the Doug's Photoblog

Eagle before and After- Trying to learn

2011-09-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

Trying to learn a little about photo editing in Photoshop Elements. Here's a before and after photo from a trip to the dump the other day.BeforeAfter
I'll try to remember what I did.
Started in lightroom, crop, exposure, fill light, brightness, blacks, contrast adjustments, did a brush adjustment on the eye - thenopened image in Elementsdelete background (all but the bird and rock)clean up the beak (clone tool)clean up the remaining branches from the foreground bushes (clone tool)desaturated the Chromatic Aberration on the tail feathers with an adjustment layerSharpened.I share this, because I know some of you are far better at this than I am. Hit me with what you would've done. Critique as much as you want, composition, camera settings, you can even tell me I should've used a Canon camera (although I'll likely ignore that comment until you drop such a camera and lenses in a box on my doorstep).

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY Hanging Around LINKY

2011-08-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday "Got the ball" LINKY

2011-08-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday "beach - owen" Linky

2011-08-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday - Grown up, but with Ketchup on my shirt - LINKY

2011-07-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

-~-

Old Car

2011-07-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

An Old Car. Broken. In pieces. And oddly nice to look at.

A photo from our almost empty house

2011-07-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

We're not in Dryden anymore. We're in limbo. We have no home and no job and we are on vacation.

Here is a photo from just before we moved. Part way through the 3 or 4 days of work to get stuff in storage and sorted out... kids having fun. This image made me laugh out loud when I saw them all waving - arms stuck out of a wall....

(notice the healthy supper in the one hand.)

peek a boo

Wordless Wednesday - lakeside fun - LINKY

2011-06-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm starin'

2011-06-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday - 'sup? - LINKY

2011-06-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday - Quack - Linky

2011-06-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Kids

2011-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

My daughter.

2011-05-13T22:59:00.001-07:00

My daughter., originally uploaded by salguodbocaj.

This is my little girl. Here we've tried to straighten her hair. It didn't entirely work.

I love her.

Avian

2011-04-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

A few of the photos I've been taking lately - it's been a lot of fun.

If you take photos for fun, get out shoot something. Then share it.

Spring might come yet

2011-03-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

A few photos I took today.

Inspiration - photographically pt 3

2011-03-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with some random type thoughts on photographic inspiration, or perhaps more for this post just creativity...

I've benefited a great deal from reading some stuff on Donald Miller's blog about what he calls the way of the Creator. Click that to see all the posts he's tagged with that... Donald is an author, so don't expect any discussion on f-stops or shutter speeds, but he does talk about the creative process in a way that I think more of us need to think about. In particular, the post on the "consumer-critic-creator" was quite helpful.
A quick quote from that post:

A consumer wakes from their ways and becomes a critic, and when the critic gets through their fearful stage they can become a creator.

Also, I'd recommend this post.

Photographers are an interesting bunch. We all can be so different. Some have ideas in their head that they HAVE to get out into an image, if they pick up a camera it is to create the image that they already see in their minds eye. Others react entirely to what they see, they walk around and watch, hoping to 'see' something and record it. Many are somewhere between the two.

I don't think one is better then the other. Now, I'm a hobbyist, an amateur, or as I like to describe myself... a hack. I enjoy photography because it can be so many different things. It helps me regain perspective. I am forced to 'see' what's going on outside my own world, outside my own thoughts. Any time you are forced to see beyond yourself, well, that's good. Photography often takes patience. Especially true with wildlife photography as wild animals seldom do what you'd like them to. In all forms of photography, you will get better in time. It takes practice and thinking things through.

In trying to answer the question, "why do I take photos?" - my answer is; it depends. It's therapy, for the reasons I mentioned above with regard to my own perspective. I sometimes hide behind my camera. Sometimes I use my camera to get to know people. I will use my camera to help me escape. I will use my camera to help me communicate something that will not come out with just words.

For me, maybe because I don't take photos for money, all of these things are okay. None of them is better or worse then the other. If I was taking photos for a living, I expect some of these reasons would make my job taking photos more difficult.

In a slightly different vein...

I read a post on Chase Jarvis' blog some time ago about sorting through lots of photos. If you deal with a large number of photos...g o read it. In the post, written by Scott, he says he uses stars to rate the photos. Not earth shattering perhaps. He does lay out how he uses stars. The system he describes can be a great help if you're stuck in how you're going to get through all the photos in your library. Really though, if you struggle with going through your photos... go read that post.

(I will add to what he says, that I use the reject button in Lightroom to separate the photos I have gone through from the photos that I have. So an unrated, unrejected photo is one that I have not sorted through.)

A few of my disorganized thoughts on some of this stuff. Hope it's helpful.

Inspiration - photographically pt 2

2011-03-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."- Frank Tibolt

One of the guys in my camera club shared that quote with me. Thanks John!

Some more of the random like thoughts in my head about inspiration.

Inspiration Stealers:

Frustration
lack of energy
lack of sleep
lack of time
stress
fear
comparing your work to others
hurt
clutter in your mind
clutter in your life
failure avoidance - that is, feeling "I can't do that yet, so I won't try"

Inspiration for me comes easier when I'm relaxed and not overly stressed out. I'll be thinking about that part in a bit.
Creating stuff for me is very emotional. Both in a good way and a bad way. Once I get moving on doing stuff there's a great sense of purpose and calm and things just flow. I think it's one of the coolest parts of this hobby of photography. When things click - it's just awesome. However, when you're not feeling it.... even picking up the camera can be difficult.

I think the positive side of that is why photography is somewhat therapeutic for me. If I can get to a point where I can pick up my camera and start shooting, then within that process of shooting I start to find some perspective on all the stuff that I'm stressing about 'outside' of the photography. The act of seeing (looking through a viewfinder is great for this) forces me to see things differently - so I start to see the rest of my life and circumstances differently too.

How emotional is photography for you?

(the photos in this post are all mine and I included them only because I like them for different reasons)

Inspiration - photographically

2011-03-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

The other night I led the discussion at our camera club on inspiration. I thought I would share the visuals with you.

I'll add some more thoughts in another post soon.

Photographic Inspiration on Prezi

Dog Sled

2011-02-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Saturday we went to watch the Dryden Dog Sled Race. I went to shoot photos as a bunch of the camera club went. The family came to just have fun. What a good time. Here's some photos of the event.

There's some name tags on the same photos on my Facebook account too.

My most "interesting" photos

2011-01-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

My most "interesting" photos as defined by Flickr. One day I'll post new photos.

in colour and black and white.

2011-01-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to shoot more in Black and white this year. Tonight I was at a friends house and took some photos. I couldn't decide which I liked better. So here's both of them.

December 9, 2010

2010-12-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

A quick little vlog I made today about snow. Blooper at the end.

Angry photog shoots himself.

2010-12-07T18:41:00.001-08:00

Not really angry just goofing around with my camera.

Photos in October

2010-10-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

The last three or four weeks have seen me with my camera lots. Well over eleven hundred images since the last week of September. Some landscape, some birds, a wedding, a grade 2 event, a church family event, and a birthday party, along with some impromptu kind of portraits of my wife and kids.
Rather then dump all the photos on to a website, I thought a slideshow with one of the songs that's been on my CD player in the van a lot this month too would be good.

Hope you enjoy them.

Wife and Kids

2010-10-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

A few photos of my wife and kids.

Daddy Daughter

2010-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Olivia starts pre-k. We went to the park to play, but it ended up being cold enough that we didn't play much, but we had a little tea party by the lake and watched a pair of ducks, a sandpiper, a seagull, and on the way out saw a deer!

We sat and just "were".

Here's an arm's length shot of us together.

She's going into pre-k? Time goes faster the older I get.

Take a flying leap

2010-09-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

One day at the park with the kids Aiden did some jumping. Pretty good air...

Some photos from holidays

2010-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

Some photos from our recent family vacation. Some of them I'm quite proud of actually, others I just like. Enjoy...

Leaving on a jet plane

2010-05-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

but I know when I'm coming back, well, I'm back already... if you don't get that look here. I was in Ottawa a little while ago and on the trip home I had a layover in Toronto. I took my camera out and made some images from what I saw around me. Hope you like 'em.

Catching up - lest you think...

2010-05-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is my photoblog. Lest you think I take pictures of everything but my family, I submit these to you.

Catching up - our trip - slidetastic

2010-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

A little bit ago we traveled to Winnipeg for me to attend a training seminar with some folks from our church. My wife recapped at least one or two funny things from that trip here. I didn't take many photos, but here is a few of the kids playing on the slide in the hotel. They had a great kids area....

They had so much fun...

Catching up - Photoclub Mavis road shoot.

2010-05-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

A little bit ago, before my camera came back, Tara lent me her camera to go on a little photowalk with some of the Dryden Photoclub folks. This was probably my favorite picture of my time up with one of the guys. This was before we got all the rain and it was VERY dry. Here's a few more.

Catching up - Hip Hop Friends

2010-05-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

So just before I got my camera back I was asked to take some pictures of some friends kids after their hip hop dance class. So check these out!

repairs and other stuff

2010-04-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

While my Nikon D90 is getting repaired. Which, thankfully is being covered by Nikon themselves.

I took some photos yesterday, except I took them with my Nikon FE. I'd show them to you, but I have to finish the roll of film and then get it developed.

If you're looking from something to look at, check out my friend Thomas' site. He grew up down the road from me. I'm a little older than he so I moved away to go to school and make a life for myself before I ever knew he was into photography, but somehow, via the internet we've reconnected and talk photos often on Google Talk/Chat. It's his fault that I'm trying out the film again...

He's just finished a photo program at Algonguin and I really like his stuff. He also won an award during the final exhibition. I'll let him tell you what award that was if he wants.

My drive to Upper Falls

2010-04-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Upper Falls Timelapse v1 from salguodbocaj on Vimeo.
This is from a little while ago. Setup my camera on a tripod in the van. Hooked my laptop up to the camera and used a program to remotely trigger the shutter every 5 seconds. Then I just drove. Over 400 images. Put together in Windows Movie Maker because it worked. Would've had it up earlier, but I decided to ask for permission from Moby to use one of his songs as the soundtrack, via his mobygratis.com website (the song is "we start"). It's kind of silly, but I like it.

Made me laugh out loud

2010-04-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

This made me laugh quite a bit.

service

2010-03-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

So back in January I was taking a picture (the picture above was likely the picture that the latch broke on) and the latch for the pop up flash on my camera ceased working. The flash itself was fine, just the little hook thing that held it down stopped working. It did not appear broken. I have dragged my feet to send it in for it to be repaired under the warranty (hopefully). Although yesterday, I sent it in. Yes, I insured it, for just a little more than what it will cost to replace it. It should arrive on Tuesday, as Canada Post doesn't deliver on Good Friday or Easter Monday- which I'm ok with. Then likely 5-6 weeks later I will get it back. It's always possible they'll send it sooner.

It feels strange not having my camera. Maybe that's why photo nerds buy lots of cameras, so when they have to get one serviced, their hands are not empty. Maybe that's why photo geeks become professionals, because then if one camera doesn't work, they just grab another from their trusty bag of tricks.

So, I will miss you my D90, and while I will be taking pictures with other cameras while you're gone, I won't really mean it.

Tracking the Sunset

2010-03-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Photoclub Portrait night.

2010-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

The other night our Photoclub got together and we had some volunteers be models and we had all kinds of gear set up and we played. Took all kinds of photos. Here are a few of mine.

Time Lapse of Photoclub event

2010-03-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

Our photoclub had a meetup Saturday night. Everyone brought a whole pile of gear, we had some volunteers to be ~~guinea pigs~~, er, models and we made pictures! I spent a few minutes setting up a camera and a laptop (believe or not the computer was in a canoe on display) and had the laptop trigger the camera every 30 seconds. This timelapse is likely missing about 45 minutes of time as my computer, which was firing the camera went to sleep... but it's a feel of what all happened.

An idea... for a camera manufacturer somewhere

2010-03-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Okay so I had an idea the other day while reading some stuff on the web about cameras and how people use technology.

Now this idea has a lot to do with photo nuts or people a little frustrated with the quality of photos coming out of mobile phones. The appeal of camera phones is how we already are carrying them around with us ALL the time. People buy dedicate cameras because the images coming out of them look better. I own a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera because it takes even better pictures and I can choose what lens to put on it.

So essentially the idea that struck me is this. Why doesn't someone make a really cool relatively compact "micro four thirds" digital camera and slap a phone with GPS in it? As long as there was an integral body cap or it shipped with a really small pancake style lens, I think there must be people clever enough to make it small enough that it would slip into a jeans pocket and yet still be able to swap lenses from the micro-4/3rds system.

For instance, the current Olympus PEN E-PL1 micro 4/3rds camera is 115 x 72 x 42mm (excluding protrusions) . In way of comparaison, my Nokia E71 mobile phone is 114 x 57 x 10 mm So without a lens that particular camera is still a little thick for a jeans pocket and that's without a lens on it. So maybe it can't be done, I realize that physics plays a part in this. But consider this, if someone made this with a decent pancake lens on it, and was able to get it small enough to fit into a pocket, that's one device you could do everything with. I would be willing to bet that if it just had an integral sliding body cap for when you don't have a lens on it that it could be popular.
Perfect for taking trips, your connection to the outside world, your map and navigation, your music player, and your camera all in one device. Obviously, you wouldn't want to lose it... but for someone like me and many other photo enthusiasts, if I could go walking and be able to take great photos with a device I'm already carrying and maybe one or two more lenses, both of which would likely fit in the space a large water bottle would take? I would think you'd sell 5 or 6 of them.

There's all kinds of things you could do help people manage the content on a device like this too. You could have two memory card slots, one for the phone half and one for the camera half. With the SDHC memory cards you can currently get 32GB per card, and in time the SDXC format will bring up to 2TB of storage.
You could go with a touch screen kind of thing (ala iPhone) or hardware buttons, or maybe even both. I think interchangeable batteries would be a must.

Four thirds cameras seem to be getting some traction worldwide, and being a relatively open platform you could easily get all kinds of accessories and lenses for such a system. I can think of all kinds of cool software hacks that you could do with a device like this. Think remote time lapse where the phone emails pictures as it takes them.

Anyways, I think that if someone just sat down and started to think it all through there could be some really neat things that came from a camera with a phone in it.

Just an idea though... thanks for even reading it. If they ever make one, you'll know I thought of it first.

not moving

2010-03-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

So here it is March 10, 2010 and I haven't posted a single thing on my photoblog since January 26th. You may think I've forgotten about this space. Not true. This time of year is hard for me photographically though. I get to this point of the year and I feel like I can't make another picture with snow in it. Not that I haven't tried. Have gone on several little photo walks and came up with nothing. So this is how I'm feeling photographically. Some time ago my camera developed an issue, but I have ~~been lazy~~ deliberately dragged my feet on sending the camera in.
It's funny the relationship we can have with things...

Note:
For those who know about my little encounter the other week, this photo was taken before that and though the vehicle is running, it's also parked in my driveway at the time this photo was shot.

sunshine

2010-01-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

Can you tell when this was taken?
Just the other day. Sunshine is sunshine, and I'll take it.

eagles

2010-01-18T13:27:00.000-08:00

I found it a little amusing how it appeared this eagle is putting on a very dignified air, while sitting next to a dirty diaper.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

A few Christmas photos. Christmas Eve through evening of Christmas day.

Snowy Squares

2010-01-02T14:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated New Year's







I took all of these today at Aaron Provincial Park, with my D90 and 35mm 1.8 lens. Rocking the square crop.

Cold

2009-12-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

Went for a little walk today, as it was 'only' -20C today.

A few photos from my phone...

2009-12-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Thought I would post a few random photos from my cell phone.

This first one is from one of the first snow falls, if you look really carefully in this not so great image you can see at least two very blurry deer.

This photo is another that I took from my date with Olivia, I spoke about that here.

This image is from perhaps the worst cup of coffee I've ever had the displeasure of tasting. It was purchased during our adventures to Thunder Bay to get Olivia's teeth pulled. You can read about Tara's take on that process here.

Then this was my lunch the other day when I met one of the guys from the church for lunch. It looked very tasty at the time. Hearty potato bacon soup and a egg salad sandwich with coffee. Next time, I'll go for the chicken salad sandwich though. Good food and better conversation (that's his coat opposite me here).

Not the greatest photos I've taken, but part of the story, my story.

Pictures of Life Gallery

2009-12-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned a couple of times about a project I've been working on. It's as ready as it will ever be for the public. It's a gallery of pictures (is this a surprise? probably not). First the pictures... then the details, along with how this might help you...

As some of you know, I'm a pastor. I've noticed that in some churches it seems a struggle to find good photos to use as a backdrop on their powerpoint presentation, or to slip behind the words when lyrics to songs are projected for group singing.

Over the last few months I've been challenged by many things to try and find a way to help others with my photography. So I started going through my photos to find images that would work for churches in what I've described above. Started with over 200 gigs, first cut was just over a 1000 images. This is a gallery of 200 images. If you have been following my photography for awhile you'll likely recognize these photos. They have been shared before. I am proud of these images.

If you are apart of a church and would like to use these in your services please do so. You can download them and size them to fit your screen and use them. Technically I'm putting a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License on these photos. Click the link to learn more. However I'm not real concerned with people knowing that I took the picture. If you do use them, it would be nice if you could send me an email or leave a comment with that photo on the photo gallery page

almost...

2009-12-03T22:44:00.000-08:00

The little project I mentioned awhile ago? Well, it's almost ready. I'm kind of excited about it. The few dozen or so people who follow my blog, will they be excited? Time will tell. In the meantime, have a great day.

Wow

2009-12-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I am astonished. I have past 100k page views on my Flickr page. Thank you.

Long time

2009-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted anything.

Here's a couple of long (ish) exposure shots.

personal project

2009-11-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm working on a personal project. Hopefully I'll be able to share more details soon. I started out with almost 200 Gigs of photos, pulled around a thousand photos out in the first draft. Now I'm down to five or six hundred. I hope to cut that down by a third or half by the time I'm done.

I will be making a gallery of the remaining photos. How I will host, or display the photos I am not sure yet. I hope they will be able to help some folks, but we'll see, it might be a flop of project.

I'm using the beta of Lightroom 3 for my sorting and first round of edits. In fact the vast majority (if not all) of my edits will be made in this program.

I have amazed at how well thought out this thing is.

I've heard this before, but having a project, or an end user in mind makes processing and editing your photos SO much easier.

Here's a screenie of the grid of some of the photos I'm working on....

morning coffee

2009-11-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

A short walk

2009-11-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk today. Took this picture. I wish it was a better photo, but it is what it is. I enjoyed being in the great outdoors for a short while.

It was good to take a picture, any picture, as I haven't had the chance or the inclination. More to the point, I've been overwhelmed with stuff and have felt like I'm in a rut... so today was shoot and post what you came up with...

So there you go.

Enjoy.

what do I like...

2009-10-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

So Strobist had a post on colour palette in photos, specifically how do I use colour in my photos. I got thinking about how I tend to shoot and process my pictures. It got me thinking about my photos.

I think my I have tendency to have more saturated colours and in doing so I think many of my pictures lean to be a little underexposed. I often underexpose pictures to pull as much colour out and keep the contrast as high as I can. The lens I use the most is my 55-200VR lens.

I think this is one of the reasons I have a real hard time with shooting black and white. I don't naturally see things that way. I also seem to gravitate towards real tight crops when shooting people at events. I have come home from family or church events and realized that the only photos I really have are of individuals and not of the group function.

I think some of this reflects at least a part of who I am. The stronger colours reflect my optimistic leanings. I use photography more as an escape from my everyday life more than I do a vehicle to make statements. I use photography as a vehicle to help me pray, to see the good things in the world when I'm overwhelmed, and perhaps most importantly, give perspective the things in life I need to be thankful for.

I am drawn to photos that have a very strong and simple composition too. That center on one moment or one thing. Usually for me, it's something that is tied to a simple joy of something, or relationship, or just fun!

So what? What do I do with all of this? Do I try and go the other way and learn to be as rounded and balanced as possible? Or do I simply accept it and run with it as part of my style? Well, to start, I want to make sure that I really start working on exposure. I need to learn how to draw the colour I want out of photos without making them underexposed. I need to learn how to shoot with more than just that one lens, even if it's just to save that lens from wearing out while the others look brand-new (actually if you look at that lens you'll see it is worse for the wear, even though it is the lens I've had the longest). I also need to shoot events with an eye towards the larger event and not just the individuals within the event.

How do you use colour? How are you seeing the world? Does it come out in your photos? Do you even care? What are you looking to take pictures of?

Here's a few of my photos for fun.

1. morning dew, 2. trees v2, 3. tenacity, 4. a drive in the rain, 5. sunny, 6. raw tomato sauce, 7. finding the wind, 8. seagull 3 of 4, 9. gulp, 10. Purple on blurry green, 11. shrooms in the dark, 12. swings, 13. sucking pollen, 14. 20090805_4716-_DSC8288, 15. untitled, 16. untitled, 17. untitled, 18. grass shoots, 19. coke on the beach, 20. kiwi strobist, 21. glow, 22. sunset bumped up a bit, 23. can you find me?, 24. ladybug picnic

Waterdrops and stoplights

2009-10-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

From a drive in the rain yesterday

some things I saw the other day

2009-09-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

The big move. I feel like this right now as we prepare to move.

Life is tenacious. Grass, growing in a rock, right by swirling water. Often I think I need to be a little more tenacious.

water, grass light

2009-09-16T15:04:00.001-07:00

Simple beauty, well, at least to me it is.

fly like a bird (doug's take)

2009-09-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we went to the beach. While we were there the kids started feeding the gulls their snacks (which was muffins). Tara and I both started snapping pictures. Her take is HERE.

All in all it was a lot of fun. And now between the two of us, we'll never need another picture of a gull ever. Although I'm sure we'll take more.

Some birds by the water

2009-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Went out to read and pray in the park the other day. Some of the ducks came quite close. Here's a few shots that appealed to me.

A little catching up

2009-09-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned a little while ago, I have been shooting lots of stuff. Some of which I will share...

A quick headshot of Tara featuring her new haircut (she blogged about it here)

Many of these other photos below look much better seen large. If you click on the photo it will take you to the Flickr page where these photos are hosted.

Stories

2009-08-26T22:55:00.001-07:00

Every once in awhile I come across a photo essay that I find amazing.
This one is truly excellent.

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

There is some powerful story telling here with a few words and a few photos.

What I fear others think of me when I geek out on cameras...

2009-08-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

If I do that to you some day... tell me, I'll stop talking.

evening light

2009-08-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

Set the trailer up this week. Here the kids are eating Popsicles and ice cream

Owen had finished his, so he's chewing on stick.

If you'd like to see more then view my flickr stream here.

stay tuned!!

2009-08-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

So...I've taken so many pictures recently I am hopelessly behind in the edits/ post processing, which truthfully is my least favorite part of the whole photography thing.

Here's a shot of little mushroom I took on a family walk yesterday. This one is straight out of the picture taker machine; but stay tuned, I've shot some portrait stuff, some candid stuff, wedding kind of stuff, a buddy took pictures while I baptized a bunch of people on Sunday, lots and lots of candids, a few landscapes, and a bunch of still lifes (like this one) just for fun.

Hopefully I'll get through these soon so I can post a few.

Thanks for reading!

My evening at camp

2009-07-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

So while I was visiting some friends I had a chance to go to a camp and watch a crazy wide game.

Kind of like what happens when you mix capture the flag and football, along with some really zealous acting. It was great fun!!

At the end the "War Chiefs" battled individually!

Then everyone went down to the water.

And had to wash off the battle paint!

It was great fun! I learned a fair bit about how to make pictures in lower light too....

Scott Kelby Photowalk and some unrelated concerns)

2009-07-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the photos from my involvement in the 2nd Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. I had hoped to work on these a little more but have been unable to. In time I will add more pictures and perhaps rework these ones.

The reason I haven't been able to do much is that my wife's Aund and Uncle have been evacuated from their home in West Bank, British Columbia. West Bank and the western part of Kelowna are in flames from a 200+ hectare forest fire that started yesterday. The fire is (as of right now) still uncontained and authorities are evacuating more and more people. There are even rumblings that this fire might be bigger than the fire in 2003.

There are some pictures on one of the Kelowna news websites of them evacuating Les & Shirley here. They are featured in the second and third photos. If you're the praying type, please do so.

This post is duplicated on my other blog

Another day at the beach

2009-07-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

So we went to the beach again today. Great time. The pictures I'm posting here are less about the kids and more about some things that caught my eye and imagination a little. So here they are:

kids in a van

2009-07-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

so I said "be angry" (Olivia is actually laughing)

so then I said stick out your tongue

afternoon nap?

2009-06-20T22:39:00.001-07:00

Ever wish you could have a nap as often as a cat does?

Ya me too.

a few shots that I took on a detour to the grocery story

2009-06-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

I love evening light.

water, sky

this guy was right by the side of the road and was fine until I slowed down

My favorite.

My go with strobes and water drops

2009-05-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

Beauty in water. It's kind of astonishing to me that while we use so much water all the time, rarely does the beauty shine out.

For my photo geek friends,
Nikon D90, 1/200th, F10, ISO 3200 (!!), zoomed to 82mm with a +3 macro filter.
These are straight out of camera. The blue ones are shot tungsten white balance.
Inspired by the Strobist post on water drops
strobist water drop

A great day.

2009-05-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day today was. Coffee this morning, ease into the day, play with the kids in the yard. Took this of the tree in the backyard. Had a great evening at church, small group, but it was one of those services where things just 'worked'. Not perfect, but real, genuine. Went for some food afterwards, good talks.
Spring is here in the north (well our north anyways). Spring makes me think of new beginnings, new life, hope and promise. Things CAN get better. Inspiration can come. You can grow past the darkness that winter brought.
Get off your butt and go take a picture, have some fun, do something that requires some effort and make something cool.

2009-05-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Some photos I took of the flowers in a greenhouse that belongs to a family in our church. It could prove to be an neat project. I'd be interested in thoughts on this bunch.

All of these were taken with a D90 and a 35mm F1.8 lens.

this is Aiden

2009-05-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

This is Aiden. I love this picture. It breaks some 'rules' composition, but there's something about the moment and the expression that shows a part of who he is.

Your comments and critiques welcome, hit me in the comments.

no spring yet

2009-04-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

stupid groundhog said spring would be early this year, I so need to get the guys and carpet bomb him.

A thousand frames a second

2009-04-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

This is what a thousand frames a second looks like...

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Not that you care...

2009-04-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Not that you care, but I'm terribly impressed by this little guy, the Nikon D5000, a new camera announced yesterday and may be available as early as the end of April (but where it would be available and to whom is a different question).

My birthday is the end of May, just in case you care. ; )

If photography wasn't under attack...

2009-04-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

...why would the NYPD issue a statement to it's officers reminding them that taking pictures is rarely illegal and that they do not have the right to look at photos taken by someone, let alone demand they turn over their camera/memory card or delete the photos.

See here, here.

Corrected tree

2009-04-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

Grayscale trees, ones crooked.

short time lapse test...

2009-04-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

This post is about testing video hosting...

The chaos around photography

2009-03-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

I have posted this here as I don't know how many of my 'regular' blog readers are interested in this. It seems that more and more photographers or anyone who enjoys using a camera in a public place are all of a sudden thought to be suspect of something nefarious.

The U.K. just introduced some downright silly legislation that restricts personal freedom significantly. Of course, what do I know?

Here's a little video of the thoughts of Nick Turpin a photographer in the UK and then a rally of photographers outside the Scotland Yard protesting the new legislation. He reads the actual laws in the first part of the video and explains what this could mean for pros and the average person.

I may blog more on this later.
Photographers Rights UK from Nick Turpin on Vimeo.

A photographer to check out

2009-03-24T05:51:00.000-07:00

I came across another photographer today that has some great photos. He is a commercial and editorial photographer from Townsville, Australia. You can find his website here http://www.cameronlaird.com/.

(full disclosure - I'm entering a draw to win a camera with this post)

Sometimes the noise in your head has to come out

2009-03-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

This photo is the result of me playing in the basement with my old clunky gear. I tried a whole number of expressions etc, and this was the most interesting. Played a little with it in post.

UPDATE:

Okay, why make this photo? Mostly for fun; but also because photography is an outlet for me. I think it's terribly important that each of us have a way to 'decompress' in a healthy productive way. There are all kinds of unhealthy ways of coping with stress. Finding a way to do it that helps yourself AND other people, or at least doesn't hurt anyone else (sports injuries aside) is critical.

So while there is nothing really going on in my head that's overly negative, there is a lot in my head. Making this picture (and some of the other outtakes) was simply a way to let some of that out.

A cup of cold water...

2009-02-23T11:26:00.000-08:00

A Cup of cold water for you?

Impromptu Portraits

2009-02-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

For those that might be interested, I took these this morning by sitting the kid on the kitchen table by the wall. Set the shutter speed between 1/500th-1/640th of a second (the fast my flash will sync) and shot with my flash at it's lowest setting into the wall. Varied the aperture to expose it properly (F11-F8), then made up the rest in the GIMP.

birds

2009-02-21T09:20:00.000-08:00

Even after

2009-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

(Click on the image for some of the details on how this image was taken.)

Even after all these years (it will be ten years married the end of July) she'll still kiss me on occasion.
I need to share with you all how much my wife rocks. She is a blogging machine (1016 posts as of today!), she truly cares for a lot of people - even when she says she doesn't, she cares for our kids and will relentlessly pursue what's best for them, she laughs at my stupid jokes (which is great evidence of long suffering). I truly do love her. Our life together has been an incredible ride, up and down and all over. As we start on a new chapter of adventures there is no one else I'd rather have with me.

photoessay on nuns

2009-01-26T09:21:00.001-08:00

I found this photoessay very good.

reminders

2009-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

This was one of the pieces of art on the walls at the Abbey the other week. I really like them. There's more in the flickr stream.

I'm back...

2009-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well, after more than a month after blogger decided my photo blog here was spam, it got unlocked. Here are some photos I took while at our SPN meeting (senior pastor's network). I had time to take a walk in the snow (and I might add cold).

There's something about that golden quality of light towards the end of the day.

You can find more pictures of this walk here.

This is my heart

2008-12-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a few photos I'm working on as a little project/collection of pictures of a few of the things that I love in this world.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

2008-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

don't think i especially like this photo, but I am feeling like I want to post something, anything! I've been a little sick with a cold and the weather has not cooperated when I've had time to shoot pictures.

Workflow...

2008-12-06T22:18:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I think that most people who are totally new to taking pictures with a digital camera (SLR or otherwise) don't think of right away is how to sort through their files.

I have been thinking a bit recently about my workflow (that is the term photographers use to describe what they do with the image file after they take a picture); currently I upload the files to my laptop using Picasa 3. I name the folder with a "yyyymmdd" then a few words to describe the photos. Once the photos are loaded on the computer I delete the ones that are completely unusable, such as one's where my exposure is WAY off, or the focus is off. Then I usually skim through them and "star" the ones I like the best in Picasa. After that it depends on how quickly I need the photos and what they are going to be for. For instance if I have a lot of them and I am trying to get them to someone else quickly I will edit the exposure using the "tuning" tab in Picasa. I might then bump the saturation one way or the other and maybe apply some sharpening (although I wish Picasa would let me choose the amount of sharpening -but I didn't pay anything for it!). Now that Picasa will allow me to "retouch" and get rid of dust specks etc... I can do lots of stuff in there. If there is more that I want out of the picture I use the Gimp to pixel edit. Lately I have been trying to do some panorama shots and I've just barely started looking at HDR (high dynamic range) shots and have been using Hugin for that. Great little free app!

Currently I shoot jpgs only. I'll use nef (the raw file format from my camera) if I'm doing long exposures at night as it speeds up the camera incredibly. It seems that converting to jpgs takes twice as long as the shutter was open while leaving the file in the nef file allows the camera to move on almost immediately.

I read/listened to a blog post/podcast that asked what you would change about your workflow if I had Adobe Lightroom 2. I tried the beta test of LR2 and found it very cool. I would drop Picasa and import directly into LR2 then use the 5 star system to try and sort pictures in some kind best to worst setup. I really enjoyed the dual monitor support in LR2, that is I can edit a photo on one monitor and have the library open on the next. I might even start tagging my photos more. (I hope I win a copy of Adobe Lightroom 2!)

A town

2008-11-19T22:54:00.001-08:00

Almost 360 degrees. 28 Frames. Testing a new program.

One of the signs of winter.

2008-11-14T00:10:00.000-08:00

Icicles. Looks like winter is here. Yes, it's snowing in the background.

pitter patter

2008-11-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try a new photo series, entitled "This is my heart", you can find it here here ; it will be a work in process so if are so inclined check back.

2008-11-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

More trees. More color.

trees

2008-10-29T23:57:00.001-07:00

Seeing the light through the trees.
View another version of this here.