Auditorium Flower Pots

This is another shot from the pre Irene walk. These planters of color ring the Auditorium here in Verdun. I took the first picture and felt the ground pounding underneath my feet. I turned around and saw that i was being approached by twenty odd hulking sweat machines. The Juniors were doing laps around the building and were being timed.I quickly snapped two more photos, then grabbed Nalin's leash and pulled her to safety off of the sidewalk. I swung around the front of the building and tried to get a picture of the coaching staff checking the stop watches, but it was the end of the run and hockey players laying on the concrete didn't seem like good subject matter to me.

I didn't imagine that the flower pot shots would turn out, not having time to check the picture and adjust, but by some fluke they were pretty clear with a slightly blurred foreground. The vibrant colors didn't need any help in editing. If you click the shot and enlarge the photo, notice the crazy seed pods on the stalks of the white flowers.

Paw Prints In The Mud.

I was out taking a few photo's while walking the dog the Sunday morning before we were supposed to start feeling the effects of Hurricane Irene. We had received quite a bit of rain that week and the ground was already wet. Down by the waterfront was busy with folks getting a last good dag walk in before the deluge. There was a puddle that had just finished being dried off by the building wind and one brave canine adventurer couldn't resist marking his or her territory by walking straight up the middle of the ten foot length of sticky gray soup. It was just firming up good when Nalin and I came along with the camera.

Wild Carrot Seed Head

Here is another picture of a Wild Carrot seed head before it dies and dries out. The greens blend in a little too well with the background, but it is still a stunning image just for it's clarity. I was tempted to color the background, but I don't think I am up for that yet. If I do get proficient with it this is a photo I will revisit.

Midday Light

It is hard to photograph anything in the harsh midday light. Plants are one of the only things that can turn out well in bright sunlight depending on the leaves. The foliage on this purple leaf Sandcherry bush was perfect because of the angle of the two sides of the leaf allow for lots of contrast between light, dark and color. The background green is a perfect color companion for the image.

Fall Begins.

One of the sure signs of the beginning of Autumn is the bloom of the New England Aster. This vibrant lavender and orange flower blooms for about two to three weeks once the heat of summer is over. These are a favorite of all types of Bees and Butterflies.

Black & White Nature Shots

Black and white nature shots can be a bit tricky. You have to make sure the subject mater isn't something that the viewer will colorize in their own head. I try and stay away from b&w when shooting anything with blooms or wildlife in it. I have always loved shooting outdoors in the fall and winter in black and white because of the shorter days and longer shadows.

The image below is of a dried out seed head of a Wild Carrot plant. It expresses itself well in monochrome because it is very evidence that it is dried out and on the far side of its summer glory. This was taken at a focal length of 194mm, 1/12o sec., ƒ6.3 with a EF-S 55 - 250mm lens from a little over three feet ( 1.1m) away.

Spider Webs

Another easy way to get a good shot of spider webs is having them against a dark background but well lit from above. The light catches the top edge of the webbing and illuminates it very well. With a little bit of Recovery, Clarity and some Sharpening strands jump right out.

More Things To Capture On Rainy Days Pt. Two

Another subject that is really great to capture on rainy days is water. The way rain lays on surfaces or pools can sometimes make for an interesting photo. Today's photo is an example. The shallower the angle the better when taking pictures of water. These fire escape stairs were an easy target. The rain looks great on the black grating, has great highlights and is given a beautiful background by the slide and kiddy pool in the neighbors yard.

The green, red and yellow make the whole picture. Being able to give them some Vibrance in Lightroom without it affecting the water or stairs was key to the finished image. It is important to try and get shots of subjects from a couple of different angles so that you have a choice of background later.

More Things To Capture On Rainy Days

Even thought you can't be out shooting on a day with lots of rain, there are things that can be perfect on wet day subjects. Interiors looking out in old buildings, barns etc., portraits of the kids or the dogs and spiderwebs. The moisture in the air sticks to the webbing and makes it stand out pretty well. This shot is of a web that was in bad repair, but it was in range of my back porch and allowed me to capture it without getting wet.

Photography Challenges

One thing I find a lot of fun is working at a challenge. A photography website that I follow religiously has weekly challenges for its members. At Digital Photography School the weekly challenges can be subjects ranging from Converging Lines to 1o Feet From Your Front Door to Photos of Toys. This is a shot that I took for last weeks challenge, which was Shoes.

Vibrant Color

I was at a family dinner recently and had time to wander around my father in law's back yard and take some quick shots. He always has some interesting stuff going on, from the fish pond to scare crows, to the recent proliferation of blue glass. Since these images were taken, they have installed a blue bottle tree.



Before the tree, they had some bottles lining the deck, and the more interestingly shaped ones on a bush as seen above. These dark blues and vivid greens of the garden go together so well. I did some editing on one of the pictures of the bottles to try and give it the Lomo/ Hipstamatic look. Here are the original and the edit.





I will return to the blue glass again once I get some pictures of the tree and the rest of the garden soon before Autumn starts and the colors fade.

Candid Portraits: Friends And Family

It is always great having friends and family around to practice portraits. The upside is that they are at ease around you and can act natural. The downside is that they are at ease around you and will act natural. There is a subtle difference in people when they know that the camera is focused on them. It's like store windows before a holiday.

This is a shot of Sam and her sister that I took on Sunday. There was quite a series of them laughing, but this was the final one where they had giggled into a more natural set of smiles. The only touch ups were some Recovery and dropping the exposure a little bit. ' Smiles everyone! Smiles!'

Available Light

One thing I look for in indoor situations is available light sources. I try and steer subjects toward the brightest areas of the room, especially windows. Overhead lighting is OK, but you get strange shadows that way. You are better off just using a flash in most lamp lit situations.

I waited a good little while at a family gathering yesterday before someone got close enough to the windows to get a shot. A nice bright picture of my mother in law as she checks for rain outside. I didn't need to do a lot of editing on this, thankfully, because the ISO was pretty high and it would have been difficult to fix up.

Indoor Photography

Today we went to my sister in laws place to help with a fundraising BBQ that my nephew was doing. Of course it was overcast and threatening rain throughout the late afternoon. And that meant everybody was hanging out inside, giving me a good opportunity to work with indoor low light situations. The next few posts will feature some of these shots.

This image is a candid capture of my sister in law. There was a window about seven feet to her left providing some light. This was taken with the ISO cranked to 1600 and a 1/20 of a second exposure, ƒ 5.6. A little grainy because of the ISO, but not bad for indoor.

Warm Sunset

Here is a nice shot of the sunset on Thursday, August 11th. It took me a few days to do the edit on it. Mostly just a crop to center things and darken the exposure to bring the sky alive. Taken with the stock lens and a polarizing filter.

I know the leaves in the top corner should have been cropped out, but I like them for framing and anchoring the top half of the picture.

Rising Moon

I recently read an article about placing small objects in the background close to large objects in the foreground to give them a more substance and size just by using the perspective. Tonight is the night before the full moon, but the skies were very clear and it would be vibrant enough at moon rise to let me experiment.

I got down to the waterfront too early and waited around for the moon to come up, not realizing it was doing so behind one of the high rises on Nun's Island. I took some shots with the 18 - 55mm lens then switched to the telephoto. Here is the original image.



Then in editing, I cropped out the lamp and a decided to try a portrait centered shot and adjusted the angle a bit to straighten the building. I then did my regular Recovery and Clarity corrections and added some Vibrance and a little more Saturation than I usually do to bring the yellow into the moon and some blue back into the sky.

Evening Contrails

Here is a little example of the small things you can do to an image in Lightroom that only take one minute and have a big effect on the finished photo. This is an evening shot from the other night.



The first action in Lightroom was to straighten the picture a bit by adjusting the angle of the crop. What I try and do with buildings is pick the longest horizontal or vertical line and get it as close to level without pulling the other parallel lines out of whack.

Next comes Recovery. I used about +70 on this edit to really make the windows pop. After that I added 50 Clarity. Then a small(+30) tweak on the Vibrance and +20 Saturation to bring a deeper blue into the evening sky. Lastly I gave the corners a bit of definition with some Lens Vignetting. I don't usually go negative and darken any corners, but it does seem to work on this image. Here is the end result.

Red Leaves

I went out on a beautiful evening (what's that? no storm warnings!?) for a little safari looking at things in a different light than I usually do. Down by the waterfront there are a few trees that are planted in a dividing formation. Lines like this are spattered throughout the park every half kilometer or so to give the dogs somewhere to bee line to when they have to pee instead of killing all the nice grass. This particular stand have burgundy leaves that took on a more orange/ red hue under the setting sun's rays.

No crop here, just some Recovery, bumped up the Contrast and Saturation a bit. Also went +40 on the Lens Correction to brighten the corners some. Last night was the first time in a while I went out vowing not to use the telephoto and stick to the stock lens. I like the results.



As a follow up note, I found out that these small trees are purple leaf Sandcherry bushes and fill the spring air with beautiful white and pink fragrant blossoms.

More Storm Clouds

It has been a rough start to August with storms every couple of days here in Montreal. I walked out into sunshine yesterday and within five minutes the sky had turned menacing and had to turn Nalin for home. This picture was taken exactly five minutes after the blue sky cloud picture in the post four days ago. Rain followed shortly.

Wet Bird

I took this image after a rain the other day. This little fellow was stopping for a quick breather on his way through the yard with ten or fifteen friends. I believe it is a female Rose Breasted Grosbeak, but if I am wrong and find the correct identification I will put a footnote on the post later. The brick/ sky contrast works well with the black foreground.

Rainy Day Black & Whites

I really have come to like shooting in black & white on rainy, or really overcast days. the wet brings out contours and aspects of things that just aren't around on sunny days. The added plus is that a grey day lends to noon time and afternoon pictures instead of waiting or rushing for sunrise/ sunset light.

This little plant is the most stubborn beast I have ever come across. I know I have ripped it out of the ground at least twice. But, year after year it returns in exactly the same spot. I guess I have come to gain a certain respect for its tenacity and will let it live out it's life in style as long as it doesn't get big enough to overrun the patio stones at the bottom of the stairs.


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Quick Pics

I've gotten in the habit of setting up the camera for the conditions outside on my front stoop, so that if I see something on the dog walk, it just takes 10 seconds to pull the camera from the bag and click it on.

I love interesting cloud formations. After my Black Lab passed away in 2006, I spent a great deal of time in the back yard with our remaining dog, Murray. I would sit and get shots of cloud formations while he ran laps and patrolled his territory. After his exercise he would sit and watch the clouds too. Here is a picture of him scouting the horizon taken with the Kodak.



Murray passed in 2009, and the backyard at my current apartment doesn't have a real sky view, except straight up. So when I see some clouds that Murr and I would have found interesting I like to take a shot for him. This was a dog walk quick pic that I couldn't resist taking.

Critters In The Backyard

This guy and others like him are really starting to annoy me. They have torn up my flower boxes, chewed through the lid of my garbage bin, and ripped up my lawn. The roof of my neighbors garage overlooks my yard. They like to toss all their bread scraps out on the roof for the birds. What ends up happening is two or three of the bravest squirrels make their way up my tree and onto the roof and then shoot the pieces of bread down onto the lawn. Doesn't take long for them to make a mess. Here are a couple of shots of a repeat offender on the fire escape.



Once he was onto me he dropped his bread into a half full wading pool underneath the stairs and it became my fault that he lost his breakfast. The sweet cuddly Bambi gang member facade crumbled and out comes Mr. Rabid Tree Rat.

Storm Clouds

This another shot from the storm on Monday. I did some editing on this one to give it some feel. I love the glow from the clear spot around the Auditorium. And the clouds are pretty ominous.

Street Shots

I like going for walks and doing some street shots. You can think stuff through while strolling and get some OK pictures depending on the light and time of day. This guy is lit up most of the day with good light, so he is always a tempting subject.

The Document Photo

Sometimes you grab your camera and fix the settings real quick because you want to document something that is going on. Today we got some crazy, crazy, crazy thunder and lightning with heavy winds and rain. Lots of rain. I went out on the front veranda to get a couple of shots of how deep the water is in front of my place when it rains like that. The best way to do that was showing cars plowing through said water. The shots aren't great, but I have proof that the city's drain obviously isn't working there.