Thursday, May 26, 2011

That Creepy Feeling

Have you ever been by an abandoned house, wanted to go exploring but something held you back a bit? You walk a bit softly, pausing to gather courage every few moments? You find yourself checking the windows, constantly looking over your shoulder? The colour seems to drain from the world as you get closer and something inside seems to say "stay away". 
Not me. No way. Nothing like that bothers me. But if it did, I wonder if it might look a bit like this.... 

 I used the 17mm shot at 1/500th sec f3.5 iso 100. Then did some digital doodling to drain the colour from the world around the house.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Take A Picture, Make A Picture

One evening when we were in Seaside we on the spur of the moment decided we should run down to the beach and try catch the sunset. On the way I spotted this very nicely restored 55 Chev. I posted a straight up shot on facebook but here is what I had planned when I saw this car. 

It was a case of coming across something and seeing potential. I had only a few minutes as I had to stand in the middle of the road and had a car full of people patiently waiting for me (the driver).
See past the jump for some details on how I got this.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

What I Saw

On her blog Dar posted a photo she took of me taking a photo.  Coming home from work today we were talking about it and thought it might be interesting for you to see a picture of what I saw when she took a picture of what she saw.

Taken with the 50mm 1/640th sec f2.5  iso 100

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

She's Hanging Up Her Headset

After 35 years of dispatching for police you'd think you've seen and heard it all. My friend Brenda probably has. She handled and was involved with every type of call from mere parking complaints, thefts, right up to bank robberies, homicides, and even a plane crash. I kid you not. All through this she has maintained such a sense of humour and (most of) her sanity. She always has a story to tell, she is quick to laugh, she is the first to donate to a cause.  If you are here you will likely have a twizzler in your hand pretty quick.

Most people in here could tell you a "Brenda" story, here is mine. One morning we were all waiting to go home after a long night shift. Brenda got a call, said "Police, Fire, or Ambulance", then proceeded to listen. And listen. She sat there, hand shielding her eyes, sighing once in a while, making the talk talk talk motion with her hand. The caller kept talking and Brenda started looking worried this might never end. She couldn't get a word in edgewise. Finally she knew she had to do something to get the lady to stop so she interrupted and said "Ma'am are you finished?" There was a pause and the caller said "No, I'm Yugoslavian".

Brenda asked me for a photo of her headset as a momento so one morning at work I took it from her, sat at our "CD" desk and took a bunch of pictures. Here is the one we decided on.



Brenda you have been part of my life at work since I have been there. We've been through a lot and had a lot of laughs together. I cherish those memories and I know things will be a bit quieter here but will still echo with your presence. Take care my friend.

Monday, May 16, 2011

My Favourite Of The Day

I took a little longer to put a post up than I had hoped. There were some unforseen circumstances that a week or so ago would have had me in a panic. Now I can do this on a looser schedule it's not so bad. Dar and I went to photograph Eagles today. Unfortunately we couldn't get in to the location... which happens to be a landfill site. No worries, we made an appointment to go next week. The other place we went to was Steveston. We enjoyed a nice seafood lunch at a local eatery and then carried on performing with the cameras. It was pretty easy. There's no end of buildings, boats, cars, riverside views. It was a good day. 
Towards the end of the day Dar asked which was my favourite photo. I told her I just didn't know yet, I didn't tell her she just gave me a subject for a post. 
Interesting my favourites would be of her. When we first drove by the red brick wall Dar pointed it out saying what a great backdrop for portraits it would make. A while later we happened to be walking by it and decided we should try some shots in front of it. This was my favourite. My other favourite happened to be here as well. I'm going to save it for another day though. 


I used the venerable 50mm 1/1600th sec at f1.7 iso 100.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Happy Birthday Mom

This is Mom at Indian Beach in Oregon. I had wanted to get a photo at this spot when Peter (Nick) and I were there. I had the location wrong and by the time we got there it was too late to get down to the beach for a picture. So we got to see it, just not from this angle. Next time, because apparently there will be a next time.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Finally....

I did it. I didn't realize and almost missed it but I checked yesterday and I started this blog 09/May/2010. I have reached my goal of posting a photo a day for a year. It was a great experience for me. My original reason for doing this was to get myself inspired to do my photography. It did that and more. I learned a lot if just by virtue of having to think about how to complete the projects. So what now? I am going to try something different, I am going to post about twice a week (thinking Wed and Sat) I am still up in the air about what exactly to do so look for it starting Saturday. It'll be a surprise. Thanks for following and looking and all the comments. It's been fun for me and I look forward to making future posts.


 Taken with the 50mm (as the final one had to be) 1/125th sec f10 iso 100. 2 flash through umbrella behind and on either side, one flash high and to the right using the Lumiquest Softbox III. I am holding my Maxxum 7 film camera. Did I tell you that was the best camera I ever owned....

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Hello Again Lindsay

This is another one from the little shoot I did with Lindsay. I didn't choose it first time because the post was about the fingernails. I really liked it though, quite possibly my favourite from that shoot. When you take some time and try out different ideas you will at the least get the shot you're looking for, and will likely get other good ones. One thing that made it fun was keeping it simple. One off camera flash on a stand above the camera. I actually had to shoot around the stand. I had my Lumiquest Softbox III on for some diffusion. 

 I used the 50mm 1/80th sec f4 iso 100

Friday, May 6, 2011

Another Bird Photo

I Have had this photo in the sidelines for quite some time. These are birds I've come across since I was a little boy. They aren't hard to find, you usually just walk around for a while. Grouse are fairly plentiful and they aren't the brightest birds around. They seem a little reluctant to fly. I caught these photos of this one on the side of the road. I spotted her as I was driving my van, stopped, got out, and started clicking away. She slowly walked away from me the whole time. Maybe she had a nest nearby and was trying to distract me from it. If she was it worked but I got what I wanted from her anyhow.

I used the 70-210 at 210mm 1/160th sec at f5 iso 200.  

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Room With A View

I Posted this on my facebook but I liked it so much I thought I'd fix it up a bit and show it off here. It's an idea came to me climbing in to the back of the truck. I am always excited to get to drive on the beach when we go there. I even took a motorcycle the beach once. I try to make sure I get a photo of whatever vehicle I'm out there with. This time I thought why not try get one looking out from inside. Shows we were driving out there and it frames the photo nicely.

 The 17mm was perfect for this shot at 1/1000th sec f6.3 iso 200

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Funland

Seaside is a fun little town I've been visiting since I was a little boy. It always had the bumper cars, arcade games, and little souvenir stores. It has been modernized but has kept it's resort atmosphere. While walking along Broadway I recalled I have photo's at home from the 50's and 60's of parades and events where you could still pick out the spots they were taken. There is one exception, a great big concrete slab of a condo building put right on Broadway at the edge of the beach. Now as you walk west on Broadway you look through a narrow slit of light to the beach. Too bad. Oh well there are still plenty of sights taken from the old days and cleaned up for the new days. 

 This was with the 17mm 1/20th sec f4 iso 200.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Walk With A Purpose

That's what this little fellow was doing when I took this. It's worth it to stick around a bit after you get what you came for. The sun had gone down and I was thinking we should head back to the nice toasty room. Then he walked by and I decided to see what I could do. Glad I did. 

 I used the 17mm 1/200th sec at f4 iso 200

Monday, May 2, 2011

Still At The Beach

Back home now. It was a great weekend. I still have some photo's for posts. They aren't  all at the beach but here is another one. Quite often you can find little things that puzzle you a bit and are worth pondering over. Here was one. In the sunlight it caught the eye. There was some debate about if it was just a big water droplet or some jelly thing. Checking with a stick we discovered it was a jelly thing. My big question was how do I photograph it. I had the 17mm on the camera pretty solid this weekend and it came in handy here. kneeling down I held the camera very close to the ground. I was guessing to the framing and after a couple of tries I got it right. So I got it close up and in it's environment. I thought that was pretty clever of me. 

The 17mm at 1/320th sec f13 iso 200

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Last Night

Just thought I'd share another from the beach yesterday of the Peter Iredale. Had a long day today, expect I'll go through the photos tomorrow once we get home. Very tired tonight so I am going to just post and head for bed. Thanks for looking.