Gotta shoot, gotta shoot, gotta shoot!

Hi everyone!

How long has it been, two weeks or so? The bug is coming back and today I finally had an instant inspiration, grabbed my camera, and shot something on the way home from the office. Oh, and it felt *good*.

With the Holiday season coming, maybe Santa will bring me back my inspiration.

Anyhow, here we go:



The parking authority here, like in most cities, is a brutal regime of heartless monsters that prey on the innocent and weak. No matter the weather, they are out looking for more victims. Well, maybe they are not that bad, but man they aren't good!

Pretty simple, a little bit of street photography, a hit of selective colouration and a slice of life in downtown Winnipeg in November.

Impish

My Daughter started kindergarten this year (and I've been sick every week since she started!) and her two new best friends both have short hair. Of course this means that she went in to the hairdresser and had a foot of hair lopped off this weekend.

I think she looks rather impish with the new cut:



Of course, the expression might have something to do with that.

I needed my fill light (camera left) a little higher as there is a bit too much shadow on that side of her face, but I like this shot a lot :) This was shot with the 70-200, a four light setup (primary, fill, background and hair) and processed in a vintage style. Fairly standard for my portrait stuff now.

On the business side of things, there *is* no business side of things at the moment. I'm okay with that, it's there if I need it, and all it costs me is $13 a month for hosting at the moment. I don't have as much time to devote to it as I'd like anyhow, so another year or two of practice won't hurt me.

Woof! Pt 2!

A while back I went to take a few quick shots of a friends' new Sheltie, Rascal. They have two Shelties and wanted some more pictures taken, and a pic of both together for submission to a fundraising calendar. Hopefully it gets selected :)

I shot with the 70-200 and a single flash on-camera, the 580EX II using a Sto-Fen Omnibounce to diffuse. The lighting is simple but for a fast moving critter, setting up lighting would be an exercise in futility. All in all they worked out well!

First, they wanted a similar shot to the once linked above of their other dog, Roxy:



Roxy wouldn't lay down, but the look is similar enough that the two would look cohesive if seen together.

Roxy was happier to pose on the couch, and gave me this shot:



The couch was also where I tried to get both together. This was by far the hardest shot to get since they were trying to play together and any noise made to draw their attention pulled them off the couch to investigate.

Still, I got one that was half-decent :)



Not direct eye contact, but at least they have their ears up and look interested. The point to learn here is that whoever is making the distracting noise should be *directly* behind the camera!

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.

A few birds and a girl...

So the family illness continued until Sunday afternoon, and on Monday we were all eager to get out of the house for some fresh air. We opted for a drive back out to Oak Hammock Marsh because that's the kind of thing that we do at our house :)

Before going, I had to try and get a nice goose shot at the little park at the end of the street. There were thousands, and all flying low so you could shoot some nice clusters of them:



Oak Hammock was a nice walk but it was geese, geese and more geese, so I wasn't particularly thrilled with the shooting opportunities, except for *one*. Right when we arrived and hit the first trail, we apparently startled a Northern Harrier in a nearby bush and it took off with gusto. It was only fifteen feet away or so, but I didn't have my camera in hand, and my settings were not all dialed in yet, so the only shot I got was pretty disappointing:



*Soooo close* I have to say that the 70-200mm is great, but the 1.4x really kills the AF speed and it's killing me when shooting birds at a distance. I'm still going to try, but the limitation is noticeable. That 400mm f/5.6L is in my future, even if it's ten or twenty years away.

Anyhow, it was a fun walk even though it was short since we had no energy to speak of. My little girl was in the best mood, and immediately started collecting sticks as is her tradition. She's a bit of a butt sometimes, but I still love her, so she got a picture in today's post:



I would have posted all of this last night, but the boy started exploding with puke again and we were off to Children's ER. He's still going tonight, but the docs say it's just a bad case of Gastroenteritis.

Poor little guy :(

Ah, fate...

Have you ever felt punched in the face by fate?

I was really excited about this weekend, I had my first paying portrait customers lined up for an outdoor session on Saturday, and I was looking forward to it, and to sharing my shots here with you. So of course, that couldn't happen smoothly could it?

Thursday night my son got sick and was vomiting through the night. My daughter started at 4pm on Friday. My wife at 9pm. Myself at 3am Saturday.

Guess who had to cancel his very first paid photoshoot? The clients were not impressed.

Respect!

Every have one of those days where to take a silly snapshot of a goofy co-worker, you take it home and apply way too many filters, and end up with something odd, slightly disturbing, and completely unexplainable.

I have.



I don't know what this is, but it make me giggle and feel a little bit creeped out at the same time.