PP?

I haven't posted in two weeks or so, so tonight I must shoot something! Well, that's always when inspiration is hardest to find. So, I fiddled around the garage, and came back with something little. Yellow. Different.



These are painters pyramids, used to hold up things when you need to paint or stain both sides. Cool little tools, and I wanted to play with the repeating shape somehow. I'm not overly happy with this shot, but I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them...

On the plus side I brought out my lightbox, LP160s and did my first set-up shot in a while. I have to get out of the house with camera more, but it was nice to play with some photo gear.

Tofuriffic!

I feel like tofu tonight!

If you don't already know, I'm a vegetarian and have been for about 10 years now. This means that we do a lot of cooking at home and I *love* to cook.

Tonight was southern-fried tofu sandwiches on thick sliced fresh whole wheat bread, veggie bacon, edam, red onion, spring mix and roasted garlic and chili aioli.



Yes the sandwich was as thick as it looks. Yes it was as tasty.

I'm finding this photo setup so handy - once again this is the 60mm macro with the flash on-camera with an omnibounce. I could have used a reflector below and in front of the sandwich in hindsight, but I really like the results from this setup.

Shot at ISO 200, 1/100th shutter and f/5.6 handheld. The flash was set to E-TTL at -1 stop since it can drastically washout the image when you are shooting this close.

Wet nose, warm heart.

We are dog sitting for friends, and today Shamrock the Shih Tzu was my model. I was still set up from the conservatory, so I went semi-macro with him once he sat still.

Once I started looking at him, I realized that the little guys face is all about texture so that's what I wanted to capture. I went monochrome to highlight that. I also like his pouty little lip.



Take with my 7D and 60mm Macro at ISO 100, f/4, 1/100th shutter. It was sharpened, desaturated and the contrast adjusted in post-processing.

2012 kicks off!

So I guess the question is: Is this a Project 365? Well considering this first post is on January 2nd, not the 1st, probably not. What it is a commitment to get out and shoot this year. If it's daily so be it, if not so be it. I'm going to call it Project 2012.

So, one of the things I will do to get this thing going again is going back to the places and shots that inspired me. As such, the kids and I went to the Assiniboine Park Conservatory today.

Here are my three best shots of the day:







For those of you still following me, thank you!

Fort Whyte, macro style...

I know I've gone shooting at Fort Whyte Alive quite a few times, but it's a nice place just to go for a walk.

Today, to change it up I went with one lens only, the 60mm Macro. This sort of backfired since we had a windy day so flowers, bugs and the like were nearly impossible to get and keep in focus. Having said that, it made me look at my photo opportunities differently and got me thinking about how I was shooting again.

Here is just a sample of the shots from today, starting with the kids, and then a few flowers that I found striking in colour and texture.

Thanks for reading!









Four days of shooting this week. Must be something wrong with me!

Three days of shooting!

I'm on training this week and that means I'm out of the office, and very close to Assiniboine Park which has consistently been one of my favourite places to shoot. On top of this, a friend who bought a DSLR this year was also on the training.

So, for the last three days we've been taking off at lunch, walking over to Assiniboine Park, and shooting for 30-40 minutes. I've collected some favourite shots from the Conservatory, Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, and English Gardens.

There is a little landscape, macro, flowers, insects and a bit of people watching too. Enjoy!



























As always, I welcome and value your comments and criticisms!

As promised!

So, in order to get myself going again I went somewhere with ample photographic opportunities, the Assiniboine Park Conservatory. Sure, I've been there before, but the kids like it and I needed a shot in the arm.

I took a bunch of shots but I'm only sharing two today. Not that the others were bad, but I'm trying to keep this simple and doable given the limited time investment that I have available.

Anyhow, the orchids are about the only things still blooming at the APC, but I'm okay with that!





Both were shot with my 7D, 60mm Macro and 580EX2 on-camera with the Omnibounce. The Omnibounce seems to really work well with Macro shots, it was certainly one of my better purchases. ISO 200, f/8, 1/80th shutter with the flashi providing fill light in TTL mode at +2/3 stops. The additional stops help with the light lost to the diffuser.

Thanks to my readers for sticking with me through the rather dry last several months. I'll get my groove back soon.

Sweet red...

This weekend, my wife and I broke out one of our new Xmas gifts, a nice little fondue set from my parents.

We had a few leftovers, and as such, the camera came out.



This was just a simple shot; macro lens, on-camera flash with an omnibounce diffuser.

Week 1. No, really!

Thar she blows, my picture for week #1, posted at the last possible minute. An illustrious start :)

My daughter is an avid collector of 'Littlest Pet Shop' toys, and some of them are nicely decorated with style of scrolling linework. They can actually be quite attractive, so I thought I'd put this little fishy to work in a splash picture. I figure when you need to get your creative juices flowing again, go with what you know and what you like, and I like splash shots :)

Taken with my 60mm Macro at f/6.3 with a three-light setup (left and right through the softbox walls, and background lit from above), triggered remotely. I had two other ideas that I shot today, and neither worked but I like this one. It's simple, but the colours are good and the focus is not bad.

The eye is slightly out of focus unfortunately, and it's exacerbated by the fact that the paint is a bit blotchy on the toy. Still, perfect focus when dropping a buoyant toy into water with razor-thin depth of field is going to be really hard to achieve. At least the fins and bubbles are all nice and sharp.

My day job meets my wannabe night job...

In my day job, I'm an IT monkey for a branch of the provincial healthcare organization here in Winnipeg. A lot of my co-workers know about my hobby/wannabe other job so I've done a lot of shooting around for them here and there.

Today, I actually had a commission of sorts from a friend and co-worker who is the lead web developer for our organization. He needed a shot of a keyboard and stethoscope and had already blown their photo rights budget for the fiscal year. So, perhaps this isn't a paid job, but maybe when the budgets refresh in the new year, they'll consider some in-house photography services.



The backdrop was left off-white since the shot is going to be overlaid on a as-of-yet-unselected backdrop colour. There is a clear difference in lighting between the rear 'wall' and 'floor' of the lightbox, but perfection there wasn't really required in this instance. In addition, popping the lights at even brighter settings blew out the chrome on the stethoscope and presented a whole new range of problems.

Lighting on the right side is an LP160 through the Lumiquest SBIII at 1/16th power. On the left is another LP160 at 1/16th power through the side of the lightbox. The left light is at a higher intensity to really make the chrome pop and to get a nice drop shadow. Both were optically triggered by the 580EX II on-camera at 1/32nd power, pointing up with the Omnibounce for a nice soft fill light from above.

Shot with the 7D, EF-S 60mm Macro at f/5.6, ISO 100 and 1/200th shutter.

Pom!

Tonight, after two weeks of exhaustion, I got out my camera. Two weekends ago the bug the family had came back with a bit of a vengeance and we ended up at the ER with my little dude. He vomited for seven straight days before we finally shook the bug.

This last weekend was my daughter's fifth birthday, so we had a party with her kindergarten classmates, and one with our family. I took some pictures then as well, but those are just for us :)

So, the subject today was a case of bright red pomegranates that finally came back into stock at our local Costco. We are big pom fans in our house, so this was a joyous occasion.

The first shot is the cutoff stem, which tend to be full of these curled little fibers that remind me of the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi :)



Second, I was just playing around with contrasting subjects, and my wife pointed out that our composter was full of little garden slugs. How could I resist giving one a chance to sample such an exotic treat?



I named him Sluggy Slug. Good boy, Sluggy Slug.

Dark Autumn Water

I decided to do a set-up shot tonight trying to capture a bit of the fall season.

I found a leaf that had a nice golden colour and just a hint of curl from drying out. I use a glass casserole dish on a black sheet, got the camera low and had the flash off to camera left nearly parallel to the water surface to pick up some of the minute surface ripples.

Here is the result:



I'm really, really happy with this shot. I expected the leaf to look nice, and the ripples just blurring off in the foreground and background are what I was hoping for on the clean black background. Where I got lucky was the crisp reflection. I was dropping the leaf and clicking away madly, so to catch it just at the point of contact with the reflection was a real bonus.

I'm just happy that I had an idea, shot it, and can be this proud of the result. Consider me rekindled!

Mercurial...

Today, I combined my love of flower shots, water shots and inverted trickery. Day 188's shot:



In this shot, a blue background is placed behind my acrylic tank and lit with a speedlite off to the side, and a softbox is overhead of the tank. The flower if held down into the water, and air bubbles are blown up from below it. Invert the shot in post processing, and you get what looks like mercury drops on the flower.

I've seen this technique used before, and my shot is not up to to par of a lot of the other ones I've seen. My bubbles are too big, and I think my setup is a bit amateur compared to the others, but it was a fun shot to do!

I miss Carl Sagan...

Not much to say about day 187, but this is my take on the Pale Blue Dot.



This is the same paperweight used in this shot but lit more simply, and with (to my eye) a stronger composition. A blue gelled LP160 at 1/2 power through my SB3 softbox is above and to the right of the weight (a little to close thus the strong specular highlight) and a second gelled LP160 is shooting through the left side of the lightbox at 1/16th power, just to fill a bit but not blow out the shadow. Shot at ISO 100, 1/200th shutter, f/5.6.

A simple shot, but crisp, I like the colour and the composition works. I'm glad I got this shot, I was about ready to give up for the day before I reworked the entire light setup and reshot it. Perseverance!

One sharp lens...

Day 185's picture was made possible by a mishap with a glass, some hot water, and a cold sink.

First off, here is the picture:



How sharp is my EF-S 60mm Macro? THAT sharp.

The glass, when filled with hot water and placed on the cold sink split nearly perfectly up the middle. It was just too crazy a thing not to use in a shot somehow, and this is what I came up with. I was originally going to mock it up as a fake Canon advert, but I decided that co-opting the Canon logo for this might not exactly endear me to them. As it is I still think it's a fun shot.

In hindsight my lighting could have been a bit harsher on the background and it could have been a bit more even, but for three speedlights and a cardboard box with a sheet of glass from a picture from on it, I'll take it :)

Rainbow Toes

Day 184 was a day of much happiness around the house. Apparently, my daughter had never really realized that people could paint their finger and toenails. When she figured this out, she *flipped out*.

I promised her a picture so here it is:



Taken on the front lawn at ISO 200, f/7.1, 1/100th shutter. Tough shot since the lawn needs to be mowed, and this was one of those shots where the idea works, but the image isn't what I envisioned. Shooting it again wasn't really an option, I was lucky enough to get her standing still long enough to shoot this one!

I have a lot of shots like this lately, and it is what it is. Inspiration has not come easily as of late.

Crackle...

We've had a lot of rain around here lately, and most yards are mushroom fields. I was keeping my eyes open for pretty toadstools but I found one somewhere unexpected on day 182.



This post is near the parking lot at work, and the combination of textures really appealed to me. I had my macro in the bag, tossed it on the 7D and took a few shots. Somehow or another I blew the focus on this one slightly, but I think that it still works.

The choice to go monochrome came from some advice I read elsewhere. Going mono removes colour from the equation and makes the composition and detail the focal point of the image, in this case (hopefully) enhancing the textures in the shot.

Kersplash! Pre-and-post...

I didn't have a lot of time to shoot today, but my daughter was splashing in her pool in the back yard when I got home and I took some pictures just for the family. This turned into a good opportunity though, a chance to practice some post-processing and evaluate my technique. Tada! Day 180 post!

First off, here is the shot I kept straight out of camera:



As you can gather, if this is the best shot that I took, the rest were not very good :) She doesn't like getting water on her face, so her expression was always equally demented in the other shots.

Anyhow, post-processing was:

- Straighten
- Crop
- Fix white balance
- Sharpen
- Curves

Here is the result:



The curves adjustment is from an action set that I liked from DeviantArt, but dialed in to my own preference, and normally toned down to about 30% opacity. It just looks right to me this way.

So, this is the process I go through, more or less, for all my shots. The curves adjustment is not always applied, but this is the natural light set that I prefer for portraits.

Thanks again for reading, your comments are always welcome!

Master of his domain!

Looking for Macros on day 179, and in the backyard I went hunting about the various spiderwebs.

I thought I would find something a little bit bigger, but all my arachnid pals were hiding... except one.



This guy is *tiny*, like half the width of my fingernail. Getting a shot in focus was a challenge, because even at f/6.3 the slight breeze would take it in and out of focus. This is the best of about two dozen clicks of the shutter. This was also taken at ISO 400 so there is a bit of noise, the higher ISO was required to bring up the shutter speed due to the aforementioned breeze.

Even though he (she?) was small, he just strikes me as a bad-ass. You can tell he totally owns his little stalk of Catmint.

Blue balls...

Today, another lesson has been learned. The lesson is:

If you liked your last crystal shot, and you bought some geodes at the Museum and thought that they would be interesting to shoot, don't bother. They will look like crap. Geodes are supposed to be hollow and colourful, but no, they will be solid and all white and boring. Damn.

So that explains yesterday's lack of photo.

Today, I decided to work with something similar with coloured glass. While I was shooting around and trying different compositions, I noticed something interesting when one of my flashes didn't fire. I stumbled into a neat effect, and it made today's shot:



Ah, suggestive post titles that really are only marginally related to the content of the post.

This effect was acheived with a flash laying flush on the paper with the glass balls. The light shining through them gives this cool like refraction pattern, and it reminds me of a natural gas burner. I took a bunch of these shots until I found one that looked just right, like little blue flames. Let's just say that this trick is more consistent at making little blue flames than my furnace is.

This took surprisingly little light, one LP160 at 1/64th power, and the 580EX II bounced off the ceiling for a little bit of fill and to trigger the slave on the LumoPro. That was enough light to shoot at f/9, 1/250th shutter and ISO 100. I suppose having the speedlite two or three inches away really helped as well!