A month flies by.

The last 31 days flew past so fast and was full of activities that I found no time to post to my blog.  In fact there were days when I came close to failing to take a photograph and thus ending the streak.  However that did not happen and here I share the photo's from the past month.

October 12 Flower and firetruck.  Found these during a walk around Crowfoot Crossing.  iPhone photo's

October 13 Hibiscus flower and fall colours.  I noticed our Hibiscuc plant was back in bloom and used my 70-200mm lens on the 7D to photograph the flower from across the room.  An aperture of f5 through the leaves on the bushes outside out of focus giving this nice warm background.

October 14.  Thanksgiving day and our family meal made for the image of the day.

October 15.  A close up of my eye as I noticed my brow had a funny upward swoosh.  I converted the image to B&W and then brought back my natural eye colour.

October 16.  A couple of close-ups.  The first of a key pad at SAIT where the glow of the numbers caught my eye.

Latter when I returned home I poured a glass of chocolate milk and noticed the bubbles.  Using a straw I made more of them creating an interesting pattern.

October 17.  I demonstrated palladium and cyanotype printing to my History class at SAIT.  I recorded the process and the results.

October 18.  Ginger root study in Black & White.

October 19.  I took a 5 km walk around the downtown core while waiting for the boy's dress rehearsal for that evenings choir concert.  I shot the first 7 photo's with the iPhone during this walk.

In the evening I captured two photo's of my boy's on stage with the 7D and the 70-200mm lens.

October 20.  Cool and I retraced the 5km I walked the day before as we searched for some needy people and give them a bag lunch.  This is part of a project that Cool hopes to do on various Sunday's as a way of giving back.

October 21.  Election day.  I worked one of the polling stations and we were not allowed to use our phones while in the polling station.  My day lasted 18 hours as I started at 9:00 am and finished at 3:00 am the next morning.  I thought I might end the streak there, but found a few minutes about 10:30 pm in the evening to take a quick shot of an interesting mural in the school lobby just outside the polling area.

October 22.  Leaves silhouetted against the setting sun.  7D and the 70-200mm lens.

October 23.  Experimenting a little with a blue gel on my light table, a key as the subject with light from the table bounced back on it with a mirror.  Adjusted the white balance to 8000K to warm the reflected light.

October 24.  We Day.  Cool was fortunate to attend this event with 19 of his classmates. Here he is infront of the school upon returning from the Saddledome in his hand made, tie-dyed t-shirt.

That same morning I shot these three photo's as part of my lesson in seeing what is around one to my seniors class.  These flowers were in front of the building and the shadow on the lamp was inside.

Later that evening one of the stuffed toys from the movie "UP" caught my attention and I recorded this image.

October 25.  Close up of one of the last Roses on our bush outside as it started to wilt in the fall weather.

October 26.  A vintage 1966 Chevy Nova.

October 27.  Scenes in the backyard after the first snowfall of the winter.

October 28.  Breanna from the first night of my Advanced Lighting Class at SAIT.

October 29.  Dance night at the Varsity Community Centre.  I noticed the ice on the front of one of the cars out front and ran out to take a photo.  Some young girls were watching and wondering what I was doing.  They were amazed by the results.

Since it was parent watching night I also was able to get a few photo's of Cool and Luke during their class.

October 30.  I helped Cool make a cake to take to school for Halloween.  Here is his finished eyeball cake.

October 31.  A coat rack at the Senior centre as another example of making something interesting out of something ordinary.

A series of images of some of the Jack-O-Lanterns we encountered on out Halloween walk.

November 1.  At the cineplex seeing the movie "Free Birds" with the boy's.  The pattern of these ketchup cups made a unique composition.

November 2.  Back walking around Crowfoot Crossing while Cool had his guitar lesson at Music Makers.  I found a number of items to train the lens of my iPhone on.

November 3.  A shot of the family out front of the house on a snowy Sunday morning.

Back to Music Makers for Cool's vocal lessons.  The reflection in the guitars was interesting to me.

As were the icicles hanging of the bottom of a parked car.

November 4.  Jenna at my Advanced Lighting class at SAIT.  Mixing strobe and tungsten light sources and casting shadows on the background.

November 5.  Another day where it was not till late in the evening before I found my subject.  These little shampoo bottles on the edge of the bath tub kept the streak alive.

November 6.  Luke made a chain of paper rings and asked me to take a photo and make it the photo of the day.  His suggestion was a good one and with a little post processing made it jump.

November 7.  The first showing of the movie "Thor, The Dark World".  They had little figures that came with your soft drink and I took it's photo with the ticket in the background.  This photo garnered over 6500 views on Mobli.  Typically my photos average around 150 views.

November 8.  A little post processing with Snapseed of this capture with the iPhone made these teddy bears snap.

November 9.  A gold fabric flower decoration we had, positioned with the black couch behind it made for a nice composition.

November 10.  A couple of abstracts.  Glass vases at Chapters in Crowfoot and guitars at Music Makers.  Both shot with the iPhone and processed in Snapseed.

The rose bush outside our window as winter takes it toll on it.  Canon 7D.  First photo with the 70-200mm lens and with the 24-70mm for the second.

November 11.  The back side of a lamp I noticed while waiting for Cool at choir practice.  The light on the various parts was fascinating to me.

A bit of variety.

In this modern age of photography you here more and more that one has to specialize in order to be successful.  This may be true in some cases and when I was running my studio I did just that.  Portraiture was my specialty and I was pretty good at it.  However after 15 years doing this I became a little tired and choose to cut back.  This did not mean I stopped shooting, as those of you who follow my writ tings and  photo's can attest, but just changed directions.

I have rediscovered the joy of just taking photo's for myself and what I want.  These last four days show some of the variety of subjects found to create my photo of the day.

October 8.  Luke had pulled out this old alphabet puzzle and had left it sitting in the middle of the basement.  I was attracted by the colours and the letters and turned the iPhone on it.  Some post work in Snapseed gave it a little pop.

October 9.  A portrait of Breanna from my basic lighting class SHe has been coming into model for my classes at SAIT for about nine years now and is always lovely to work with.  She had a new haircut on this evening and I wanted to play with the hair over one eye to give a sense of mystery.

October 10.  My second walk this week.  This time with my class from the Greater Forest Lawn Seniors Center.  We went to the Inglewood but found that it was still closed due to the flooding this past June. So we went for a hike along the bike path that runs between the sanctuary and the rail lines.  This interesting engine appeared on the tracks and I felt it would ake an interesting image as I had never seen a shuttle wagon before.  Shot on the Canon 7D but post processed with Snapseed on the iPhone.

The rain then started that afternoon and when I was on my way to SAIT for my evening class I saw this lone leaf stuck to my windshield.  A quick snap with the iPhone made for an interesting shot.

October 11.  I noticed that the moon had risen early this evening and was very visible against the blue sky.  I have seen a lot of photo's of the moon taken at night, but thought this might be a little different.  I shot this at 200 ISO, 1/800 sec, f5.6 on the Canon 7D with a 2X converter on my 70-200 lens.  It is cropped in and frames but no other post work was done.

Gone walkabout.

 This quaint Australian term brings visions of grand adventures and discovering new places and things.  However it is also a good idea for those of us who only need a few hours and a chance to rediscover what is around of.  These past two day's I had the opportunity to take sometime and take some short walks.  Here are the results of my walkabouts.

October 6.  I took a walk with Cool in Baker park as he searched for leaves for a school project.  While he did this I was watching for opportunities for photographs.  The graffiti inside one of the storm sewers and the fall colours caught the majority of my attention.  However I did notice a bike rack as well and experimented with the Hipstamatic app for the last photo in this series.

October 7.  Today's walk was part of my class I am teaching at the Kerby Center.  I took a group of ten seniors out for a walk down by the Bow River down to the Peace Bridge and back.  Along the way I answered questions they had about their cameras but also showed them how I see and observe the world around me.  There were many objects of art that have been commissioned and as these were new to me it is where I focused on.  All these  images were shot with the Canon 7D except for the last which was done with the iPhone.

Reflecting on 1000 consecutive days.

When I started this project on December 31, 2010 I had only intended to see if I could follow through on a photo a day for a year.  Now I find myself reaching my 1000 consecutive day with today's post and feel it is a good chance to look back at what I have learned.

Lesson 1.  No matter what don't throw in the towel.  There were nights as the clock ticked down where I was tired and not feeling creative.  Still I reached deep down and found some item, some knickknack laying around the house and found some creative way to photograph it.  It surprised me that some of these images were my most popular shots.

Lesson 2.  Use the project to try new things.  In 2012 I concentrated on learning what the camera in the iPhone can do and what apps worked best for my vision.  All but two of the 366 photo's of the day were created with the iPhone and I learned when it works well and has an advantage as well as it's shortcomings and when it was not reliable.  I found Snapseed to be my favorite app with iPhoto, Hipstamatic, Jazz and RealCamera+ to be useful.  I tried many others and use a few of them, but many have been removed from my phone as they did not suit my taste.

Lesson 3.  Keep your eyes open and observe the light.  Many times during a busy day I found it challenging to think about taking photo's.  However this did not mean I stopped seeing scenes around me.  This has helped me be ready to capture a shot, even if the moment was fleeting.

Lesson 4.  Don't worry if other's look at you strangely.  Many times I would pull out my camera (iPhone or DSLR) at times and places where others might have walked past.  Often people would look at me with quizzical looks as I shot in places like Safeway and Walmart or found me contorting myself or at odd angels trying to frame a shot.  It does not matter what they were thinking, I was able to get the shot I wanted.

Lesson 5.  Share over and over.  Whether it was through this blog, on Facebook, Twitter, Goggle+ and LinkedIn or the photo social sites like Instagram, Pheed, Tadaa, Mobli, EyeEm Tuding, Streamzoo and now Pressgram it was good to get my daily images out to the world.  One does not need to have a lot of follower nor to be following a lot,  just be active in that community.  You can get feedback from all over the planet and gain inspiration from them.

These are just a few of my thoughts and now as I continue to move forward I hope to continue to grow as a photographer and as a person.  I look forward to sharing more photo of the day with you as well as incorporating some projects in to it as well.  Here are my photo's from the past few days.

October 2.  Walking through Safeway I noticed this basket with mini pumpkins in it.  I quickly took out my iPhone and snapped a couple of frames.  I used Snapseed for most of the port work but removed one white label using iPhoto.

October 3.  Finishing the night after teaching at SAIT I found these two objects.  The first was a bottle of Windex siting on a shelf in the darkroom (they still have a B&W lab and a strong continuing ed class in the school).  A quick shot and a bot of Snapseed created this photo.

Walking out to my car I passed the bins for garbage and recycling and the symmetry of this shot caught my eye.  I positioned my camera to get this lovely perspective as well as the reflection of the lights off the silver.  Again a little work in Snapseed achieved what I was looking for.

October 4.  A day with my boy's as it was a PD day from school. Cool had to go and collect some leaves for a school project.  While crossing the bridge at Edworthy Park I saw this shadow and asked hime to lay down in the sun.  I shot this with the iPhone but did a bit of post work in both Snapseed and in Photoshop on the computer.

Later that afternoon we went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  After words Cool and Luke wanted a photo with the snowman from Frozen which is the next movie they want to see.

October 5.  While Cool and I were out collecting bottles for his choir fundraiser I found today's images.  The first was a boat sitting in a driveway waiting to be winterized.  I held the camera high and angled it to get the view I wanted.

We latter came across this huge metal butterfly on the side of one of the houses.  I asked the owner if I could snap a shot as I found it interesting.  A little work in Snapseed with the drama filter made it pop.

Entering the final quarter.

For business today would be the start of the 4th quarter.  For me it is the home stretch on the way to the end of the year and another successful completion of the photo a day challenge.  Life does have away of keeping one busy so sometimes I just have to get the images as they present themselves to me.  Here are My photo's from the last four days.

September 28.  I had to drive Luke out to choir camp for the day (Cool was already there and would be for the weekend) and since it was outside of the city I figured I would take my camera and try and take some photo's on my way back into town.  The morning was very overcast and not to conducive to nice landscape images.  Still I kept my eye's open for any opportunities that might occur.  Thus it led me to this photo as I had noticed the reflections in some of the ponds on the edge of the highway.  Once it was safe to stop I found a place to park my car and walked over to the water. Fortunately the sun decided to make a quick appearance and completed this composition.

September 29.  The boy's had a long day with the completion of choir retreat and and some other running around that I felt they deserved pizza for supper.  While waiting I shot this quick iPhone shot of the Caesar Dips display and made it jump using snapseed.  Sometimes everyday items can make for interesting photos.

September 30.  Taking a walk around St. Stephen's Anglican church looking for my photo's I came across these two scenes.  The shine off the pipes and the angles caught my attention and I captured this image.

Back inside the church I noticed that the stained glass windows looked especially strong as the sun was coming in from the right angle and the room was dark due to the renovations.

October 1.  While I was waiting at the school this afternoon I noticed this one houses flowers were hanging on despite the cooler fall temperatures.  Their was still some beauty left in them even thought they were starting to fade.