Project 365 - Day 120 - Big Chain for a Big Boat

Today I went to Spencer Smith park in Burlington.  The park is located in downtown Burlington and is on the waterfront.  There is a big monument in memory of the merchant naval vessels that were lost during World War II.  It is a pretty cool park.

The waterfront is not a beach.  It has large rocks that lead down to the water.  In front of the rocks is a pathway that is bordered by huge chains.  This is the subject for today's shot.

Nikon 24-70mm lens at 42mm.  ISO800.  1/60s shutter at f/6.3

Project 365 - Day 119 - Take a block from the bottom and you put it on top...

Tried something different today.  It is rainy and mucky out, and I don't want to bring my camera outside and get it wet.  Actually, I don't care about the camera getting wet - it is very tough - it's more me that I don't want to get wet ... ;-)

So I decided to shoot something inside.  We have a jenga knockoff here that the kids like to play with when they come over.  Of course, they don't play by the rules - they build stuff with the blocks and play all sorts of other games with them.  I thought it would be good to get back to the actual root of the game.

I set up a couple of layers and brought the camera in close.  I shot a bunch of frames, but nothing was really happening.  I changed one of the shots to monochrome in camera, and I liked what I saw.  So I got down and in on a different angle.  Here's what I came up with.

Project 365 - Day 118 - Sailboats at sunrise

This morning I went down to the Lakeshore Promenade in Mississauga to get some sunrise shots.  I was a little late to the party, and when I showed up there were already 3 other guys there with their tripods - set up for the same shot I was going after.  So I grabbed some shots as the sun was coming up with the lighthouse in the foreground - the same kind of thing I could have grabbed at Bronte Pier or Oakville Harbour. 

So then I went looking for other things to shoot.  I was walking by the marina and noticed how the water was reflecting the boats that were moored up.  The marina is not full yet, not everyone has brought their boat down to the water, but there are a lot of them there.  So it makes a pretty good subject for a shot.

Here's what I came up with:

Nikon 24-70mm lens at 42mm.  ISO400, f/4.0 at 1/800 sec shutter.  I cropped in post and boosted the colours a bit.

Project 365 - Day 117 - George C Gull

Today I had the opportunity to photograph a star of the Oakville Waterfront scene.  His name is George C Gull.  George has been active for a number of years, primarily in Coronation park.  From time to time George can be seen on Bronte Pier, and the odd time he is found in fast food parking lots.  George gets around a lot.  Here's my shot of George.

So this shot is taken on a bunch of rocks that are piled on the beach.  The rocks make a kind of isthmus that runs into the lake for a little bit.  It is pretty cool, and the birds love to perch on it.  This guy was one of about 30 birds that were there when I started shooting.  I tried to get close to them, and they would fly away one by one, until this guy was last.  I was able to get very close to him for this shot.  When he flew away, I was sure that he didn't poop on me for getting so close and not feeding him ... :-)

Shot with my Nikon 24-70 at 70mm.  ISO100 and 1/640 s at f/2.8.

Project 365 - Day 116 - Frost

This morning I came out to frost on the top of my car.  It was a really cool pattern, so of course I had to shoot it.  The tree from the neighbour's lot is seen in the reflection on the car roof.  I really liked the pattern.

Shot with my 24-70mm lens, f/10 at 1/13 sec.  I was handholding the camera, but had braced myself against the car for support.  ISO is 800 to keep the shutter speed reasonable.  No flash.

Project 365 - Day 115 - Lines and curves

In our advanced photography class, we learned about the elements and principles of design.  One of the elements of design is line.  One of the principles of design is repetition.  I have used both of these in today's shot.

I like repetition best of all, but my close second is lines, or in this case, curves.  If there are things that are lined up in a row along a curve, just try and stop me from shooting them ... :-)

This shot is from Coronation park in Oakville.  The town put in a new splashpad last year, and as part of that they rebuilt the change rooms and rest rooms as well.  The end result is very nice, and fits in well with the rest of the park and surrounding neighbourhood.  There are a lot of natural elements - wood and stone, with accents such as big chunky bolts and such.  It's really very nice.

So, here's today's shot.  In the interest of full disclosure I had to shoot this twice as the first time I had the shot I wanted, I realized on post #8 someone had left a Tim Horton's cup.  Now, I guess they figured it was not littering as this particular cup was still full of coffee and the tab had not been pulled back yet.  It would appear that the people of Oakville litter politely ... :-)

Oh yeah, the shot:

 

24-70mm lens at 52mm.  ISO400, f/3.2 and 1/250s shutter.  I cropped a bit on the left of the shot - an errant tree was misbehaving.  I also converted to B&W and bumped contrast a bit in post.

Project 365 - Day 114 - April Showers bring May Flowers

Wet and rainy today.  Not much to shoot, as I am stuck at work still.  Leaving shortly for the TFC game, but I decided to get a quick shot off of my office window in the rain.  The grass is in the background.  I focused in on the water droplets on the window.

Nikon 24-70mm lens at 70mm.  ISO400.  f/9 at 1/50 sec shutter.  I am hand holding the camera.  Touched up the white balance in post, and cropped for content.  Also, dropped the clarity down a bit and bumped the saturation a bit as well.