Project 365 - Day 31 - Picture in picture (in picture, in picture, etc)

Do you ever feel like your work will never end?  I have had that feeling from time to time.  Today's pic is inspired by that feeling - although I can't say that I ever feel this way about photography.  I tend to lose hours taking photos and then massaging them later.  I have been getting better at getting the shot right in the camera and then the post processing work is not that bad.

But today's photo is also about perspective, and vanishing lines, and a whole bunch of other elements of design - wouldn't my photography instructors be proud of me! 

Here's the shot:

This took a really long time to set up, I had to get the horizontal lines right or the effect would get worse all the way through to the first pic way down in the middle.  But once I got it set up, and did a custom white balance, it wasn't that hard.

Process:
1) Take photo of your desktop computer (this won't work with a MAC ... kidding)
2) Import photo to lightroom
3) View photo in lightroom
4) Take photo of your desktop computer
5) Repeat from step 2.

Interesting enough, without blowing up the picture, 5 layers is about all you can do using my setup here.  If I had less space around the outside of the first pic I could have done more.  That would probably mean more images and a more pronounced effect.  But effect achieved nonetheless.

As an aside, I have made it through the first 31 days of this assignment.  A landmark for sure but my work is not even close to being finished.  There will be challenges (let's be honest, there have already been challenges) to my creativity.  It will be a fun journey, and I hope I am not sick of it by the end.

Project 365 - Day 30 - A tourist in your own town

Every once in a while it's good to look at your city or town through the eyes of someone who is visiting.  How many times do we drive through our neighbourhoods and ignore the beauty that first attracted us to the area.  Today, I decided that it would be a good day to do some sightseeing. 

I went downtown to the Trafalgar / Lakeshore area where there is usually a lot of activity and lots of stuff to shoot.  It was very dark out by the time I went, but the Christmas lights are still on the trees (they are white twinkle lights - very nice).   Downtown Oakville is awesome with the mix of old and new, and it is very clean as well.

I happened upon Knox Presbyterian church, the old home base for the Oakville Camera club of which I am a member.  We outgrew the location and had to move last year.  It is a beautiful church.  So out came the tripod and the 24-70 lens, and a shooting did I go.

As an aside, it's interesting to see people actually stop on the sidewalk to allow you to shoot.  I even had a car stop in the middle of the road so they didn't block my shot, even though I was shooting above the sidewalk and road.  It was very nice of them, and I thanked them.

Here's the shot. 

I had to adjust the perspective on this as I was shooting up from the tripod and I don't have a tilt/shift lens.  That adjustment was made in Photoshop.  4 second shutter at f22, and the lens was at 24mm to capture the whole church - I actually had to back into a store entrance to get it all in, as I knew I was going to lose some with the perspective adjustment.

My advice?  Get out and shoot areas you see every day.  Shoot what you think you know, and you will find new and interesting things that you may not have seen before.  Once the weather improves, I will be out a lot.

Project 365 - Day 29 - Looking at things differently

So I had a bit of a block today, wondering what to shoot.  Those who live in the GTA can relate to the general feeling that today's weather created.  So off I went to the pantry to find something colourful to shoot to lift my general spirits.

And what's better at lifting spirits than Skittles? 

So I started shooting.  I tried different lighting and different angles, but nothing really was working out.  I was somewhat satisfied with one of the shots, and seeing that I am short of time and inspiration today off I went to the computer to see what I could do with it.

After trying to bump the saturation and bring the colours to where I wanted them, I still was not satisfied.  I decided to embrace my grumpy side.  I clicked the "B&W" button.  Voila.  Now there was something I could work with.

I adjusted contrast a tad, and brought the reds and greens to different gray levels (if you convert a picture that is red and green to black and white, the reds and greens look like the same colour).  I played around with the magenta, yellow and orange.  Now this is a different shot.

When you look at skittles in black and white, they don't look all that appetizing.  I, however, would still eat them ... :-)

Here's the shot.  Heavy post on this one today.

Project 365 - Day 28 - Beautiful instruments

For our 10th anniversary ... many moons ago, Sonia bought me a guitar.  I love this guitar, but I cannot play it for the life of me - it's something about the size of my hands and the total lack of co ordination (hence the frequent tri pod use).  I did take lessons for about a year, but I only progressed so much.

I can play a couple of intros to songs, but once it gets complicated my fingers decide to do strange things and I can't get my brain to control them.

Still, every now and then I pick it up and strum along to the songs in my head.  One of my favourite songs to play is Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.  I can get a few bars into the intro, and it sounds awesome, but once it picks up I am lost.

Maybe I should just write my own song ... one note all the way through.  Yeah, that will work.

The guitar is beautiful.  It was made in Canada and has some gorgeous inlay work in the head and neck.  So, today I decided to use it in a different way - as a model.

I started shooting the strings to create a vanishing point shooting up the neck.  Yeah, this was okay, but it lacked punch.  So then I focussed on the body, trying to capture the curves.  That didn't turn out nearly as well as I had hoped.  So then I started shooting the head, specifically the tuning pegs.  Bingo.

Here's the shot.

Off camera flash, 60mm macro at 1/20s shutter.  ISO 400, f13.

Project 365 - Day 27 - Custom bokeh

I was reading a recent edition of one of the magazines I subscribe to.  There was an article on custom bokeh in the magazine.  For those who do not know, bokeh is the artistic quality of the blur in the out of focus areas of a picture.  This is something that most photographers strive for, it brings the eye of the viewer back to the subject in a photograph.  Sometimes, the blur can be overdone, and there are ways to add this blur in photoshop.  There's a good explanation on wikipedia that can be found here. 

The article was about how to make a template that covers the front of the lens that allows you to create customized blur.  What the article does not mention is that it works best if you have highlights in your picture that can show off this custom shape.

So today, I took one of my old 52mm filters and put a paper start cutout over it using black construction paper.  I then attached this to my 50mm f1.4 lens and looked for something to shoot.  This would have been a perfect project when the Christmas tree was up as I could have blurred out the tree itself with the lights on and had them all come through as my star.  But alas, this year we actually took the tree down on time.  So I had to improvise.

Sonia has a cake stand that has electronic candles on it that go in votive holders.  So I used the electronic candles, and placed them under brandy glasses from our crystal.  I then started experimenting with different techniques, but ended up here with this picture.

f1.4 to take advantage of the largest aperture of the lens.  2 second shutter to allow the light from the candles to play on the wall.  I then used my flashlight to paint the figurine in the foreground.

You can see the shape of the cutout on the base of the brandy glasses (remember, they are inverted) and also playing on the wall behind.  I put a piece of foamcore behind the glasses, but this took away from the effect.  Also, I was not able to see the total effect until I had the image on my big monitor on my computer.

Here's the shot:

 

And, as per usual, here are some setup shots.  Not much in the way of actual setup, but you can see the cutout over the lens and the candle/brandy glass I was talking about.

 

Project 365 - Day 26 - Playtime in the snow

Brodie loves the snow.  He loves to run around and plow through the snow with his nose.  The truth is he is looking for something to eat under the snow - he is a dog after all - but it's very cute.

This shot is in our backyard, and it's basically straight out of the camera.  24-70 mm lens.  I adjusted the contrast so he would stand out from the background more.  

When I was in Banff last year for a week shooting with a group from The Mentor Series, one of the instructors showed us how to shoot snow.  If you set your meter to +2 stops, the snow will show up perfectly.  I have been using this technique successfully since then, and my snow is never blown out.

Here's the shot.

 

Here's a bonus shot from today.  I thought about saving this picture for tomorrow's post, but it wouldn't be right and I would only really be cheating myself.  Here's my gnome from the backyard, shot on the same day.  His expression is perfect for snowy days.  I shot this guy earlier this year and posted it on facebook as well.  

 

Project 365 - Day 25 - Blue Ice

This week has been very cold in Toronto.  There were a couple of days that the temp dropped below -14 deg Celsius and that is before the wind chill.  Of course those are the days that I ended up going out to shoot.  :-)

I have been working some long hours at work this week, and as such the time for shooting, editing and posting is dwindling.  I realize that this post is late, but the shot itself was made well before the deadline of midnight eastern.

Today's shot is of some blue ice that is hanging off one of the satellite dishes at work.  This ice is not really blue, but it's also not a photoshop trick.  This is the result of firing a speedlight with a blue gel at the icicle.  I am actually shooting through the icicle, and the speedlight is aimed at the camera.  I shortened the shutter speed to get rid of the background - well most of it - as it is uninteresting and muddled.  Who want's to look at the back of a bunch of antennas?  Well, who else besides myself anyway?  :-)

Here's the shot. 

 

See how the blue light catches some of the snowflakes that are falling?  I wanted to bring out the texture of the ice, where the cascading water has come down the icicle.  The water is actually melted snow and ice from the antenna.  In the winter, we melt the snow out of the antenna as it interferes with the signal going to the satellite.  This is the result of a week of cold temps and a couple of snowfalls.  I have seen times when the bottom lip of the antenna looks like it is attached to the ground by an icicle.

Post on this one was white balance adjust to bring the snow closer to white..  There is a security light behind me here, and it's a yellow tinted light, so it cast yellow everywhere.  That was one of the reasons why I chose the blue gel.

Project 365 - Day 24 - Autobots at the Auto Show

Today's pic was inspired by the new Corvette.  I am a 'vette fan, as you might have gleamed from my previous post with the crystal car lit from below.  I have this little gem on another shelf.  This is a transformer from the recent toy series - not one of the classic '80s toys and that's why it is out of the box.  Besides, what fun is a toy in a box, you can't play with it... :-)

So this pic was taken in a black room using a small flashlight to paint across the hood and into the car through the tinted windows.  It would have taken at least 2 lights to get this effect using speedlights, but I taped a snoot to the front of a regular flashlight and used a small opening in the snoot to control the light as I painted.  6 second shutter at f11.  Used my 60mm lens for this one too.  ISO is at 800, but it could be lower - I just didn't want to mess with the depth of field any more than I already did. 

Here's the shot:

Project 365 - Day 23 - My Dad

My Dad was, among other things, a Police Officer on the Metro Toronto Police Force for over 33 years.  We lost my father a couple of years back, and there hasn't been a day when I don't think about him.   Today's shot is in honour of my Dad.

This is his belt buckle. He used to wear it everywhere he went.  When he retired from the force, this served as his "badge" along with a gold shield that he kept in his pocket.  He never went anywhere without it.

Recently I got myself a belt that allows me to attach buckles to it.  I haven't started wearing this particular buckle just yet, but there will be a time when I break it out.

Here's the shot.

Project 365 - Day 22 - Something a little different

Okay, today's shot is something I haven't tried before.  It's a macro shot of a poinsettia leaf which is lit from above using the kitchen light.  The leaf has some sparkles on it, which come across as yellow dots on the leaf itself. 

I like it.  It's different, and it will lead to some interesting shots in the spring when I can once again venture out into the great outdoors.

I toyed with turning this B&W, but in the end decided that colour was best for this, seeing as the leaf itself was in very good condition.

I had a few shots that totally overexposed the red in the shot, but the histogram did not show that it was overexposed.  It was only when I looked at the red channel that I saw why it was bad.  I under exposed by about 1 1/2 stops here, which is why the ceiling is the colour it is.  But it works for the shot.

Here's the shot.

I cloned out one sparkle that was driving me nuts - otherwise no other work was done.  It was not cropped either.

60mm macro lens at f11.  0.4 sec shutter.  ISO 400.  I used a tripod as I had to get underneath and the shutter speed was also pretty slow to handhold.  It's also very tough to handhold when you are 2 inches away from the subject shooting macro.

Project 365 - Day 21 - It's 40 below, and I have a heater in my ... Mazda

Well, -9 deg Celcius, so I guess I am exaggerating a bit.  But what better time to shoot outdoors? 

It was a nice clear night and I was aiming to get a good Toronto skyline shot.  Sometimes you have to wait until it's cold and clear so you don't have to deal with the pollution that hangs over Tdot.  But the spot I chose to shoot from did not have a good line of site to Toronto.  But as I was scoping out the spot, I got told off by a couple of geese and a duck or two.  So off I went to get my camera of course.

Now it was pitch black on the beach and the last thing I wanted to do was use the flash on the poor birds, some of whom were trying to sleep (on the lake.  Can you say brrrr?)  So I set up to take a shot of the shoreline facing west.  This spot is beside Coronation Park in Oakville.  There are a lot of interesting trees in this park, ones that I will shoot as part of this project - probably multiple times. 

The water fowl eventually got used to me, and I was able to shoot in peace.  Being Toronto adjacent, there are not a lot of stars - but there are some.

Here's the shot.  I like it.  Yes, it could be better - and it will get better as this is really one of the reasons for this project.

 

This was shot at 8:30 tonight, so it's pitch black outside save for the lights on the path through the park.  

This is my 11-16 Sigma lens at 16 mm.  f5.6 and 20 sec exposure.  ISO is 400 to keep the digital noise down.  As an aside, I love this lens too.  It's super wide and very sharp.

Project 365 - Day 20 - Rules are made to be broken

So, there are rules about photography.  And we all know that most of the time rules are there for a reason.  But sometimes, especially when creating something artistic, you need to break the rules.  Take today's picture for example.  I shot this today in Bronte Harbour.  I shot directly into the sun, but not at the sun.  That would be silly.  The sun is just above the lens itself.  The other rule I broke was that I did not have my lens hood on, that would reduce flare into the lens.  But the reason I did not have the lens hood on was that I had a circular polarizer on the lens itself. 

I wanted to capture the wisps of cloud that was filtering the sunlight underneath the cloud line.  I also wanted to capture the mood of the sky, it was pretty angry today.  There were high winds, and it was very cold.  I got the shot I was looking for.

In lightroom, I bumped up the contrast a bit and lowerd the exposure by 1/2 a stop. 

Yes, the top of the picture where the sun is is blown out.  It's too hot up there.  And yes, the docks in the front are too dark.  But truth be told, I don't care, and it actually adds to the overall shot.

Here's the shot:

Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm.  f9 at 1/1600.  ISO400

As an aside, I would like to say that my wife told me to go out and shoot today.  Yup, best wife ever.   :-)

Project 365 - Day 19 -Reunited

So Chloe came to visit just after Christmas with her brother Damon.  When they left, Chloe left behind one of her Christmas toys.  Smurfette and Chloe were separated, and despite many efforts, we could not reunite them.

Then, one fateful Saturday evening, Chloe once again came to visit.  This time, Smurfette was right there waiting for her.  It was a joyous reunion, one that I had to capture.

I am working on my portrait technique, and I had to grab this one quick as Chloe likes to move around a lot.  She will sit still for a couple of minutes at a time, but if you really want her attention it takes a little more than that.  But she sat for about 10 images that I captured today, and this one is the best of them.  Here's the shot.

Project 365 - Day 18 - Clear the tracks

One of the things I want to shoot is a moving train.  The problem is that the schedules for non GO trains (our local transit trains - very ugly) is hard to find.  I have a level crossing very near to my house, but I can't seem to find a train crossing when I go.  Or, I forgot my camera, one of the two.  (usually the latter).

I will shoot that train eventually.

Today's photograph is of a train, although it is stationary.  I shot it with my 24-70.  It's a locomotive that I inherited from my Father, and I keep it on display in my bookcase in my house.  It's a very detailed locomotive, and is quite photogenic.  Of course, it is not full size, it is HO scale.  HO stands for Half O.  O stands for, oh I don't know ... :-)

Some harsh, directional light and shallow depth of field, and voila - shot of the day.

Here's the shot:

No setup shot today, this is pretty straightforward.  I was handholding the speedlight, so it's off to one side.  I kept moving around and taking shots until I got the angle I was looking for.

Anyone recognize the logo at the back? 

Project 365 - Day 17 - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I read an article about focus stacking and shooting snowflakes last year during the winter.  Unfortunately, there was no snow last year to speak of, so I didn't get to try that particular technique.  I have played around with focus stacking on insects - but not had any real success.

Today it was snowing on the way home, so I took this opportunity to get my gear out and start shooting.  Shooting snow is fun.  It's all about catching snowflakes, looking at them with a light, sorting out which ones will make a good picture, and if you don't find any you have to start over.  I put my felt outside for about 1/2 an hour beforehand so it didn't melt the snow.  But it took a long time to get a snowflake that I wanted to shoot - you know, they don't all look alike :-)  So I would shoot a flake, then go inside to test the stacking, come back out and my flake had blown away, melted, or merged with another flake.  It's a test of patience - especially the stacking part ...

I tried a number of different backgrounds and lighting techniques, but I couldn't get it working just right.  The stacking part was getting muddled by the number of exposures I was making, and I could not figure out how to get it to go.  So, I need to work on that part a little bit.

I started straight macro shooting the flakes, and came up with today's image.  I am pretty happy with this image.  The background is blue felt you would get at a craft store.  The snowflake is tiny.

I used my 60mm macro with all three of my kenko extension tubes.  I was pretty much right on top of the flake when I took the shot.

Here's the shot.  I had to crop about half of it out still, even with the extension tubes in place.

60mm focal length, f4 at 0.6 sec, ISO400.  External flash and LED lantern.

And, for those who like to see the setup, here it is.

I'm using my shutter release here to keep the camera still for the stacking and also the long exposure.  The stacking worked out reasonably well, but I am not 100% happy with it.

One thing, when working in the cold, don't bring your camera back inside and then go out again.  You end up fogging everything up.  Especially the mirror.  I shot a bunch of stuff using liveview - something I try not to do... :-)

Project 365 - Day 16 - Rush Hour

If you know me, you know I have a pretty long commute into work each day.  It's 48km, but it takes me almost an hour each way.  Public transit is out, as it does not go all the way down to where I work and would end up with a 20 minute walk after the bus dropped me off.  Besides, after I worked it out it would be almost double the cost as driving in.

So I drive.  Recently traffic has been light, but from time to time we get that bad day where traffic is brutal.  Today's photo was inspired by the lighter traffic days.  I went up on one of the overpasses that I usually drive underneath and grabbed a couple of shots of the traffic.  I have always had a thing for light trails ...

Here's the shot:

 

Post was just crop and straighten.  The lamp post in the foreground is actually tilted.  I had a shot from the other direction but the wind was blowing directly on the camera and it created a sine wave in the light trails.

Nikon 24-70 lens zoomed to 48mm on my D300S.  25 sec exposure at f22 and ISO100

Project 365 - Day 15 - Self Portrait xBox style

I have an xBox with a Kinect sensor.  The Kinect sensor part sprays out IR light and replicates the room for the xBox.  The system will then find your hands and feet and you become the controller.  It's pretty cool, and reasonably accurate.  It allows you to actually move around while playing video games.  Have you ever said "If I could just figure out how to make my guy kick the ball" - well with some games you can just swing your leg and you will kick the ball.

So, what does a guy with Kinect sensor, an IR filter and an old Nikon D50 camera do with such a system?  Take a self portrait of course!!

Here's the shot.

30 second timer on this guy to capture all the light.  No other lights except the IR. It's pretty neat, and just scratches the surface of what can be done with the IR Filter.

Project 365 - Day 14 - Covette

I had an idea for today's shot, but it didn't pan out.  I'm not ready to give up on it just yet, it needs some tweaking.  But then I just started fooling around with lighting from below.  This is a crystal corvette that I got as a gift when I was 18 or 19 years old.  I lit it from below with two full green gels on my speedlight.  I tried different colours, but this worked best for this setup.  I will be trying other things with these gels, but for now this is what I have.

Here's the shot.

The only retouching was to bring the exposure down a hair and clone out some reflections from the gels right under the passenger side door.

Here's my setup for those who are wondering how I did this ...

24-70 lens, f16 at 1/30.  ISO400.  Tripod braced on the coffee table and I had the lens as close to the car as possible.  You can see my gels on the table at the bottom of the pic.  They are held on by velcro to my SB600 speedlight.

Project 365 - Day 13 - Brook Valley Park

On our way home from Niagara Falls this weekend we passed by one of our local parks.  There is a system of trails that runs through the woods around our house, and every once in a while the trail opens up into greenspace.  There is also a brook or creek that runs through this area.

Apparently early this morning there was a significant rainstorm in the area.  This, coupled with the recent snow melt, created a bit of flooding in the area.

So what's a guy to do?  Grab his camera and tripod of course!  I put on my hiking boots and layered on the clothing and off I went.  It was a good walk, and I stopped a lot to check out the scenery and snap some shots.  I got covered in mud and burrs and got my camera a little dirty.  My tripod has mud splashes on it as well.  It was a good day ... :-)

You can see all the shots on my facebook account here

My favourite shot is the one I am sharing today. The rain has soaked the flat areas around the creek, and saturated the earth to the point that there is ponding.  But a pond is just a big mirror, right? Here's the shot:

This area is supposed to be just flat parkland, where you could sit and picnic.  The actual creek is off to the right...And this was late in the day, so you can imagine how much water fell this am.

Project 365 - Day 12 - Canadian Vegas Baby!!

It's time for the annual pilgrimmage to Niagara Falls to celebrate my birthday. We go to Copacabana and eat our fill of meat and grilled pineapple, and then we head back to the hotel for some drinks and board games (catchphrase anyone?)


In our hotel this year, we have a fireplace. It's one of those electric fireplace things, where the bulb shines through a pattern that looks like fire.


So, what better place for a long exposure... :-)


Here's the shot:

Okay, shot done for today. Time to party!!

Project 365 - Day 11 - Happy Birthday to me! (this time it's real)

So this is a little late, but I did start the picture before midnight.  Got it finished just after mid and posted to the folder on facebook at 12:12 EST.  Well, it's still Friday the 11th on the left coast ... :-)

This pic was inspired by, well, my birthday.  I turned 42 today.  It was a great day, and I totally lost track of time until my wife reminded me about this little project.  So I took one of my birthday cupcakes and stuck a candle in it, grabbed my D300S and the 24-70 lens and snapped about 20 shots with a lit candle in various light.

This shot was taken with halogen lights overhead behind the cupcake, and CFL bulbs overhead in front and behind.  There was no flash.  White balance was set to auto (heaven forbid) due to the mix of lights.  The camera did a very good job, I just set the balance a little cooler as it warmed it up too much.

ISO 200, 24-70 lens at 56mm, f5.6 and 1/200 shutter speed.  Here's my shot...

 

FYI.  For the more technical, I only had to drop the temp by 290 deg.  Camera did pretty well.

Project 365 - Day 10 - Colours again

All I have to say is I am not looking forward to my water bill this month .... :-)

This started as a simple experiment.  I had seen something like this done before, and the basic technique was described.  There were no setup pictures.  I made some changes which turned out to be problematic.

First of all, this is done with a very deep vessel.  It is a vase from one of the many flower arrangements that my wife has received over the years (some even from me! :-).  The shot I saw was done with a smaller vessle, which was about 2 inches across.  Mine is about 9 inches across, which means I had to close down pretty far - to f22 - to get focus across all the colour.

Initially I had the light under the vase, but that just highlighted the flaws in the glass, as well as any dirt spec no matter how small.  So I moved my white background away from the vase, and hit it with the speedlight to create a white background.  This worked.  Finally something was going my way.

Then came the drops.  Time and time again I tried to get something that I liked.  It wasn't working to my expectations, and I tried various setups.  I had to put the camera on a tripod to maintain a constant shooting angle, and I had to keep the camera perpendicular to the front of the vase.  I put tape just above the point at which the lens would pick up the drops.  So the pattern was, drop in food colouring, wait, take a couple of shots, drop more food colouring in, swear, empty vase, fill vase with clean water, place marker in vase to readjust focus, drop in food colouring ... etc.  I probably did this about 10 times.

But I got it.  I finally got two shots worthwhile that are sharp.  I stopped, ran downstairs with my media card in hand and fired up lightroom.  Not much adjustment here, just some colour enhancement on the magenta scale to bring out the purples.  I like that this shows the base of the vase as well.

Here's the shot:

ISO200, f22, 1/2000 using my 60mm again.  Oh, and by the way.  I used the pocketwizards that I recently picked up at B&H Photo in New York.  My pop up flash that I use to command my SB600s was reflecting in the glass and getting caught in my shots.

Here's the setup:

Project 365 - Day 9 - 8675309yine

Macro shot again today.  Did I mention I love this lens?  Started by trying to get a good shot in harsh light of my drill.  I need more lights.  :-)  Ended up picking up a phone call and I noticed the pattern of the buttons on the cordless.  Took this shot, and converted to black and white and bumped up the contrast.

I tried a shot on my blackberry, but that keyboard is filthy - and the macro just exasperates this.  So needless to say, I didn't choose this shot.

Single speedlight aimed at the phone.  No tricks.  Here's the shot...

Project 365 - Day 8 - Colours

I was reading a magazine I had bought about a year ago and found inspiration for today's shot.  This one is pretty cool.  My first couple of attempts are pretty good, but I feel that I can nail down the process a little better.  Finding the correct setup was the most difficult part, but once I got that going it wasn't bad at all.

The shot is oil on water, shot through a glass dish that has a colour splash underneath.  I aimed a speedlight at the colour under the dish and blocked the flash so it wouldn't spread up to the bottom of the dish (you can see this in the setup pic below).   I had to manually focus on the surface of the water - my camera's auto focus wanted something there to focus on and I had not added the oil yet.  So I floated my trusty tea bag package on the water and focused on that.

After I added the oil, I played with moving the droplets around using a spoon.  Oil is very hard to control on the surface of the water, but I got along pretty well trying to guide it.  If I went too close, the oil drop would join with an adjacent one and just make that one bigger.  Turns out that it's not as visually pleasing.

Also, there is text stamped onto the bottom of the dish, so I had to shoot around that.  Here's the shot.

And here's the setup.  Paint cans hold the dish above the colour print.  My tripod allows the legs to go out horizontal, so I have one leg braced on the cupboard.   The speedlight is under that piece of white paper to the right of the setup aimed directly at the colour.  It's set to -1 stop and fires remotely using my camera as the master.

Project 365 - Day 7 - They're BACK!

The inspiration for this shot came from the news that the NHL is back this year.  Although a lot of people thought that the season was over and done with, and many of those were not really upset at that, the NHLPA and Board of Governors came to a tentative agreement.

So I broke out the old Macro and took a shot of one of my favourite players.  Mark Messier is captured in fine form here taking a face off.  I love the expression on this guy.  This is one of my McFarlane figures, one of the old ones before he had permission to put the actual team logo on the jersey.

Here's the shot.

The white part behind him is actually a scale replica of the hockey boards.  The circles behind are lights in our front window.  F3.2 at 1/40 of a second to get the background lights.  ISO400, 60mm Macro lens.

Project 365 - Day 6 - Got Milk??

Trying to be creative on a day to day basis is going to be hard, so when you get an idea you have to act.  I have a plan for snowflake pictures, but since it was not snowing today I had to go with a classic.  The milk drop.

There are rigs that you can get to get this shot perfect, but I just used the old fashioned fire-camera-when-you-think-the-time-is-right method.  Worked out pretty well.  I had to keep adjusting my angle to get the proper look, then I put a 1/2 cut of green gel on the speedlight I was using to get some texture on the milk.  Worked out pretty well for an hour worth of prep and shooting.

No, I was not using continuous shooting on this.  I had to focus manually using a tea bag wrapper for the centre of the milk, and I used a 1/4 teaspoon to drop the milk into the dish.

60mm lens again, at f11 and 1/5000 shutter.   Post was limited to cloning out a little splash dot and also cropping and leveling.  Got it mostly right in camera.

Here's the setup shot.

 

2nd speedlight off to the side was being used, but I took it out of the setup as it wasn't adding anything.  

I'm not done with experimenting with this kind of setup.  I need to get something a little more stable rigged up, but for now I got the shot I was looking for.

Project 365 - Day 5 - A family get together...

BUSY day yesterday.  We had the final Christmas dinner of the season.  Years ago, Sonia's whole family would get together on Christmas day.  Since the family is growing in leaps and bounds, this is no longer feasible unless we rent a hall or something like that to house everyone.  So we started the "Cousin's Christmas".

Each year, someone hosts and everyone comes over.  The crowd size changes from year to year.  This year, we had a lot of people confirmed, but many quickly dropped off due to illness or other problems - such as a broken furnace.

Here's the shot.  Unfortunately this was the only shot I got yesterday.   There is not a really good room in this house to get everyone properly without posing, and I didn't want to have everyone line up against the wall.  I like the casualness of this photo.

Project 365 - Day 4 - Trying to get a good shot of Brodie

As some of you know, Brodie is our Golden Retriever.  He is 12 going on 13 years old.   He has cataracts that cover most of his eyes, so he is basically blind.  He started going blind at a very young age, and for the past couple of years he has had no clear sight more or less.  He does fine in our house when you don't move things, but when people come over and you move stuff around he can get kind of confused.  Luckily he takes this in stride.

Brodie has had quite the Christmas season this year.  There were lots of visitors, and he especially likes the little visitors that want nothing more than to sit and pet him all day.  This, coupled with the fact that I have been off for the past three days, has tired Brodie out. 


So I wanted to test out my 24-70 lens.  Haven't taken a shot with it yet, and I was itching to do a portrait of some kind.  But I have no models.  Enter Brodie.  Now, I mentioned the cataracts previously for a reason.  Any bright light refracts on the cataracts and appears to be a blinding flash to Brodie.  This includes bright light coming in from the back window, lightning at night, and also the flash from a speedlight.

So what to do?  Use ambeint light of course.  But Brodie knows the sound of the camera, and that it usually comes with a flash, so as soon as you turn it on he hightails it for his bed.

The answer, ultimately, is to wait til he's asleep and sneak up on him.  I had to handhold this shot at ISO800 and F4 at 1/5 of a second.  Got off 20 shots before he opened his eyes and glared at me with that all knowing dog stare.  But I did get a shot... :-)

Project 365 - Day 3 - Happy (early) birthday to me!

My favourite lens these days is my 60mm Macro.  It's a Nikon and has an f stop of 2.8.  It's a very nice piece of glass.  All of the pics posted thus far this year have been from that lens.  But no more.

For a very long time I have coveted the Nikon 24-70 Lens.  I love the images it produces, the sharpness is incredible.  When I went to Banff in Feb of 2012, I rented this lens from Vistek.  Well worth the money.  I have been watching the sales, and I noticed that it went on sale at Henry's earlier this week.  On a whim, I checked Vistek, and they were almost $100 cheaper.  The Vistek price was the lowest I had seen since I started wishing for this lens.  So I pulled the trigger after agonizing over it for a number of days, and basically driving Sonia nuts by almost constantly talking abou it.  But I must say, all the pro/con lists (only con was the price), all the back and forth, checking the web site daily - it was worth it. 

I now own the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 lens.  Yay me!  :-)  And thank you Sonia in advance for my brithday presents for the next 10 years or so ... :-)

But you might guess that I will post a picture with that lens today?  Well, you are partially right ...

 

But I must say, it's really a sobering thought when you consider that I have now blown my entire 2013 photography budget on a single purchase, and only 3 days into the year.  Oh well, lots of time to figure out what to do with next year's allotment!  

Project 365 - Day 2 - Coin Collecting

So far so good.  Today was a crazy day schedule wise, and I only had a little time to work on the photo of the day.  I was trying to get a shot of a poinsettia that is nearing it's end of life - and not really happy with the results.  After the Raptor game tonight, I came home and emptied the change from my pocket - and found a Grey Cup loonie in there.

This got me thinking of all the "special" coins of late, and how the Canadian Mint seems to be releasing some every month.  I can't help thinking that I should be saving these coins, that one day they may be worth something.  Of course, I know very well that the only coins that are ever worth money are non-circulated coins, but this does not stop me.

When I see one of these coins, I put it aside.  I don't put it in a special place, it just goes beside the alarm clock in our bedroom and ultimately Sonia collects these coins and puts them back into the coin cup that we keep in the closet until there are enough to roll and take to the bank.  So, tonight I went to the coin cup and pulled out all the "special" coins that are in there.  There weren't a lot of special ones in there, a testament to other like minded people who are keeping these coins.

This is what I came up with.

I could have polished the Grey Cup loonie, but I think it makes a statement about the actual worth of the coin - $1.  It's a circulated coin, so it won't likely end up going up in value.

And as per usual, here's my setup.  I love off camera flash.  This flash is just bouncing off the ceiling and back down again.  This time my shutter speed was slower, so I am using the tripod for support as well.  This is my old Manfrotto tripod, not the one that reaches in.  I had it leaning on the counter for support.

Project 365. Day One - January 1 2013

Project 365? Maybe....

So I have been motivated to start project 365 - a project whereby I post an image per day.  Right now, I am planning on shooting one image per day and posting it on this blog.  So far, so good.  Day 1, image #1.  Let's see how far this goes.

Here's the final image.  I tried to capture the fear that Rudolph was feeling when he meets the Bumble in the cave.  Using hard lighting and a black background, I attempted to capture the moment.  I think it's pretty good.

No, it probably won't win any awards, but I was sitting at dinner tonight looking at this statue and thinking of what I could do with it.  A couple of flashes mounted off camera and a home made snoot, and voila.  It's a start.

Here's the process.  I got it all set up using the following setup.

At first, I was using one light and lighting the whole setup.  I used F18 at ISO400 to totally remove the ambient light - thus removing the chairs from the background.

The camera is mounted on a tripod for repeatability.  Theshutter speed is 1/250 so it can be handheld, but it's better this way.  Also, framing using liveview on a larger aperture was very handy.

That allowed me to see Rudolph and the Bumble.  But it was not a good clear shot of Rudolph.  Because of the way he is facing the Bumble, you can't see his face or his red nose.  So I took the second flash, off to the right, and put a home made snoot on it and aimed it right at his nose.


Here you can see how I lit Rudolph from the side to get his nose.  This light was set to -2 stops so as to only light the nose and part of the face.

The snoot on the flash above is made using a single sheet of 8X14 paper folded into a cone and held on using scotch tape.  (well, dollar store brand not scotch brand tape).  Quick, easy and cheap.  I used my gorillapod to raise the flash as well.

Side by side, the first image without the lit nose and then the second image with the second light.  With the snoot, I was able to get the nose lit to the right level without adding too much light to the overall image.  I did end up opening up the shadows on the Bumble's belly, but it did not take much away from the shot.

 

So there you go.   Day one done.  Now, I just hope I can keep this up.  I see that my last post was April of 2012.  That's far too long.