Day 64, 365 Day Project

Cool was sitting in the living room this afternoon playing on his laptop when I noticed this wonderful window light coming in on him. Besides the light from the window there was a nice bounce fill from the direct sun off the carpet. Grabbing the camera I took a couple of quick, tight images. Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f9, 1/50 sec at 800 ISO.

Day 63, 365 Day Project

I kind of liked the oriental feel of this soap dish and the new bar of soap with the ridges on top really caught my eye. Brought them down to the studio and lit them with one Balcar light and a 3 degree grid spot. Shot only using the modeling light with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f5 for 1/30 sec at 2000 ISO.

Day 62, 365 Day Project

I've been going a little stir crazy sitting in the house during this recent cold snap. The weather has been down right miserable with -35C wind chills and grey skies. I was feeling the blues and really needed to get out for a walk. Fortunately today the opportunity presented itself as I had an hour and a half between dropping Luke of at playschool and picking Cool up from school. The sun was shining and the temperature had warmed to -14C so I headed down to Princess Island which is on the edge of Calgary's downtown core. I was hoping that there would be some open water and some ducks to photograph but that did not pan out.

So I went for a walk around the islands to see what winter images I could find. The above caught my eye and I zoomed in on these leaves that had fallen and were sticking out of the snow. I love the color and the texture of the leaves against the white snow. Shot with the Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 @ f11, 1/320 sec at 200 ISO handheld.

As I walked along I came across this little fellow below scampering through the snow. I edged up as close as I could and since he was running from sun to shade I switched aperture priority and F5.6 as I wanted some shallow depth of field to keep the background a little less distracting. Shutterspeed was 1/1600 on the top image and 1/1000 on the bottom. Focal length was 200mm.

It was nice to get out even for a short walk and shake off some of the winter blues.

Day 61, 365 Day Project

Today was something a little different for me and I choose to use one of the old cameras from my collection. I have never been one for overly abstract images and have always found them a challenge for me to create. But I have been inspired by other photographer's who are doing them in their Image a Day project, in particular Jonathan Marks (you can find him on facebook). I have been following his 365 day project for a while now and am very impressed.

So inspired, I pulled out my old Polaroid SX-70 and was planning to use some of the "Impossible Project" ( http://www.the-impossible-project.com ) film in received recently but to my surprise I still had some original SX-70 film in the camera. I choose my subject matter, a vase of silk tulips that was in the window and started to shoot. Making adjustments and trying different things I went through the last 3 sheets in the camera and liked the results of this one.

After shooting and waiting for the image to process I put it in my Epson V700 scanner switched over for photo's and scanned the image. Made a few tiny adjustments in photoshop and cleaned up some of the spots and thus have today's image.

Day 60, 365 Day Project

I thought all the information and speakers at a photography conference use to be sensory overload. That is till I went to a presentation to night about how to hire a home renovator. Man I am glad I did not jump in earlier as I realized I am unprepared for the undertaking we would like to do. When we bought our home 8 years ago we had the idea to make a change and add a studio addition where the current garage sits. Over the years the plans have simplified, but I now see that there is a lot more to do once the dream phase is finished. Here are a sampling of the brochures that I picked up tonight. With this information I know it will be a year or so before we finally break ground.

Simple image with the Canon 7D, 24-70 f2.8 @ f4.5, 1/60 sec at 6400 ISO.

Archive Image of the Day. Image #14

This image was taken in December 2005 in Agra, India. Of course it is one of the most recognized and beautiful buildings in the world, The Taj Mahal. Lysa, Cool and I visited along with my Aunt Elsie and Lysa's cousin Ammu during our 6 week visit to her family who live in India.

I took a couple of cameras and this was taken with my Holga plastic camera. I have had fairly good results with this camera and don't seem to have the drastic light leaks that some of them are prone to.

Film stock though was unique as this is Kodachrome 64 which is actually a B&W film that they added the dyes into in the processing. When we returned home I processed it in Kodak D19 developer and then fixed the emulsion with an acid hardening fix.

I was pleasantly surprised of the sharpness and tonal range I achieved both from the camera and the film stock. I still have about 200 rolls of Kodachrome in my fridge and plan to do some more experimenting with it in the future.

Day 59, 365 Day Project

Well a new month and still going strong with the 365 day project. The one big challenge I have found is that since I work from home and other then on the nights I teach at SAIT, I really don't get out that much. So I am always looking for interesting things around the house and different ways to show the ordinary.

One of the biggest things I have wanted to portray is what -25C looks like as we have had to many days in 2011 at this temperature so far. Today I looked out the front window and even with a clear sky it is bitterly cold. We have a planter out front and it is currently surrounded by snow. I took an image with my iPod Touch and then applied a new app I downloaded last night. The app is called "Pictureshow" and it has a variety of options and tools you can apply to an image. In this case I added a border called "Instant" added some scratches which I felt gave the image an even more icy feel and then added a pinhole option. After doing all this I brought the image into photoshop where I lightened it up a bit for the feel I wanted. I think I accomplished what I set out to achieve which is to make a image the reflects the chill we are experiencing outside.

Hopefully it will warm up soon as it is March already.