Day 211, 365 Day Project.

One of the nice thing about using a camera built into a phone is that it is relatively unobtrusive. Using my iPhone I'm able to capture images of everyday things that you might get looked at strangely if you tried to do similar shots using a DSLR. Even using small cameras like Leica's or the Minox you would still draw attention that maybe unwanted. Today while I was in Safeway I noticed the light on the milk bottles in the fridge. Quickly I was able to pull out the iPhone, compose the image and take a shot. When I got home I brought it into Pictureshow where I converted it to B&w using the Duotone filter. I then used the tilt/shift function to bring the focus on the one lid and soften the rest of the image.

Day 210, 365 Day Project.

I finally purchased an iPad last Sunday and am learning what it can do. Decided to play with the camera today so I took it to the backyard where we had some late blooming Lillie's come up by the fence. Using my body to cast a shadow to soften the direct sunlight I lowered the iPad till I got the view I wanted and snapped a couple of images. Back in side I wanted to try the Snapseed app that I had downloaded last night. It was a lot of fun playing around with all the variables till I got the image I liked. So now I have another tool for the tool box.

Day 209, 365 Day Project.

Friday July 29th 2011. I photographed Cool and Luke reflected in a mirror while we waited for Lysa's glasses at Lens Crafter's. Shot with the iPhone and processed with Instagram and the Nashville filter.

Day 208, 365 Day Project.

Today was the out door portion of my combined studio lighting/wedding photography class. The students had lots of fun and I managed to squeeze off a few shots. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f9 and 42mm, 1/320 sec at 800 ISO.

Day 207, 365 Day Project.

Lovely Raman was on of the subjects for my student's today as we shot coloured backgrounds using gel's. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f7.1, 1/125th sec at 100 ISO.

Day 206, 365 Day Project.

July 26th 2011. I am teaching a combined studio lighting/wedding photography program for the Fast Track Photography session at SAIT. Running 6 days this will allow the students to complete their certificates in six weeks. I took a turn photographing the lovely Christina and had here do some jumping shots in her ballet outfit. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f8 and 70mm, 1/125 sec at 100 ISO.

Day 205, 365 Day Project.

July 25th 2011. More flower photo's from the garden in front of our house. It is neat to see the variety that has sprung up this year. I think these are Snap Dragon's and I loved the colors and size of the blooms. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 at f8 and 70mm, 1/400 sec (due to the wind) at 1600 ISO.

Day 204, 365 Day Project.

July 24th 2011. I upgraded to an iPhone 4 today and wanted to test it. Using the "Pocketbooth" app I took a series of 4 images to capture a panorama of the Calgary skyline. I think I will like the iPhone as much as I enjoyed the touch.

Day 203, 365 Day Project.

July 23rd 2011. Since this was Lysa and the boy's first trip to London we stayed down by the river near the London Eye. We awoke fairly early and decided to take a stroll down through St. Jame's Park to Buckingham Palace. It was fairly deserted at 8:00 a.m. so it was a relaxing stroll around the perimeter of the palace. As we were walking back I achieved a postcard perfect shot of the Palace with the flowers in the foreground and wonderful clouds in the sky. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f7.1 and 70mm, 1/640 sec at 100 ISO.

Day 202, 365 Day Project.

July 22nd 2011. By the time we arrived in London and got to our hotel I had been awake some 19 hours after our flight from India. Lysa and Luke fell asleep right away, but Cool having slept on the plane wanted to go for a walk. So we took a stroll by the Thames and the London eye as the sun was setting and I managed to get this shot of Big Ben and the Parliament buildings. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5.6 and 45mm, 1/80 sec at 3200 ISO.

Day 201, 365 Day Project.

July 21 2011. My brother-in-law and his wife raise a fairly wide variety of animals in India. They have cows, goats, chickens, turkeys and rabbits. Recently their rabbit had a litter of 6 bunnies. Here they are trying to get their turn at nursing. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f8 and 40mm, 1/250 sec at 800 ISO.

Day 200, 365 Day Project.

July 20th 2011. I was mugged by this monkey at Athirappilly falls. He had come up on the bench that Cool, Luke and I were sitting at and was eyeing the potato chips that Luke was eating. So I got up to be ready should it try to swipe his chips. This however gave the little rascal a chance to grab my bottle of Sprite and scurry up a tree. Here he is taunting me that he had got the better of me. We watched him for 15 minutes as he chewed at the bottle until he was able to make a hole in it so he could drink the soda.

Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 @ f8 and 70mm, 1/160 sec at 4000 ISO.

Day 199, 365 Day Project.

July 19th 2011. I photographed this waterfall last year with out a tripod and had to use faster shutter speeds. Knowing that I wanted to photograph it again this year I purchased a "Fader ND Filter" which can be varied between 1 and 8 stops. Using my tripod and 10-22 f3.5-4.5 lens, I set the aperture to f22 at 11mm and then dialed down the filter to - 8 stops to achieve a 30 second exposure at 100 ISO. I love the softness it gave to the water.

Day 198, 365 Day Project.

Monday July 18th 2011. A day of heavy monsoon rains. We basically stayed inside our house and relaxed after all the hectic travel. Looking for something to shoot for my daily project I went out on the veranda and shot water dripping from the leaves. This one was my favorite. Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 @ f4 and 160mm, handheld at 1/40 sec at 6400 ISO.

Day 197, 365 Day Project.

Sunday July 17th 2011. On our way home from taking the boy's to US Pizza in the city of Thrissur we came across two elephants walking along the road with trees in their trunks. My brother in-law got the car in front and I managed to get a few shots with my iPod touch as they walked by. Processed with Pictureshow.

Day 196, 365 Day Project.

Saturday July 16th 2011. My wife and boy's with my Mother and Father in-law outside the holy Sri Padmanabha Swami Temple in Trivandrum. It recently made the new as a secret chamber had been opened and inside was over 30 Billion dollars worth of Gold and precious stones. Photography is very limited and I was only able to take a few images from the stairway in front. Shoot with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f10 and 34 mm, 1/100 sec at 400 ISO.

Day 195, 365 Day Project.

Friday July 15th 2011. Flower reflected in the Bathroom mirror at the Taj Hotel where we stayed. Shot with the iPod and processed in Pictureshow.

Day 194, 365 Day Project.

Thursday, July 14th 2011. Arriving in Trivandrum after an 8 hour drive we attended the pre-wedding party for my wife's nephew Appu. This photo is of niece's Ammu and Divya who were performing a traditional Hindu dance of blessing for the couple. Shot with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f10 at 25mm, 1/200 sec at 12,800 ISO.

Day 193, 365 Day Project.

Wednesday, July 13th 2011. Finally at our house near Thrissur in the southern state of Kerala. Late in the afternoon as I went on the roof of the house I shot this image of a Coconut tree with the iPod touch. Processed with the Pictureshow app.

Day 192, 365 Day Project.

Tuesday July 12, 2011. During our 10 hour layover at London Heathrow we decided to take a day room at the Airport Hilton. I loved the clean bright look of the trash bin and shot a quick image with the iPod before joining the family for some sleep before our next flight.

Day 191, 365 Day Project.

Monday, July 11th, 2011. On the plane waiting for our trip to India which will cover the next 12 days. Shoot with the iPod touch and processed in Pictureshow. I had been looking for a shot to work with this particular app and I think it worked well.

Day 190, 365 Day Project.

Cool attended a birthday party at the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel water park. I had downloaded a new app to my iPod a week or so ago and this looked like a perfect time to play with it. The App is called "Slow Shutter" and allows you to have the shutter of the camera open so you can get light trails or time exposures. I wanted to see how well it would work handholding as I don't have a tripod adapter for my touch yet. It seemed to work pretty well and I loved the motion blur it gave as the kids came down the slide. This was about a three second exposure, but using the sliders you can bring back frozen moments to a degree within the exposure. Was a lot of fun to try and I can see me using it on other projects.

Day 189, 365 Day Project.

I finished and submitted the course outline for a new class that I will teach as part of the SAIT Continuing Education Program. The History, At and Culture of Photography just needs a course code and then it should be added to the course list for early 2012. These are just a few of the books I will be using as I develop each of the six classes that will be taught.

In the course I will show the early processes and cameras through to digital and developing technologies. I will be talking a lot about photographers, both past and current, who have had or are making a difference in the industry. Discussions will also be about what galleries, collectors and others in the fine art field look for in photography. Should be fun to teach and share with my students.

Shot with the iPod touch and processed in Pictureshow.

Day 188, 365 Day Project.

My brother was downtown at 5:00 am to get a curbside position for the family along the Stampede Parade route. Some 400,000 people were there with most looking forward to seeing Will & Kate as they drove by the opposite way before the start. Unfortunately the powers in charge felt that they should be in an enclosed car and though they drove slowly you only got to see the one who was on your side of the street. In my case it was Kate and here are two of my images. It was also a pain that the windows in the back would not roll down all the way as a number of my images had some wild reflections (you can see some in the top image). It is one of the few times I have set the camera for multiple bursts. Even though it was over fast, Cool and Luke were happy to see the princess.

Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 @ f9 and 75mm, 1/640 sec and 400 ISO.

Day 187, 365 Day Project.

The Marigold's are finally in bloom. I was watching as the sun moved across them and liked the texture the was cast by the late afternoon light. The flower in the background was in shadow which allowed me to keep it in with out it becoming distracting. I also like the little slash of light on the rock behind the flower as it adds to the depth.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5.6 and 42mm, 1/320 sec (it was windy) and 100 ISO.

Day 186, 365 Day Project.

Arriving early at SAIT tonight for my class I decided to do a little walk about to see if I could find something to photograph on campus. As I walked by the gym I looked in and saw that it was set up for some National Hand Bell conference. Noticing the entrance door was open I decided to head down and check it out. The participants were not there as I think they were on a supper break so I went in and started shooting. In these situations I do not like to recompose items, rather just look and find interesting compositions. These two are amongst the strongest I shot as I like the bells with the musical score. This is exactly as I found them and I moved no bell in the creation of these shots. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5.6 and 24mm, 1/40 sec at 1000 ISO.

Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5.6 and 35mm, 1/80 sec at 3200 ISO.

Day 185, 365 Day Project.

I finally got a chance to go some where besides my house and SAIT today. Seems like it's been forever since I was able to go and just walk in the mall. While my boy's and I were sitting in the food court eating our Subway sandwich's I noticed the skylight had some fairly graphic elements by the shape of the structure and the shadows coming through. So I pulled out the iPod and shot a few images. Once we returned home I brought my favourite in to Pictureshow and used the red gel filter to give it the look I wanted.

Day 184, 365 Day Project.

One of the things I like about the camera in the iPod touch is the gritty feel you can create due to the quality of the camera. In some ways it reminds me of old toy cameras like the Holga, which gave distinct and unique looks to the images. Sometimes, as with the touch, you would get the most surprising results and that is why I think there is still such a fascination with them to this day. This shot was processed first with the Camera+ app and then again in Best Camera to obtain the desired results.

Day 183, 365 Day Project.

So it is officially half way through the year and that means we are in the grasp of summer. And summer is a wonderful combination of boys, worms and dirt. Here are Cool and Luke enjoying a bowl full of the delicacy as it has become there favorite snack. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f8 and 40mm, 1/40 sec and 6400 ISO.

Day 182, 365 Day Project.

Shot the evening of July 2 on my iPod touch and posted directly through Instagram. Almost lost the shot before I could share it on the blog as I deleted it from the touch before I had downloaded it to the camera. Fortunately I was able to retrieve it from Instgram and show it here. This is one of those plastic pin toys that you press things up against so I thought I would do my self portrait using it.

Day 181, 365 Day Project.

Not sure what type of flower this is as it is the first time it has ever bloomed in our garden. I love the long sweeping tail behind it. It was windy out today so I had to shoot at 1/320 sec to compensate. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f10 and 55mm, 800 ISO.