Happy New Year

If you feel there are chains holding you back, break them. Leave the dark for the light. Go forward, move on. 
The New Year is a time for change, make the best of it. I wish you all happiness in the New Year. Thank you for visiting my blog these past 239 days, I hope you will keep looking. I only have 126 posts to get to that magic 365. 

 I used the 24-85 at 85mm 1/250th sec f4.5 iso 100

Looking In

This Photo is from last summer, another one from a walking tour with Dar. When I saw it I had something specific I wanted to see. I was thinking of having the fellow sitting there as a silhouette. I took the photo and didn't quite get the silhouette. I looked at it once in a while and tried getting that look I wanted. I never quite got it. Tonight I just happened to look at it and realized what I needed to do. Of course the process was something I do for most photos but just hadn't thought of applying it in this manner. 

 I used my 100mm for this one. Shot at 1/25th sec at f4.5 iso 100. When I tried to make him a silhouette by just darkening the whole photo of course everything went dark. It came to me tonight to use layers and masking which is something I use all the time. I created a duplicate layer, the lower layer I darkened till there was no detail. Then on the upper layer I masked out his head so the lower one showed through. I left the light on his hair at the top and around his chin so their is some backlight and makes him stand out from the background a bit. I love digital!

My Two Friends

Don't worry I do have other friends as well. These are two I wanted to point out today. I was introduced to them when I got to be a stills photographer at a film set. Susan and Sarah are recent graduates of the Vancouver Film School, Make Up and Design for Film and TV. After this Film I did background photos for them on a calendar project of theirs in the school and another video. We have become pretty good friends and they even invited me to their graduation. I write about them today because they each have something to celebrate today. 

Susan has set up her web site to promote her make up skills.  Sarah is celebrating one year in Vancouver today. Here are a some photos of them at work. 


Mimespeak

Susan

Sarah

Endangered Yogi's Calendar

Monster Date

Congratulations to both of you. You deserve every success.

Not Only Does He Have A Bass

It's a 5 string bass and here is the proof. I suppose I could have jut taken a picture of the 5 strings but I have to try and be a little different. I think I might try getting a photo of him with it tomorrow. Here I guess could be a product shot. Except it wasn't what I was originally thinking of. If you've been reading this you will be aware I often start with an idea and end up with something completely different. Well this is for fun anyhow and my main goal is to make a nice photo. With this I just wanted to see how it would look with the flash pointed more toward the camera. The flash was through an umbrella and pretty close so was fairly soft. I like the quality of light on the finished wood.  

The 50mm at 1/80th sec f4 iso 200. The flash was high and faced the front of the guitar straight on shot through the umbrella.

That One Light Theory

So I wanted to try getting a photo quick and on the fly. Sort of. Asked Nick to pose for me last night, we used one flash with an umbrella and our curtains as a background. Those are very shiny and reflective. I had to get Nick very far away from them and had to darken them in the final photograph. But I think I got a nice photograph of him. Nick has a new love. He got a bass guitar. I am going to have to get a photo of him with that. Don't know if I'll hold myself to the one light theory though. 

 I used the 50mm, shot 1/200th sec at f1.7. I found out high speed sync works wireless last night. I think that will come in handy.

But Does It Measure Up?

I've hung on to this photo for some time now. It's from Granville Island in Oct with Dar and Rina. Kind of funny I have enough photo's up sometimes I have to look back make sure I haven't posted them already! When I took this little series at a tea shop I really liked what I saw in the camera. I got it on the computer and I wasn't so sure. I worked on it got it ready to post and left it. I found it yesterday and can't remember what my hesitance was. Whatever it was it's gone and I feel the same way about it the day I took it. 

 The 50mm 1/250th sec at f1.7 iso 200

Merry Christmas

Where I Want To Be

There is no place I'd rather be on Christmas Eve than standing here with a hot chocolate or even a cold beer in my hand. Actually there is one other place I'd rather be. Inside with my feet up close to the wood stove after freezing my butt off standing out here.

Old photo from the film days so no exposure information.

I Guess They Can't Order Them All

Went through photos from a shoot like I do sometimes and came across this one. I quite liked it so played a bit with it, did some cropping and some minor adjustments. They had picked a different mother/daughter shot so I hadn't paid a lot of attention to this previously. I'm glad I found it again. 

 24-85 at 40mm 1/60th sec f7.1 iso 200.  Flash on either side through an umbrella triggered by an on camera flash.

So, The Other Night There Was This Lunar Eclipse

Which I missed. Tonight however as we climbed into the van Jennifer looked up and said "Wow" to which I said "Huh?" There was the moon pretty much full with tattered clouds being blown past it. We raced home and I went out on the back porch with the beercan on the camera. I spent about a half an hour waiting for breaks in the clouds showing the moon. I had to figure out the exposure so missed a lot of great shots using aperture priority. Great clouds but the moon was all blown out. So I set the exposure manually to ensure there was detail in the moon. This is the one success. 

The lens was the 70-210 at 210mm 1/20th sec f4 iso 400. I shot handheld which isn't really the way to do it but the clouds were moving real fast. The camera has image stabilization which works great and was a real boon in this shot.

An Overnight Visitor

We had a little kitten come stay with us for one night a few days ago. She came in as a stray and was very fearful. There was no foster care available that late in the day and she wasn't eating or drinking at the moment. Cathe suggested I take some photo's and I was quite glad I did. No flash because she was so fearful. She was concerned about the noise from the camera but didn't startle. The beauty of digital of course I was able to balance the light and use what was available. 

 Trusty old 50mm even for kitty portraits 1/30th sec f1.7 iso 200

Last One

Same light, same mood, different pose. Her hands in this shot are holding the collar again but instead of showing off the jacket they are using it for protection adding to the look. I was also thinking about how we used the black backdrop. It helps make it look like night time but I think more importantly it draws all the attention to Jenn. This works real well.

1/30th sec f2.8 need I say more?

A Photo Session Part D

Filing has never been a strong suit of mine. Here we changed things up. Took away the flash camera right and just used one flash. Dar has a real nice black backdrop that doesn't seem to reflect light at all. We moved the flash forward and back, even picked it up and held it over her head like I did in another post. This one I believe was high and just forward. Her expression came out as a little fearful which I thought suited the idea this is night time. Notice no glint in her eyes. The flash was to far off to get caught by it. It helped create the mood in the shot.

 1/60th sec at f5.6 iso 200 and you know which lens. Thought I'd mention here we were using the flash on manual set at 1/16 power I believe and adjusting the f stop to suit. The joy of chimping.

A Photo Session Take Three

Here is the Catalogue pose. Naturally the hands holding the collar was Dars idea. Or was it Jenn's? Wasn't mine anyhow so it obviously pays to let people throw out ideas. 
I was going to say Sears Catalogue but I wasn't sure if they would mind so I chose to leave the Sears part out and just use Catalogue.

 1/60th sec at f5 and of course the 50mm  iso 200

A Photo Session Take Two

Here is the second one I wanted to show you. Used the same light except the one camera left was in front of Jenn. We were having fun with this. I like the outdoor look to it. I generally format them to 8X10 (beauty of digital) but this one I didn't change so if I printed it, it would be 8x12.

 All the settings are the same as as last nights but in case you forgot......  50mm at 1/60th sec f5 iso 200..... hm maybe I hadn't mentioned the iso before.

A Photo Session

Yesterday Jenn and I went over to Dar's. We went there to drop of some flash/studio equipment for Dar. I wanted to show her how it works so we set up a makeshift little studio in her garage and took some (a lot) of shots of Jenn. She was quite patient with us especially since I got her out of bed way before noon. She was able to text with her boyfriend between shots so I guess that kept her happy. So, I am going to show photo's from this shoot for the next few days. I hope you like them and here is the first. This was a shot I got in my head (for no particular reason) and it was one of those times it came out pretty much as I had wanted.

 Guess what lens I used. Can't? The 50mm of course. 1/60th sec at f5. flash through the umbrella to camera left and slightly behind Jennifer pointing to her. another flash through the umbrella camera right and behind her pointing to the backdrop. There is a good reason why I use umbrella so much. It's what I have and it works. So there. More photo's to come.

Let's PLay.....

This is I guess what you would call a commission. A friend of mine wanted to give some friends a gift of a photograph for Christmas this year. She brought their jerseys another friend brought in some hockey gear, we then went to the gym area at work and found some empty lockers and set up this little scene. We did it quick and dirty and I think got a great photo. In a way I wish anyone looking could see the actual print. It's pretty awesome. 

 Shot with the 50mm  1/50th sec f1.7  iso 200.

Then And Now

I have mentioned recently I did a photo shoot for some friends. I showed a photo of them the other day from from a while back. We thought it would be neat to compare so click on the link to see the one from the past shoot and here is one of them from the new shoot. 

I used the 24-85 at 30mm 1/60th sec f7.1 iso 200. I set up 2 flash, camera left and right shooting through an umbrella triggered by a camera mounted flash.

Sleeping Beauty

Okay I know the title is cliche but she really is. Caught Jenn having a little midmorning nap with the cat Latte. Sometimes catching a photograph of someone sleeping can be quite a peaceful thing. Probably a good idea to make sure they aren't drooling or something. They may not appreciate it. 

 I of course used the 50mm and shot at 1/13th sec f1.7 iso 400. I tried a few with natural light and some with flash. The natural light won over over even though I was bouncing the flash off the ceiling. I shot colour then converted to black and white. I cropped in close then made a duplicate layer. I used Gaussian blur on the top layer then reduced the opacity, to about 50% I think. Then I used the unsharp mask on the bottom layer. Creates a soft focus that keeps her sharp but gives the photo a soft dreamy look. Pretty simple stuff but nice I think.

Country Girl

WE going up to our place in the Okanagan and had to make a stop just before we got there for some reason. There was a wood fence in a little clearing and and gosh, Jenn just happened to have her Johnny Cash t-shirt on. That spelled P h o t o   o p p o r t u n i t y to me so I asked her to relax by the fence, here is what came out of it. 

 24-85 at 60mm  1/60th sec f6.3

Once Upon A Time

It was a while back but I did have a studio in our basement. I actually had some paying jobs from it. In this studio you could have any look you wanted as long as that look included a mottled brown cloth backdrop. The studio isn't a studio anymore so if I do photos for friends I go to their place or we go outside. Here is one from my studio. I did photo's for my friends Pat and Darcie and their family. I was learning and I think I learned a lot this day.

 There is no exposure info. I can tell you I had a flash bounced off an umbrella to camera left and another one with an umbrella to camera right, high and behind them. Back then I did very little if any post processing to my photo's. I just post process as a part of my routine now. This is one of the few photo's I have taken that I just felt there was no need to change or improve anything.  

I'm Watching You

I wanted to show one more of Darcy and Titus. This is where he wanted a closer look at my camera just before he started getting so close he was pushing me with his nose. Horses truly do have character and a sense of humour. 

 The 24-85 shot at 24mm 1/15th sec f4

True Friends

I mentioned a few days ago Dar and I went to the police stables in Stanley Park. We met up with Darcy and started talking about the horses and photography. Originally we had planned to wander the park a bit too but ended up staying at the stables. Darcy was kind enough to let us shoot photos of her and Titus while we talked. I was struggling with the light then which was deceptively dim. Even so I was able to get some shots I quite liked. Titus became quite curious about me and my camera as I clicked away. He kept getting closer and closer until he was pushing me with his nose. It was quite funny.

 I used the 24-85 at 28mm f4.5 with a shutter speed of 1/15th sec. Too slow to shoot a young fellow who likes to move about. I think I might show another one tomorrow.

See You At The Rodeo

This photograph goes way back to 1990. I took this at a rodeo in Alexis Creek. I was lucky enough to be in the right spot when this race started. They would weave in amongst these posts so I took shots as they came around on this side of them. On a bright sunny day I was able to use a high shutter speed and freeze the action showing the horse and rider in sharp relief.

Film again, no exposure info.

Is That Thunder?

Dar and I went to visit the VPD stables yesterday and did some photography. We really enjoyed our visit and both took a lot of shots. Dar already posted a great one on her blog. I will posting one or two myself but it did put me in mind of a time past I went there with Nick to an open house. I was shooting film that day but fortunately the place I had them developed also did cd's. This is a photo of the members and horses in riot gear as they galloped by during a demonstration. Generally panning with a moving subject you can get a nice motion effect. Thing with horses and their riders they're not only moving forward, they're moving up and down. So here I was lucky to catch the foremost rider just at the right split second.  They really are awesome to watch.

Of course being film I didn't record the exposure. 

The Photographers Eye

I have to admit I don't always have it on and sometimes something will pass by and I will think "Why didn't I take a picture of that?" That can be embarrassing and annoying. Seems I had it on this morning. I was getting ready (funnily enough) to go out picture taking with Dar when walking to the kitchen I spotted the sunlight shining on the guitar. I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures, noticed the dust coating it, wiped it down and took several more. Here is what I came up with. 

 50mm 1/100th sec f2.2  iso 200 

I am getting used to having the camera with me most of the time. Maybe I will learn to have that photographers eye on more. 

Jennifer Likes Horses

Tracker was always her favourite. I haven't done much photography with horses but occasionally had the opportunity to visit with some friends who owned some. This was from an afternoon spent there. Jenn and Tracker were being quite snuggly for a few moments and I just had to take advantage. This was from a few years ago. 

Unfortunately no photo data on this one.

Family Photo's

Today I went to some family friends to take photo's of them. It was fun and I hope they're happy with what I took for them. I wanted to take photo's that anyone would be proud to put on their wall and I also wanted to try some things a little different. Give them my own touch. My friends are a pretty casual group and were great to work with. As such I think I was able to give them something to enjoy and photo's I can be proud of. I asked and got permission to show some so I think I'll show a few off over the next few days. 

Here is Rick

 I used the 50mm for this shot and exposed at 1/60th sec f11 iso 200. I brought along a white reflecting panel and had Rick stand in front of it. I placed one flash low shooting through an umbrella and one high shooting through another umbrella. 
Thanks Rick and thanks to the whole gang for a great day. 

I Want To Ride My.....

I am still finding pictures from trips to Fort Langley. I don't know why it took me so long to find this one. When I show it to friends, it seems to touch them somehow. Maybe it feels like finding an old discarded toy that was a favourite long ago, so full of fond memories. 

For this I used the 100mm 1/500th sec f2.8.

Me Three

I had this on my website for a few years. Just a fun little thing. I was quite self conscious taking photos of myself in the park. 

Taken with the 17 mm 1/80th f8 x3 exposures iso 400

Jazzing It Up

Even though they were playing folk. Some of the great photographers take a photo and it goes straight to whoever they took it for. They don't process (or process much) and they take great photos with seeming ease. I'm not that good. Sometimes I see a photo and there are one or two neat elements but something wrong with the rest of it which drags the photo down. Here is an example. In the original Roberts hands were sharp and bright in the shot and his smile was brilliant even though it was caught a slightly out of focus. The rest of it was soft and not very interesting I thought. However it caught my eye and I put it aside as a future project. 

 Shot with the 50mm 1/125th sec f1.7 iso 400.  I took the shot and layered it. I sharpened the lower layer then went to the top layer and a applied a radial blur from the filters menu. I reduced that layer to 85% opacity then masked his hands and face so the sharp(er) image showed through in those spots. 
I am sure there are all kinds of things could be done and totally different images could come out if it were handed to different people. This is my little take on it.