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Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Home Studio Project

Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about taking a crack at portrait photography. I started looking for lighting and possibly making my own backdrop to save a few bucks.

One of my co-workers suggested that I check eBay for backdrops rather than make my own. I had a look last night and found a kit that included backdrop, the backdrop stand, and two lights w/ umbrellas and stands for $230. I ordered it this morning.

I've got enough space in our basement to set something up temporarily and I'll recruit either my wife or my daughter to be my guinea pig model. I'm also looking forward to trying out some of the lighting examples I read about in one of my books last summer.

I've had a rather boring winter with photography, aside from Instagram pics with my iPhone (which are pretty cool), so I'm hoping this will drum up some new inspiration.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Same 'ol same 'ol

One of the so-called rules of blogging is to never aplogize for the lack of updates, therefore there will be no apologies forthcoming.

Hasn't been much new & exciting happening lately, so I'll post a few little odds'n ends.

iPhone. Still diggin' it. Got way too much crap installed on it and have been slowly thinning it out.

Rocksmith. Haven't played it much lately. I have been picking away "unplugged" though to keep up the calouses. They just released an update to fix bugs and make the game a little more user-friendly, so I'm anxious to try it out.

Photography. Aside from the odd photo taken with Instagram on my phone, I haven't done much at all in over a month. Got no inspiration. The cold and crappy weather certainly doesn't help either. One thing I did do was pick up a pretty cool app called Portrait Professional. This is one slick app. I'm all for keeping a more natural look with portraits, but when used minimally, you can fix up the small imperfections without making it appear overdone. Now all I need is people to take photos of.

Computers. I picked up a D-Link DNS325 a couple of weeks ago. I was long overdue for getting a home NAS, and after my wife and daughter lost data with a recent laptop hard drive crash it was time. I wish I had done something sooner. Right now I have an old 500GB drive that I hacked out of an external USB hard drive, and an 80GB. Once hard drives come back to a more reasonable price, I'll be picking up a couple of 1TB drives to replace them.

Music. Look for something new(ish)?  Check out Ravenscode. They're also Canadian, eh? :)

C'est tous.

 

Sunday, May 29, 2011

7/52 — No more

In my last 7/52 post, I mentioned that it could be my last.

It was.

I didn't take any photos at all this past week. My only option to keep it going would be to find something, somewhere, in my house to shoot throughout the course of the day. I'm not in a very creative mood today, so the selection of photos I would likely end up with would be crap.

Soooo... that's it, for now. If I come across any interesting shots, I'll definitely shoot and post it, but they are no longer part of the 7/52 project, sorry.

Monday, May 23, 2011

7/52 — Week 20

I'm beginning to tire of this project. It feels too forced sometimes trying to come up with 7 shots to post. It feels like a chore and I don't like that.

Having said that, I didn't have any trouble coming up with 7 shots for this week. This may be the last though. I will, however, continue to post anything interesting that I happen to shoot. We'll see.

One of my co-workers has dead tulips on her desk. One morning I happened to see them and thought they looked pretty cool. I liked the colours.

It was my daughter's 13th Birthday last Monday. Scary. :)

While cleaning up the flower bed and planting a few new flowers this spring, I noticed the ants were out in full force, feasting on the sweet nectar of the peony buds.

I went for another bike ride this weekend with my son.  I was hoping to spot the trilliums along the bike paths and was not disappointed.

And last, but not least, my usual model. It's strange to find her lying out on the open floor, but it was a little warmer in the house than usual and I guess the cool floor was the answer.

 

Sunday, May 15, 2011

7/52 — Week 19

I didn't shoot any photos all week. The weekend was mostly crap, weatherwise.  When I went cycling today, I brought along my trusty S3 IS again and managed to play a little catch up.

This is the new Ottawa Convention Centre. It wasn't a very good shooting angle, but photography wasn't my point of going out today. This just happened to be along my route.

This was my intended destination, where I work. I didn't have to work; I went there to see how long it would actually take me to ride there on my bike.

On the way back, I decided to stop a few times and shoot in Chinatown on Somerset. These kids were drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. A few people were stopping to take pictures. I stopped on the other side of the road to shoot mine.

Ever since the archway went up in Chinatown, I've been meaning to take a picture of it. Today, I shot a few. :)

 

Monday, May 9, 2011

7/52 — Week 18

A day late. Oops.

Not much of a varied selection this week, but I did dig out my old Canon S3 IS for some shots! I went cycling with my son on Saturday and brought the S3 along for the ride.

Anyway, to start off with... my Rock Band addiction gets a boost. The Fender Squier Stratocaster is finally available in Canada and my pre-order from last month arrived. Playing Rock Band 3 with it is more difficult than you might think.

My daugher wants to learn guitar, so she had to give it a try.

When my son and I were out cycling, we came across a bed of daffodils along the Rockliffe Parkway. We weren't along in thinking they were photo-worthy. As we left, a photographer arrived with his camera gear and tripod to take his own shots.

While I was taking pictures of the daffodils, this little guy was watching us from a distance. My son insisted that I take its photo. :)

My S3 never ceases to amaze me at how good its shots are.

 

Monday, May 2, 2011

7/52 — Week 17

It was a really nice weekend, weather-wise, and I didn't get out much for shooting. :( I did, however, spend time outside... just not with my camera.

I discoved this little guy hanging outside my window at work, on the 3rd floor. It rained the next day and he was gone. Not sure if he's just hiding, or the rain and wind took him away.

One of my DailyShoot contributions for the week. The theme had to do with depicting a choice.

My sister got new dresses at her shop and needed photos taken so we could put them up on her web site. This is one of them.

One of a few new visitors to our backyard. They don't seem to like landing on the hanging feeder. Instead, they choose to eat the seeds that fall on the ground. I wish they'd eat faster because there's a huge mess on the ground. ;) I'm not sure what kind of bird this is. They spook a lot more easily than any of the others.

I weeded the flower bed this weekend. This is one of the many hostas that I have growing.

We went out to buy our son a new bike since he has outgrown his last one. After putting air in the tires, I figured I might as well do all of our bikes. Once my bike was ready to go, I had no excuse and took it for a ride out to Petrie Island and back. That wasn't the plan, but the further I rode, the further I wanted to ride. 31.2 kms in total. Not bad for my first ride of the season. I may have to try riding out to Rockland again as I did a few years ago. Anyway, this is the hub of my front wheel.

And a reflector from the same wheel.

It's too bad there's no easy way to bring my camera with me when I got riding. There were a few nice photo opportunities that I missed out on. I may have to settle for bring my old S3 IS instead.

 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

7/52 — Week 16

More birds, no cats, and signs of spring.

I shot this from my truck while waiting for my wife at Giant Tiger and Shoppers City East. You see this every once in a while and there's no clear explanation for it. If you Google "shoes hanging from wires" you'll find a whole bunch of theories. One blogger pretty much summed it up: "So there you have it. It's either a harmless prank, a rite of passage, or a sign of the end of civilization. You figure it out." :)

The finches are becoming more and more trusting. Yes, there's a pane of glass between where I stand and the feeder, but they hardly pay any attention to me now when I walk up to the window to watch or photograph them.

The finches were out in full force this weekend, and emptied the feeder twice. I tried to catch them in flight coming and going.

No flowers yet, but the lily bulbs began sprouting in the last two weeks.

The peonies have sprouted and reach for the sun.

Stop. Click the photo if you don't know what it is.

A sure sign of spring at our house; I put our patio table and chairs out on our small front patio. All it needs is a nice cold beer sitting on it. :)

 

Sunday, April 10, 2011

7/52 — Week 14

Without further ado... a whole bunch of 100mm shots, except for one.

A DailyShoot submission, and I really like this one. It turned out better than I expected. It did, however, require a bunch of small touch-ups with Digital Photo Professional's stamp tool to remove a plethora of dust specs. It does a great job.

The second of the two DailyShoot submissions for this past week. I like it as well, almost as much as I like my 100mm lens.

What would a week of my 7/52 be like without a shot of my 'ol kitty. She slept on the couch beside me on Saturday afternoon while I watched hockey on the TV.

This evening I decided to shoot different foods at 100mm to see how well it would work with no special lighting. First up... Bread.

Strawberry wheaty things. Didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I couldn't get the lighting/exposure just the way I wanted in post-processing. Although, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have much patience to tweak it more.

Cocoa. And ya know something... it's unsweetened, as I found out when I got some on my finger. Blech. :)

My favourite of the evening. The lighting and detail are just right, I think.

 

Sunday, April 3, 2011

7/52 — Week 13

A DailyShoot photo. I borrowed the subject matter from a friend, posed it, and shot it. I converted it to monochrome and gave it a bit of a tint.

Another DailyShoot photo. The theme was "metal". I had difficulty focusing, probably because I shot it at f/2.8.

The DailyShoot topic for this one was... orange. Duh. I fired off a half dozen or so until getting this one. The others are pretty good as well, but not as "dominated by orange" as this one was.

Here's one of the reshot photos previously mentioned. This one is at f/11. It has better focus on them mug, but I find the background a little distracting from the subject matter.

Day 17 of my attempt to grow an avacado plant.

I'm trying a second seed as well. :)

Probably one of my favourite shots of the week... a DailyShoot that didn't make the cut for "orange".