Just a couple of photos today:

I spent about two hours staging still life shots before I got something I liked.


Marilyn and I picked up a milkweed pod on our evening walk. When we got home I proceeded to drop seends in front of the camera until one turned out.

I've written my first tutorial on the use of Aperture when shooting with a DSLR. The photos aren't very artistic, but they do make a point. http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/a_small_tutorial_
Bob

March 15, 2009

Hello Everyone,

Surprisingly, it's been a very productive week. Isn't it strange that the busier you get the more productive you are. This week featured two very late nights of work, dinner out and hosting a family party, but I somehow managed to get photos posted.


I scrounged around the house and found a partially emtpy wine bottle and some tea candles. I quickly arranged them and took several photos which I composited together to get this. All in all it took about two hours.


For this photograph I took a small glass bowl and pured honey into it while firing off the remote trigger as often as possible. It was lit by a fixed lamp and two flashes all within the confines of my home-made light box. It was a little tricky because I needed relatively high shutter speeds to capture the motion.


On Saturday Marilyn and I went out to dinner to celebrate my upcoming birthday.
I took this after dinner.

I am really tired of photographing flowers, but really wanted to capture the innards of this tulip. My answer was to tear away half of the petals to get a cross section view.

I purposely bought these four pepperr to photograph. This was lit with a single lamp and two reflectors. I am pleased with the result.

Have a good week.

Bob

End of February

February is over and I will not miss it.

This Friday we went from 9C to -12C in 12 hours. The result was that pools of melt water froze very quickly creating beautiful, smooth surfaces. I had to get on my stomach to get this shot on what I gambled was solid ice (it was).


I was asked by the local high school to photograph the regional senior basketball final. It was a great game and our team won! These guys were shooting 3 pointers left, right and center.


Castle Kilbride in Baden, Ontario. Marilyn and I took a drive out to Statford to do a little shopping and on our way back we took a detour to Baden. The museum was closed so I took a few shots and plan to return in the spring. Apparently, it is quite impressive inside.

Have a good week.

Bob

February 21, 2009

Hello Everyone,

Here are the best photos from the last nine days:

It is incredibly difficult to photograph bubbles so instead of water I used Purell. The bubbles stayed in place nicely :-)

Pbase link http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/image/109144685

Spices and coffee. I wanted to get a little colour into the gallery so I grabbed this stuff from the kitchen and set it up in my light box.

Pbase link http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/image/109192814

Canadian scene.

On our way home from a visit to the cottage we spotted this Mennonite boy playing hockey on a pond.

Pbase link http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/image/109265833

At the cottage we discovered a tree had fallen, narrowly missing the main building! Luckily, no serious damage was done.

This is just a snapshot to record the event. I didn't bother trying to make this artistic as I had other things on my mind at the time.

Bob

February 12, 2009


It's been a very long and somewhat stressful week and as a result, I have not been very productive.

The best from this week.




I spent quite a while setting this up and photographing it at different angles. I think there is quite a bit of room for improvement.


The macro lens is getting quite a workout in February. Here is a strawberry up very close.



And not a close up this time.

My light box has been OK. I can't help but think that I need to invest in some lighting.
I am basically using two lamps; one halogen and one florescent. The florescent bulb produces a very green colour cast and forces me to colour correct every photo.

I am looking forward to an extended four day weekend and hope to get quite a bit of photography in.

Bob

February 3, 2009

I am a little late getting this week's post up as we had a busy social calendar and I was having difficulty getting good photos. On the one occasion we expressly set out to take photos, we drove to the beautiful little town of Elora, situated twenty minutes north-east of Waterloo. The town is full of great architecture and a giant old mill sitting at the precipice of a waterfall that runs into the spectacular gorge. Sounds ripe for photo taking doesn't it? Unfortunately, most of the interesting stuff down in the gorge was inaccessible and shrouded in shadows. We had a great hike around town and the gorge but photographically speaking, it was a bust. Here are a few shots from that day http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/elora_walk. What lessons can a draw from the experience? Well, I broke the rule regarding shooting mid-day and should have known better. Secondly, the gorge has only about half an hour a day where light reaches the bottom. Next time I will plan better.
I continue to experiment with still life's and this is the best from the week.

This one was really difficult! Most digital cameras do not like red and tend to blow out that channel very easily. For this image I took five exposures, continually underexposing until the red channel was no longer blown. I then loaded them as layers from Adobe Bridge into Photoshop where I lowered opacity levels until I had the tonality I wanted. Next, I used the “select colour range” tool to mask out the background as best I could and then bring it down to near black

Yet another still life:

This morning as I was having breakfast and noticed that we were having one of those majestic snowfalls. Previously, Rebecca and I had discussed placing flowers in the snow as an experiment and this morning seemed like an opportune time. Here's the result:

And finally, what would a week be without another bird shot.

Have a good week.

Bob

Janaury 24, 2009

Welcome to my blog, January 24, 2009.

Marilyn and I drove out to St. Jacob's and took a walk down the trail that follows the Conestogo river. People had been leaving bird feed by the railway bridge and there were plenty of birds. Unfortunately I wasn't setup for shooting birds as I had my 70-200 on the MKII and not the 300 + 1.4. To top things off it seems the 70-200 is not getting along with the MKII. I guess I will have to calibrate the combo this week and I plan to report back my methodology and success/failure later. Oddly enough, this lens works great on the older camera.

I love architecture and I've been fortunate enough to visit some of the world's great buildings. My all time favourites are St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Pantheon in Rome. When you walk into one of these buildings you just know they are perfect. I love newer buildings too and the PI institute here in Waterloo is an excellent example of modern architecture (http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/image/36168494).

There are quite a few architecture shots here: http://www.pbase.com/bob_n/architecture_2 with more being added daily.

Old train station and silos converted into shop, St. Jacob's, Ontario (January, 2009).

Old bridge across the Conestogo river (January, 2009).

A closer look at the bridge.

I couple of really nice senior ladies on the path. They told us their friends thought they were crazy to be out in -10C weather. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. I hope we are as adventurous as them at that age.

Bob