X' and O's

The letter K is harder to find naturally than you's think.  This is the underside of a foot bridge.

X' and O's

At craft shows you'll sometimes see folks with signs made from photos of letters and numbers.  I have been collecting a few of these as I go around....one never know when they'll come in handy.  Some letters and numbers are easy, I's and O's for instance, others are a little harder.  More so if the self imposed rule is that I'm not allowed to take pictures of actual letters and numbers that appear in signs and stuff.  So here's a sample....the letter Q as part of a piece of abandoned industrial equipment.

Somethin' from Nothin'

I like modern and contemporary art.  The more audicious the better I think.  So does this qualify as art?  If you were in a gallery and saw this as a painting that was, say, 2 meters square, oil on canvas what would you think?  What if it was a photo taken with an iPhone?  Does it have more or less merit?

Somethin' from Nothin'

The other day I was shown a series of photos that had been taken by a group of very young children.  Some of them clearly showed that the photographer had some insight and was trying to 'make' a photograph.  In other cases the young photographers were just pointing the camera and pressing the shutter.  I was thinking about that when I took this photo; after all every photo is really just fire-when-ready...or is it?   Anybody could walk in the woods and point the camera upward any old place and get a photo like this one.....or could they?

Somethin' from Nothin'

These 'plant parts' were poking through the snow and managed to avoid being trampled on by my dogs who seem to like to investigate whenever I crouch down with the camera....or as in this case, the iPhone.

Encore

This photo appeared on my blog several weeks ago.  Today it made it's debut in a full page add in the Edmonton Journal for Waterloo Ford.  A large print of this photo hangs in the management suite of the dealership.

Somethin' from Nothin'

When I'm out and about I try to stay alert to the potential photographs that are around me, or as in this case, ones that I am about to step over.  These bits of tree were left by the wind or maybe birds....or maybe even both.  In any case, I was intrigued by the texture of them as they lay in the melting snow.

Springtime in Alberta

I'm really happy with this photo of leafless trees reflected in melting snow.  In fact, the image is upside down but I like it much better this way.

Springtime in Alberta

This Hipstamatic photo has been worked over a bit in Photoshop CS5.  I used the lens correction tool to add a slight fish eye effect.

Springtime in Alberta

Here's another Hipstamatic puddle photo - taken whilst out splashing around with our dogs.

Springtime in Alberta

Springtime in Alberta means puddles.  The iPhone Hipstamatic sees them oddly but the results are pretty cool.

Meet Recce

Last up in the series of photos of young Recce.  Honestly, how could you make this guy any cuter?

Meet Recce

Getting your portrait taken is tiring work; here's Recce enjoying a well earned time out.  On the couch.  Where else?

Meet Recce

This is Recce; he's a very young Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

Recce's 'dad' is ex-Canadian Forces and chose this name as shortened version of 'Reconnaissance.'  Looks like Recce will get a French Immersion education; good Canadian boy that he is.

Long Shadows

This photo was taken mid-day on 2012 March 11.  It was a bright day but the sun is still quite low in the sky at this time of year resulting in some rather long shadows cast onto the snow.


I like the overlap of the lines that are the shadows intersecting into the vertical lines of the trees.  If you look closely you'll see that by 'connecting the dots' from the base of one lot of trees to the next a third directionality is hinted at.


I edited this photo using Nik Silver Efex pro with the objective of getting some granulation to the snow and lots of contrast on the tree bark.

Recent Projects

Last up in the series of photos of this architectural office.

Recent Projects

This is the main studio area of this architectural office.

Recent Projects

I think it helps to have a person moving throught the frame, particularly in photos with long corridors.

Recent Projects

This is a composite panorama photo of this architectural office; two images made with the Canon 17mm TSE lens and merged in Photoshop CS5.

Recent Projects

This is the interior of an Edmonton Architectural practice.

Recent Projects

I was recently given a slightly unusual assignment. A consulting firm with offices in more than one city needed two people photographed in a format to match an established standard. They provided me with a sample photo and and asked me to match it. There's more to this than first meets the eye; getting the lighting to look similar and the white balance matched requires careful attention.   To further complicate matters they needed the images in just a few days.

The bottom image is the sample image they provided - to be clear, I did not take the photograph of this gal; if I knew who did I would be crediting them here.  The photo of the fellow is mine.  The separation light (back light) is not as intense in my version but other than that I'm happy with the result.

Canon 5DII with 24-105 lens at 50mm; ISO 100, 1/60 sec @ f/6.3.  Elinchrom strobes with umbrella modifiers camera right and left; Canon 580EXII flashed into a beauty dish for separation lighting.  All off camera strobes triggered with Pocket Wizard transmitters.

Recent Projects

Last in the series of details only photos of this downtown Edmonton building.  Have you figured out which building this is? 

Recent Projects

Here's a detail of the accent lighting below the street level canopy of this downtown Edmonton building.

Recent Projects

Third photograph in the 'details only' series of this downtown Edmonton building.

Recent Projects

Here's the second in the short series of detail photos of this building.  Those familiar with downtown Edmonton will know this building.

Recent Projects

This was an interesting project in that my client wanted detail photos only of this prominent Edmonton building.

Dog Portraits

This is our new pup, Banjo.  It's hard to walk in snow up to your shoulders but he's a persistent little chap.

He's not one to stand around for his portrait and when I crouch down with the camera he is in my lap before I can take the photo.  So for this image I was running backward holding the camera down at his level, more or less.  I had the camera set up correctly and I just kept depressing the shutter.

Meet Jack

Here's the last of the 'Meet Jack' series.

Meet Jack

Third up in the 'Meet Jack' series.  Canon 5dII with Lensbaby Composer.

Meet Jack

Jack's dad was around when I took these photos and he gave Jack some advice on how ot pose.  'Just look bored and pretend you have the flu.'  Seems like all successful models have that down-pat.

Meet Jack

I take a lot of photos of people for corporate websites and other types of marketing.  They are usually pretty straight forward head and shoulders photos.  So it's nice to do something else for a change.

This is Jack.  Jack is thinking of doing some modelling and needed some photos.  Here's the first of these.

Recent Projects

The steps in creating this photo were much the same as used in the photo from yesterday's post - only the final back and white conversion step was ommited.

The architect wanted a photo that demonstrated the transparent aspec of this house; given the time of year I opted for a dusk photo.  I had to hurry, just after these photo were taken it began to snow heavily.

Canon 5DII with Canon 17mm TSE.  ISO 100, multiple exposures all at f/8.  Gitzo Explorer Tri-pod  with Really Right Stuff ball head and camera bracket.