Depth of Field

After I picked up my first prime lens, I have really enjoyed taking pictures with a shallow depth of field. Scientific studies have shown that the human brain is adept at "completing" the picture when details are shallow or missing. Pictures with shallow depth of field also allow you to draw the attention of the eyes on what to focus on. To demonstrate, see the details of the paper fan details gradually melt away (Photo taken with a 50mm F1.8).

Yellowstone - A Natural Wonder.

Earth's natural wonders remind us of the origins of our planet. As we go about our daily lives it's easy not to realise about the intense geothermal activity that is underway miles beneath our feet. I got to experience this at one of Earth's Natural wonders, The Yellowstone National Park. Centered over a Caldera, Yellowstone is considered the super volcano of the world and plays host to half of the worlds geothermal features. Yellowstone National Park, the first national park is known for it's thermal pools, geothermal springs and it's wildlife. The photo is from the Grand canyon of the Yellowstone - It was coined Yellowstone, due to the high content (note the yellowish tinge) of sulfur in the rocks of the canyons.

Buddha's Tears

Recalled an offhand discussion I had with Terry regarding Graffiti. There is a fine line between art and vandalism. A Graffiti artist canvas, tools and location (cargo cars) are indie. Where would you put Graffiti, Art or Vandalism? A Graffiti spotted in Kensington Market in the Winter - I call it Buddha's Tears.

The Moon.

On the 40th Anniversary of the Moon landing, a picture I took of the Moon which continues to fascinate. I wish I had a longer lens, a 300mm would make it look great! (probably the size of a table tennis ball).

HDR: My Favorite Technique

Few days into Photography, I discovered HDR which is my favorite technique. HDR is a combination of the same scene with different exposures. Typically these exposures The new range of SLR's allow Automated Exposure Bracketing to capture the same scene automatically. The photos is then merged using software to create a high dynamic range which has a surreal look due to its high contrast and the details. The HDR below is of a fishing boat spotted in South Wales, United Kingdom.

Why we travel?

There is an old Chinese saying that one learns more traveling 10,000 miles than reading 10,000 miles of scroll. Indeed, travel allows one to explore and experience nature, culture, sights, smells and sounds that are different from one's comfort zone. For me travel allows me to explore and try different things. The picture below is from the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.

My First

First off, I would like to Thank my colleague Terry Doner for providing me an opportunity to be his guest blogger as he will be unplug away from the network and enjoy the summer. In a lot of ways, Terry has mentored me to improve my photographic eye and see things through the lens again for a "first" time and say/tell a message through my pictures.

In order for this space not to go silent, I will post a picture a day and blog about it. This is will again be a first as a photo blogger. So to fit the theme, Today's picture is from a one year's old birthday party I was at this week.




If you are ever in doubt or hesitate to take the risk. As they say, there's always a first time, so go ahead, do it and live the outcome to the fullest!

GM Under Snow

Now that GM has emerged from bankruptcy protection, maybe the under the snow image is not quite as apropos, but they still have a long way to go to return to health.

In this image the GM logo is not as sharp as I would like for the topic. The focus is on the grasses in the foreground, which at the time was what I intended. But here is the lesson. You never know what you might want to do we such an image. I should have taken at least two versions, one of which had the GMC logo in sharp focus.

1/100 f/4 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 75 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Dividing the Snow

Fences are meant to keep something in, something out, or two things separate. In this winter scene where there is no livestock, what purpose does it serve? None, other than to split the snow in half.

Fortunately I found another use for this fence as a photo subject. Perhaps a composition that is to be expected - receding left to right, with the horizon on the 1/3 line. In retrospect I should have tried a lower perspective, which would make the boards much more prominent. The ribbon effect of the three boards would have been much stronger.

1/60 f/5 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 50 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Waiting for Spring

This bicycle has been waiting for spring for many years. Long gone are the summer days when it would carry its owner down to the slough for a swim.

Like the bicycle which is waiting in vain for spring, sometimes we wait in vain for a creative moment. They may not come, or if they do, they may not be soon. Being creative requires effort. You need to constantly be trying things - experimenting - asking yourself 'what if' and also finding the answer. Those who risk little, gain little.

1/80 f/4.5 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 67 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Do I Look Pretty?

Two friends occupied this pasture; a cow and a horse. The cow was quite curious and wanted to see what I was doing - either that or she desperately wanted her picture taken.

I think this image has a little too much going on on the right hand side. In retrospect, I think I would have had a stronger image if I could have eliminated the barn, so I had just cow and fence. The cow, however, wasn't very cooperative. I did try a vertical crop variation which eliminated the barn, but I wanted more space around the cow.

1/25 f/4 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Congratulations Keith and Mary Grace

Today's picture is a personal pick in honour of my brother's wedding yesterday. They had a gorgeous day for a beautiful wedding. Our best wishes and God's richest blessing on your marriage.

1/2000 f/2.8 ISO 200 EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 73 mm Canon EOS 40D

Markham,Ontario

Road to the Unknown

Like many roads, this one seems to go on for ever. In the heavy frozen mist this road appears to go forever.

I posted this picture a while back, but with a radically different processing choice. I originally liked the gritty feel to that one, but as I was re-working the finishing today to get it ready for this, I stumbled upon this rendering. This appealed to me much more strongly. This highlights the value to reviewing past work from time-to-time and consider if you see things differently.

Which version do you like, the one below, or this one?

1/50 f/6.3 ISO 800 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Storage Array

After grain is harvested on the prairie it is either trucked immediately to the local grain elevator or stored locally in bins like these and sold later.

If you haven't noticed I am been sticking to a Black and White theme this month. Honestly that wasn't my intention. It just happened that the first few were B&W and then I decided that I wanted to work in the black and white theme. Some photographers who produce B&W works look at the world with an eye to that result. They look specifically at the lights and darks in a scene and compose with that in mind. There apparently is a trick that some use and that is to squint; for them it allows them to concentrate on just the luminance. It doesn't work for me.

Today I have posted the colour and the Black and white versions of the same image. I wanted you to be able to see for yourself. The only difference between the two is the B&W conversion which was done in Lightroom. I somewhat struggled in this process, because I really liked the colour contrast of the red hatch. As posted, it is somewhat muted because I darkenend the reds for the B&W to make it stand out more and the was applied to the colour image as well. Perhaps this is a candidate for the selective colour photoshop technique where one applies colour (perhaps original colour) to a B&W image.

What do you think? Do you like the colour or the B&W?

1/6 f/11 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Wheel of Fortune

An old lug wheel from a long gone tractor. Mechanization was seen as the way to fortune for the prairie farmer. You can till more land, plant more crops and increase your revenues. It was also the way many farmers increased their debt load to the point where they ran into financial ruin.

What to do about rules? Have you heard about the "Rule of Thirds" - it is a compositional rule of thumb. There are three things you must do with the rule of thirds. 1. Learn about it; 2. Use it; 3 break it. Yes 2 and 3 contradict. Read the linked Wikipedia article or the many other interent tutorials out there on the net to learn about it. That will help you to use it. But why break it? If you used all the rules all the time (which one could not), your photo portfolio would be very boring. In this photo I used the rule along the horizontal. The centre of the wheel is on the upper-third, but the vertical is centered. I did this because I wanted to maintain the circular symmetry left-to-right. I thought about straigthening the horizontal line of the wheel, but didn't. I felt that the tilt gave it a discarded, found-object feel rather than a posed feel.

1/30 f/4 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 60 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Dodge This!

Any truck historians out there? I think this is a 1941. One thing that appeals to me about older vehicles is that they tend to have big bold features. There are some Art Deco influences in this design even though that movement had begun to decline by this time.

All my images from this series have been black and whites. As someone in the blogosphere recently pointed out, technically they a re greyscales, but nobody calls them that. (I'd credit the source but can recall who said it.) With B&Ws, one has to concentrate on the just the luminance. It is a good practice to look at your colour pictures using this 'filter' as it helps your understand the tonal structure of your images. I certainly have a lot to learn about this, and 'learn by doing' as they say.

In this image we have a lot of white due to the snow. There are some deep black in the wheel well in the bottom corner and also in the interior shadows of the grill. The exterior paint is mid-tone Grey (originally red if your curious). When I did the B&W conversion in Lightroom, the midtones were not well separated from the darker tones, so I used the targetted adjustment tool to provide more tonal separation.

1/10 f/4 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 90 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Off Limits

Threshing machines like this were used mainly in the first half of the last century until they were replaced by 'Combines', which combined several implements together and could move through the grain fields rather than having the grain on the stalks brought to the threshing machine.

Yesterday I talked about changing ones position to get a better composition. Well here is another example. I wanted the fence in the image to provide a foreground element - always something to consider in a shot like this. But what I didn't think enough about was the fence post. I just don't like where I ended up putting it. The lines of the post bleed into the vertical lines of the grain elevator on the machine. In retrospect I should have moved a meter to the left so that the post showed against the snow alone. Perhaps a tighter shot the eliminated the post altogether as well.

1/30 f/6.3 ISO 800 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 90 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Rake

Like yesterdays' truck, this is another exhibit in this 'field museum'. A rake is used to move cut grain, or more typically hay or straw into dense rows so it can be picked up by other machinery such as a baler. Also to turn over those rows so the material can dry more thoroughly.

This image is cropped a little tighter than I would have otherwise liked. I did so because there was a band of grasses above the frame as you see it and I thought that was distracting. This is one of those situations where finding a different angle can help clean up an image. In this case a ladder or something else to stand on would have done the trick.

1/25 f/4 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Objects in the mirror ... are also frozen stiff.

This abandoned GMC pickup truck was sitting in the yard of the place where we stayed. Like many other pieces of equipment - a standing monument to years gone by.

When doing outdoor winter shooting one needs to be careful when you bring you gear inside. You don't want your gear to get wet with condensation when you take it inside. There are several options. You could just leave your bag outside, or put your gear in a large plastic bag and seal it before bring it indoors. Let it sit for a few hours to warm up before opening the plastic bag. Either way bring your batteries inside to both warm-up and so you can recharge. Also your might want to bring in your cards so you can process your images.

1/100 f/4.5 ISO 1600 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 93 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Fence

Not only were the skies featureless clouds, but at times there was a frozen mist that hung in the sky which limited visibility. I think it made for good conditions for black and white images.

One thing to remember in these conditions, and I find myself often forgetting, is that camera meters assume the world is 18% Grey. In conditions with a lot of snow, that assumption is wrong and your images are underexposed. Using your camera's exposure compensation feature will help give a better result. Essentially EC lets you tell the camera that the 18% assumption is not correct and you give it a new assumption.

1/60 f/9 ISO 800 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 58 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake,Saskatchewan

Cold and Forgotten

This old house has been abandoned for many years. The hoar frost was thick but the day was rather warm by local standards - at about -15C. The skies were a featureless blanket.

Now that it is July and most of my readers are in the hear of summer, I thought I'd give you a chilling refresher for pictures taken in Saskatchewan in December.

1/25 f/6.3 ISO 400 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D

Quill Lake, Saskatchewan

Oh Canada!

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Happy Holiday to all my Canadian readers. Be sure to go see some fireworks tonight - And take your camera.

1/2000 f/5.6 ISO 400 75.0-300.0 mm @ 105 mm Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL

Centenial Pool,Richmond Hill,Ontario