7/52 — Week 10

I lost track of time, so my posting is a bit late. :)

Once again, I ended up short for photos this week. I decided to walk around my house and look for some of my favourite things to add to the shots. Not so creative in some cases. Anyway, here we go...

First, a DailyShoot contribution from earlier in the week. As it turns out, this is also one of my favourite things. I love this stuff.

Next, another DailyShoot contribution. Ice, in a glass of water. It didn't quite look the way I wanted, so I added a bit of a blue tint to it during the post processing.

What would a week be like without a shot of my cat. :) My son was holding her and I was trying to get a close-up of her eyes. She doesn't like cameras invading her space, so she kept looking away. This was one of the best I could do.

On to my favourite things. My Sens jersey. We won't talk about how the season went.

My Rock Band guitar. It's also an addiction.

I love my 100mm lens.

We'll end off with today's DailyShoot contribution.

 

7/52 — Week 9

I have plenty of photos for this week, and didn't have much difficulty in choosing which ones to post. Oddly enough, it turns out that all of those I chose were shot today.

First up, is my son hugging our cat. Our cat is 17 years old. My son is 15. It's only been in the last two or three years that she let anyone, aside from my wife and I, go near her. She used to be extremely timid and cautions of our kids. I'm pretty sure she lost her hearing in the last two or three years, which seems to have contributed to her calming down. Sounds weird, but I can't explain it any other way. She'll even sit in his lap as he uses the computer. They're best friends now.

Sam watching the bird feeder and "chattering" at the birds.

Today I took a trip out to Rideau Falls, with the hope that I'd be able to shoot massive chunks of ice piled up at the bottom of the falls. They did the ice blasting last weekend. It was not to be. Maybe I'm still too early?  It was damn cold with the wind coming off the river though.

A closeup of the cool ice formations at Rideau Falls.

I saw a couple of workers on the bridge just before leaving Rideau Falls. I think what they were doing was thawing the sluice gate with hot, pressurized water.

There's a somewhat humourous story to these next two. As I drove to Rideau Falls, I passed a cool, snow covered tree that I thought would make a great photo. I decided I would stop on the way back and shoot it. So I did. Kinda.

In the winter, there's only one parking lot open along the Rockliffe Parkway and I knew it would probably be a fair walk to get to the tree. I parked and walked. And walked. And walked. In foot-deep snow. I kept thinking it had to be "soon". I couldn't find the damn tree. Either that or it looked much different than what I saw when I first passed it. After about 30 minutes of wishing I had brought my snow shoes, I knew I had to be mistaken about what it looked like. On the way back, so my walk wasn't all for nothing, I shot some of the trees. This isn't what I saw, but it's still cool nonetheless.

Looking back to where I went...

At least I got some decent exercise. I also realized that it didn't tire me out as much as it used to, when I smoked and was more out of shape.

7/52 — Week 8

I had big plans for really cool photos this week, but cold germs had other plans, preventing me from going out this morning to shoot what I wanted to shoot. :(

Soooo... I set up in the living room and tried to get some nice shots of the birds that visit our feeder. I got a few, and a few more of my stand-by model — my cat.

But first, a close up of a painting my daughter made that hangs in our foyer. :)

Most of the birds that visit our feeder are like the one on the right. But occasionally, we get a chickadee or two.

This little guy (or girl) pigged out at the feeder, but remained on the other side the entire time. :)

And last, but not least, our cat Samantha catching a few Zs in her bed beside the window.

I ordered a new lens last week and it should arrive tomorrow. I'll no doubt be playing around with it all week so I should have more interesting shots next week! :)

7/52 — Week 7

I dedicate this week's seven photos to my sister's bridal shop: Kimberley Wilson Fashion and Bridal Outlet.

My wife and I spent a couple of hours there this afternoon. I shoot the photos of the dresses she sells and post them on her web site and Facebook page. These seven are probably my favourite ones. If you're on a budget and looking for a nice wedding gown or formal dress, you should check out her shop! :)

 

7/52 — Week 6

Most of my photos for this week were taken while I tested out my tripod, inverting the center column and then attaching my camera upside down to shoot pics of whatever I placed underneath it. I was hoping to find some interesting things to shoot with my macro, but ended up not taking as many with it.

But first...

Tuesday, February 8th was Do It For Daron day. I wore purple to help raise awarenes for the cause.

This one is my favourite for the week and is one of my DailyShoot photos. It's looking side my drink bottle, which was pressed up against the end of my 100mm lens.

The first of my test shots. It's a Canadian Dollar (aka Loonie), with the Ottawa Senators logo on it.

Looking into my 18-200mm lens using my 100mm lens.

I have a canvas print hanging on the wall behind our bar in the basement. I didn't make it, but I got it from work years ago when they were getting rid of a whole bunch of them. It's a 3D rendered scene of a game of chess — a checkmate — but there's a sword laying on the board beside the fallen king. It's kinda cool. The print isn't the best quality though, as you'll see in this next shot where you can see the half-tone dots. :)

And this is the same picture, panned back a little.

The last shot — the underside of a glass. All that black is the reflection of the camera I guess. It's pretty cool though.

 

7/52 - Week 5

Had to play some catch-up today to get seven. Why do I do this to myself.... anyway, on with it.

My desk phone at work. This turned out better than I thought it would.

One of my cat's rear feet. I had initially planned on taking a shot of her face, but she wouldn't stop moving. Then I noticed her fuzzy feet and fired off a few shots. I like it.

This was supposed to be an artistic shot of a plug for the DailyShoot. The only artistic-ness I could think of was to apply a colour filter to image. Yeh, not so artistic.

A mirror tile with mirrored glasses sitting on it, each containing a candle. My wife put this out at Christmas, on a table in the basement, and for some reason decided to keep it out after Christmas. I kinda liked the way the reflections all bounce off each other. I should light them one day and try the same shot.

A couple of light hand weights that my wife got me for Christmas to use with my workouts. They work well.

About ½ a cup of corn chips that I munched on for a snack, after using the items in the previous picture this evening. :)

One of two large baskets that sit on our hall closet shelf, each containing mittens, or toques.

That's it for this week.

7/52 - Week 4

Not a very exciting week on the photo front, but here we go...

The first was shot for a DailyShoot and turned out pretty good. I have a tube of rare earth magnets that doesn't have much purpose, so I put a couple of them to use. This was a tricky shot, even with using a tripod. I had to hold my hand out in front of the camera pretty far and it wasn't easy to hold my hand still. I had to rest my arm on a chair to get it steady enough for the shot. The magnets really are holding themselves on my finger — they're that strong.

Another DailyShoot shot. This is one of our many TV/device remotes that reside in our living room. Exciting, eh? :)

I've shot this next one before, in B&W. I can't remember if I ever posted it anywhere. We have three of these hanging on the wall in our dining area. For this particular shot, I enhanced the color a little using one of many picture styles for Canon's Digital Photo Professional that I downloaded from the web. I really like it. I took quite a few shots of this, and had a difficult time trying to decide which one I would use for the DailyShoot that day.

This is one of my DailyShoot rejects for the same assignment as the last photo. I couldn't seem to get the lighting the way I wanted. I like the colour though.

This is an origami star(?) that one of my daughter's classmates made for her. She said she makes them for anyone who asks. I shot it for a DailyShoot and never used it.

Another DailyShoot reject. A wooden coaster. I thought it would be cool, until I saw how much my macro lens exposes and didn't like it.

I shot this one moments ago to round off my seven photos for this week. These are books that I have read or am in the process of reading. Talk about diversity. :)

 

7/52 - Week 3

Thank god for the DailyShoot, or I might not have anything to post. :)

My cat. My trusty model. She looked so comfortable. I only managed too shoot three or four shots before she woke up.

A book that everyone must have. I liked it so much that I bought the newer edition, even though most of the content was the same as the last edition I bought and read. I had a bitch of a time trying to get my glasses to stay in a triangular shape for the shot. They kept wanting to close or open.

I love our stairs. Coincidentally, I think it was around this time last year that we began our five or six month long renovation project of the stairs, main floor, kitchen floor and ½ bathroom. Dig through my blog and I'm sure you'll see some before pics. This shot was originally landscape but I cropped it to portrait to cut out something that was hanging on the hand rail to the right. And then I wasn't sure if I should convert the entire thing to B&W. It looks good in B&W, but I wanted to keep the colour... because, I think we did a great job of staining them. Like I said, I love our stairs. :)

My scale, that I am somewhat obsessed with using in the last couple of months. I thought it would be cool to take a shot of my weight as I stood on it, but soon realized that having my camera in hand would throw that way (weigh?) off. ;) I suppose I could have gotten the tripod out...

My Xbox 360 controllers. I shot them because... well, I couldn't find anything else to shoot. Besides, they were a part of our Sunday activities -- my wife and I played a few games of Yahtzee. :)

This was more of an accidental shot. I was messing around with the autofocus on my camera, aiming it on my feet, and fired off a shot just as the picture on the TV changed to an advertisement. It kinda looks like my feet have a halo.

Last, but not least -- and also a DailyShoot shot -- homemade chocolate cookies. It was a new recipe that my wife decided to try and they are goooood. :)

That's it for this week. I'm still not completely up to speed on this seven photos per week idea. I keep finding myself running around looking for things to shoot. Being winter with windchill warnings certainly doesn't help either.

Hopefully I can get my shit together soon. Dammit.