At the crossing...

Day 105 was a day of good omen. There is a pair of shots that I have been wanting to get for at least two months now, and it was going to totally depend on dumb luck (or more planning that I care to do right now) to get them. Well, today I got dumb lucky.





Basically, I go through this train crossing twice a day to and from work, and it's suitably industrial on one side to be urban-grungy while also being adjacent to housing on the other side and as such, isolated enough to shoot without a lot of distractions getting into the shot.

These shots were both taken handheld, so I was leaning against the signal for the shot down the length of the train at 1/15th shutter, and against my car for the shot with the signal at 1/13th shutter. Without the extended shutter speed, these shots wouldn't work so I'm glad I was able to keep still enough with a mono-pod or some such.

Finally, this was not planned as a monochrome set of shots, but the sky was just *dead* today. Good for light, but bad for colour, and it totally dominated the shot and killed the tones in the train. Monochrome seems to allow the subject to stand out better, so I made the switch.

An evening at a dive bar...

Day 84 of my Project 365 and I'm hanging out with musicians at a dive bar. It was a lot more fun than it sounds, and the band and crowd were all good natured as I got my shots.

The lighting in the bar was really, really awful. I expected it to be a bit tricky, but the entirety of the lighting was four gelled spot lights for a five piece band. Yikes.

I was never so happy to have a lens that could open as wide as f/1.4. The lighting made the soccer arena seem like noon at the equator. Still, this is a challenge, and I decided to play with the lighting where I could and just accept that shots from a dive bar are going to be a bit crappy. If push really came to shove, I could always monochrome them anyhow.

So, I took about 300 exposures in shutter priority at 1/40th and 1/50th hoping to keep blur down a bit, and let the aperture come in where it could. Most shots are somewhere between f/1.4 and f/2.8 at ISO 800, so depth of field was super tight, and focus issues abounded in the shots. Still, I managed a fair number of good ones, and I'll call it a success.

Here are some shots from the show:

Guitarist Curt:


Drummer Beau:


Bassist Keith:


Guitarist Joe:


Vocals/Guitarist Jack:


My favourite shot so far as I sort through the RAWs was actually taken pre-show when they were setting up and tuning. I got a few nice shots during this time, so I hope to pull quite a few keepers from them.



As always, your comments are more than welcome!

Somedays, it's just easy...

Day 72 was pretty easy. Why you ask? Because today was the day my daughter picked some new flowers at the grocery store, and she chose some really, really nice ones.

So, a macro flower shot. Pretty simple right? I decided to make it a bit more challenging for myself, and set a rule: Can't be removed from the vase, sunlight only, no tripod. This meant upping the ISO to get a good hand-held shot, and a lot of attention to the location, orientation and DOF of the shot. An easy subject is nice, but if the shot it shoot-and-forget what did I learn?

The final shot was about the twentieth or so, trying a variety of compositions, orientations, and settings. I settled at ISO 400, 1/60th shutter, f/16. The higher ISO was a sacrifice, but I think the subject really was worth the effort:



I call them 'The Flaming (tu)Lips', and I love this shot. There was very limited post processing on this one, just removing a reflection in the top left corner, and cloning out some big pieces of lint and pollen around the stamen. No saturation, colour modification or curves were needed with the fantastic colour of this flower.

I'm proud of this one, and I'm glad I didn't take the easy route.

I feel the need...

Day 29 of Project 365 and as always I was looking for inspiration.

Sometimes inspiration comes from a ray of light shining through a window, or a simple little object with striking colours. Sometimes, inspiration tries to beat a red light and just about kills you on the way home from work. Want to guess how my drive home was today?

Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly to worlds best driver. I'm not overly defensive, I can have a bit of a quick temper, and I really don't like driving around people who clearly aren't in full, confident control of their vehicle. Having said all that, I have two kids, and my driving habits have seriously mellowed since I started having little people in the back seat routinely.

Still, every now and then, you feel the need. The need for speed!



Taken in my driveway, ISO 200, f/11 at .8 seconds shutter, 25mm focal length. Although I have been using the 60mm Macro almost exclusively, there was no way I could frame the tach in my car from the front seat, so I switched over to the kit lens. Even with IS I had to brace the lens on the steering wheel, and take several shots before I got a nice sharp one. I wanted a larger blur on the needle, but this was the longest I could manage a handheld sharp shot, and I really didn't want to absolutely floor it in neutral.

All in all, I think I nailed this shot pretty well. It was over-exposed a bit, but easily corrected in post.

p.s. Yeah, it was -17 Celsius at 4pm in Winnipeg today. Brr.