool's voice in every song. Here is my boy (in the middle) singing his heart out for the senior citizens.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5.0 at 70mm, 1/60 sec at 6400 ISO.

Day 103, 365 Day Project.

When I was a child a trip from Brentwood to Bowness Park here in Calgary was a big deal and something to look forward to on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Tonight I had an hour to myself so I thought I would take a drive over to Bowness Park to see if I could find some ducks along the river to photograph. Alas there were no ducks close to the river bank but as I was driving through the park I saw the old amusement park were we played when we were kids. Sadly most of the rides are gone now and what are left lie behind a chain link fence with barbed wire on top. However there was a small section were the barbed wire had broken and I was able to reach my camera up over the fence to capture some shots of the old Rocket ship ride. The sun was getting low in the sky and gave this warm glow on these long abandoned toys. Shot with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f7.1 and focal length of 60mm. Shutter speed was 1250 at 1600 ISO.

After taking the first image I wandered down towards the river and attached my 70-200 f2.8 and 2x converter and went to see if I could see some ducks. There were a few but out in the middle of the Bow river and to far for me to shoot. However I looked over my shoulder and saw the sun reflecting off the tracks of the Miniature Railroad that runs through the park. The fresh snow we had this morning created a wonderful pattern between the rails and I composed the image to have the lines flow through the photo. Focal length was 270mm at f7.1 1/25o0 sec at 1600 ISO.

As I walked along the river I saw this shelf of ice breaking off and resting in the river. It reminded me iceberg images I have seen and it shows the amount of snow we have had this past winter. Again with the Canon 7D 70-200 f2.8 @ f7.1 and focal length of 380mm, 1/1250 @ 1600 ISO.

Day 102, 365 Day Project.

An experiment with abstraction today. This is a section of a 1905 antique Barber chair I have in my office. I like the patterns and added some reticulation in photoshop to give it even more of that antique feel. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f3.2, 1/200 sec at 12,800 ISO.

Day 101, 365 Day Project.

They say that the best camera is the one you have with you. While this is true as you can't create an image if you don't have a camera handy, I fully believe you have to know the camera you have and use it within it's purpose. By this I mean you have to know the properties and limitations of the device and choose your subject matter accordingly. In so doing we can see great images from toy cameras, camera phones, compact cameras, DSLR and medium formats. Knowing what one suits your purpose is the key. I shot today's image while waiting for Cool at choir practice. The idea is to try to take the ordinary and make interesting. Of course I had a few strange looks of parents who were also waiting as I looked at the back of my iPod touch to get the composition that I liked of this water fountain. I then brought the image in to my favorite app "Pictureshow" and looked at a few of the variations. I am getting to know this particular app quite well so I can previsualize to a certain extent what my final result will be. These were the four that I think were the most interesting.

Day 100, 365 Day Project.

Stopped do a little night photography on my way home from my class at SAIT. This is the parkade at the Foothills Medical Centre and as I drove by I liked the repeating pattern that I saw. So I swung around and found a place to park and started to shoot. Not only did I like the pattern but also the slight curve in the lines. Once I got home I knew this was an image that would work well in B&W so I converted it in photoshop CS5. Shoot with the Canon 7D at 12,800 ISO, 24-70 f2.8 lens @ f3.2 and focal length of 48mm, 1/50 sec.

Day 99, 365 Day Project.

Spring has Sprung. Today we finally achieved some double digit temperatures with a sunny day so I decided to get out and do some yard work. After shovelling the snow off the deck behind the house and on to the flower beds, I then went to the front to do a little cleaning there. As I looked under the front windows I noticed that our tulips are starting to push up through the dirt and leaves (I always pile leaves on to our flower beds in the fall to add some insulation). I quickly went back inside and grabbed my camera to capture these shots. I really must consider getting a macro lens as I am finding that I enjoy doing this type of work. The first two were shot with the 24-70 f2.8 @ f5 @ 1/250 and at 100 ISO. The last was shot at 1/125 @ f6.3. Focal length for #1 was 68 mm and for #2 and #3 was 38mm.

Day 98, 365 Day Project.

Trying another new app on my iPod Touch. This one is called "Pocketbooth" and creates a photobooth look where you can control styles, number of images and 1mount of time between frames. I tested it to day but found a bug that has made it more difficult to work with. This is that the viewfinder does not work on the touch and I have to guess what the camera is seeing. Makes it a little difficult especially if one is trying to photograph active little boys. Still I see some potential and hopefully there will be an update soon that will resolve this issue.

Day 97, 365 Day Project.

My wife had a gathering of people from the local Malayalam Community over tonight so I spent all day cleaning and organizing the house. This evening as they were all leaving I looked up at the light fixture that we have in our front entrance and noticed this wonderful play of light and shadow. So once the last of them had left I pulled out the trusty Canon 7D and the 24-70 f2.8 and snapped a few images. I liked the abstract qualities of this one as I choose to leave a large portion of the fixture in the frame. 400ISO, 1/50th sec, f 4.5 and white balance on Auto. I liked the monochromatic/sepia look that the camera gave as shot and choose to leave it this way.

Day 96, 365 Day Project.

Well we finally have a clear night so I decided to see what the view from the back deck was like. Here I was able to see the Big Dipper just over the trees and so I thought I would try some astral photography. Setting up the Canon 7D on a tripod I set the shutter to "Bulb" and the f stop to 5.6 with the 24-70mm f2.8 lens at a focal length of 38mm. ISO was set at 400 and white balance on auto. The exposure here was 40 seconds and I am just noticing a bit of trailing starting. It was a little chilly out at -5C so I was not outside to long. However when the weather warms up this summer I think I might revisit the astral photography again. Next time I will try to go to a location farther from the city so as to have less light pollution to deal with.

Day 95, 365 Day Project.

This one plant we have seems to flower regularly and with lots of blooms. I have used it before and choose to use it again today. Using "Pictureshow" and the duotone setting gave this wonderful look from my iPod touch camera.

I have heard some people complain lately about images created with such cameras and apps. However I still feel they are wonderful tools allowing more creativity. It still takes an eye and understanding to what the tools do to create interesting photo's.

Day 94, 365 Day Project.

I get up early every morning and walk with Cool and one of his friend's and his dad to school. With sunrise right around 7:00 this creates some wonderful shadows by the time we hit the sidewalk at 8:00. Along our route we walk past one of the junior high school's whose roof they have been working on since October. Today I saw this wonderful pattern being cast by the ladder leading to the roof and had to stop and shot it. The iPod touch is a nice small device and handy to have around so I took a couple of angles before we continued on our walk. Once I got home I brought these two images into what has become one of my favorite apps, "Pictureshow" and start looking at combinations. I settled on Vintage Stain and Cross with Grain as the final product. However I also liked what happened when I hit the Mirror setting and the way the ladder did not show but the shadows converged on the bottom image. This image below was taken as I walked up my driveway on my way home. I saw these great shadows being cast on the rock and quickly took some shots. In about three minutes I was only able to try a few settings with the "Hipstamatic" app before the shadows had moved to much and disappeared. This was shot with the following settings. Lens: John SFilm: Kodot XGrizzled

Day 93, 365 Day Project.

Well the snow is melting fast and I am hoping it will soon all be gone soon. My boy's however took the opportunity to get out in the front yard and build what should surely be the last snowman of winter. iPod touch camera and the "Instagram" app with the Heffe setting.

Day 92, 365 Day Project.

One of the assignments I had in my high school photography course was to shoot with in the property boundary of our home. At the time I found it most difficult. How things have changed. I would say that it is a safe bet that close to 85% of my images in the 92 days have been of something in and/or around our home. Today was no exception as after a big spring snow storm comes a big melt.

I happened to look out of the kitchen window and noticed that icicles had formed on the gutters on the shadow side of the house. The temperature was about 2C so I went out the side door with my iPod touch as I knew I wanted to use the "Pictureshow" app with the image I would capture of the icicles. I moved my camera around a few times trying to avoid the neighbours house in the background when I saw the flare from the sun hit the camera. So I moved around till I had the flare exactly where I wanted it and snapped the shot. In Pictureshow I choose to leave it as the original but use 120 reversal in the style palate to achieve a result I was happy with.

Day 91, 365 Day Project.

Well the blast of winter I mentioned yesterday hit us and what was once dry is now covered in snow once again. I returned from teaching my classes at SAIT and after spending 45 minutes shovelling the driveway went inside and grabbed my camera. Venturing out into the backyard I looked around for today's subjects. I have this old wagon wheel that I use for western theme shots so I first decided to get down and photograph the fine details. I love the weathered wood with the fresh snow and the way the red of the shed makes it all jump. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f 8, 1/60th sec at 800 ISO. Focal length 30 mm, White balance on overcast.

I then turned around and saw this pine cone in the tree. I got down low so I could shoot up at it and adjust the the shutter speed to 1/250 as it was more in the open. Focal length was 70mm.

Day 90, 365 Day Project.

Wow, Day 90 and three months complete. Still a long ways to go but I'm on the way.

With another blast of winter getting ready to hit us I wanted to try and turn my thoughts to Spring by photographing one of the silk flowers we have in our home. Taking one of my beakers from the darkroom I filled it with water and proceeded to dunk the flower in the water hoping to capture it with bubbles stuck to it's surface. Unfortunately few bubbles came up (perhaps because it was not real) but I liked the shot any way. The colors have a certain pop and the lines gave an interesting effect.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f8, 1/125 sec at 100 ISO. Light source is one Balcar strobe head with small Chimera strip soft box to the side raised high enough to avoid reflection in the beaker.