End of Winter or End of Fall II

Part two of the images photographed last fall of a pool cover with leaves on it. Part One is here. These looked different than the first group as the cover for this section of the pool was pushed deeper underwater and had no air bubbles on the surface. Curiously this was in the shallow end.

Leaves which had not managed to blow away, were resting on the submerged cover for the most part. The angle I shot them at was from the other side of the pool from Part One. More into the sun with a circular polarizer to reduce the water reflection and get some underwater detail.

This last shot, heavy on the black, happened because the sun had shifted enough while photographing that a small corner of the pool was no longer in direct sunlight and was  now shaded by a building. There was something about the pair of leaves heading into the void that I liked.

Other than the black and white, contrast, etc., nothing else was done to any of these shots. That's why, in some case, the debris and dust flecks are visible on the surface of the water. I could have cleaned them up in post, but I thought leaving them in added something. It was a dirty pool after all.

Mike

End of winter or end of fall

These are images of a pool cover in I photographed in November - on Remembrance Day in fact. At the time, I wasn't sure how I wanted to process them. So they sat for months. Over the winter, I would occasionally go back to them and try a couple of different techniques, not be satisfied and then leave them be again.

Given I had a cancellation for photos on Friday - I was going to shoot some nudes outside in the (hopefully) last snow of the winter, I started to tinker with these instead. I came up with a post processing that seemed to suit. I know they don't look too much like air bubbles in a pool cover, and that is the reason why I like them. Next post will have part 2 of the images.

 
Mike

Lake Ice III

Last couple of images from the same day as the Lake Ice and Lake Ice II. The channel marker in the distance was the same one I shot Lizz at here and here a couple or three years ago. This time, it was completely covered in thick ice. With all the build up at the far end, it looked like it was the bow of a lake freighter plowing a furrow through heavy seas. To say that this was a slick surface to walk on would be an understatement. Shuffling across a hockey rink is one thing. Trying it on a wavy, warped, randomly sloping surface with a defined drop off is another.

In the foreground above, is the massive piece of ice visible in the first Lake Ice image. You can see how the wind and relentless wave and follow on ice pressure really pushed a couple of months worth of ice up and it into the corner made by the beach meeting the pier.

In the next two shots, I was standing on a similar thickness of ice close to the actual beach line. Probably about one and a half meters above the sand. If you could have seen the sand.

The thought of warm sand does have a bit of appeal right about now. :)

Mike

Lake Ice II

A continuation of the last Lake Ice post with a different viewpoint on the ice. Instead of the sun being more or less camera left, the sun was at my back, or behind and a bit to the right. Given the subject matter and the angle of incidence, I thought a soft colour tone processing better suited these.

For example, in the above image, when I tried the same black and white conversion as in the previous post, the differences between the lighter milky colour in the foreground/distance and the greenish-blue of this channel opening were lost.

The colour made the thicker chunks of ice stand out like islands in an aerial shot of a frozen seascape. At least to me at any rate.

Mike

Lake Ice

Back in January, when it was considerably colder than it is now, I shot some photos of lake ice. I never know what I am going to get year to year, and it can vary location to location. I had gone, for example, somewhere else the previous week and given the strength  and angle of the sun in relation to the build up of ice, I came away only with a self portrait. :) I really didn't like the results. But here, I left with a few interesting images.

Only in a couple of instances was I far up and out onto the ice. By far I mean no more than 10-20m or so beyond the natural beach line. I stayed on the stuff that was really thick from where it had built up many multiple layers against the beach. That vertical piece in the first image, for example, was probably close to a meter thick. Now and then it did afford me a higher vantage point to photograph the ice farther out - which probably went out half a kilometer into the lake. I stayed well off that: I am all about keeping near frozen ice water out of my snow boots.  ;)

It was fascinating to see how the ice, pushed by the wind, and influenced by the shallow sandbars below, had formed these little lagoons of flat smooth ice. They were completely surrounded by long stretches of broken up ice that had created their own little bays, inlets and small islands.

Mike

Sweet seats

In retrospect, the landscapers realized that the benches were set up a little too close to the sugar refinery  loading docks. On the other hand, the soccer players had lots of energy. :)

Mike

Creative Live Posing and Lighting workshop

On the weekend I attended a three day photography workshop out of Seattle, WA. It was put on by the Creative Live folks. While it was a bit brain hurting sitting in front of a monitor for 7-8 hours a day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it was perhaps the most awesome photographic learning experience I have had in an incredibly long period of time. The last time was, in fact, also another Creative Live workshop with Jeremy Cowart - a photographer out of LA and Nashville. It was that one that made me sit up and take notice of Creative Live and what they offer.

This weekend's workshop was put on by Bambi Cantrell, a successful San Francisco based portrait and wedding photographer with about 35 years in the business. I had not heard of her before signing up for the session, and wasn't sure what to expect out of it as I don't do weddings. But she had a lot of Southern charm - which was interesting to get used to at first. :) And, most importantly, she had so, so much excellent information to impart. At times it was an overload even for an info junkie like me. Everyone in the Seattle class and in the online chat room felt the same way. :)

Fantastic advice on how to deal with tough clients, clients who want to undercut your prices, or want to do it their way. Exceptional tips on posing people of all ages, posing groups, and why some angles and poses work better than others and why some don't work at all. And her advice on lighting... Without equal. She shot nearly everything in natural light and the results were brilliant. If you understand light and what it can do and can't do for you, that is The key. I knew this, but she really drove it home with hands on examples.

Made me regret not buying - back in the day when I could afford it, the 70-200 IS Canon white lens, or even a nifty fifty 50mm f 1.8. I know a lot more now than five or six years ago, and even more so after this weekend having seen wide open shooting demonstrated so effectively.

If you ever get to see one of these workshops, clear your schedule to do it. It will probably be worth your while. Entire workshops are also available for paid download in HD video. Which I would suggest if you can't retain everything as it goes along. :)


Mike

Soft Shadows on Snow

Sometimes, in winter, diffused light going through wind blown branches causes softer shadows on snow that can be as appealing as sharp eyes on a model.

Mike

The last time for this season?

I certainly hope so. Really had enough. More than enough.

Mike

Silky and Chaotic Water

Once in a while, I have people look at me with glazed over eyes when I have tried to explain slow and fast shutter speeds, and why one might be better in some situations over the other. Well, the other day when I was shooting the tree skirts, I shot some fast moving flood water spilling over the top of an old dam that I think helps illustrate this.

The top shot was taken handheld at 1/20th of a second - which sounds fast, but really isn't. I had a tight grip on the camera and had my shoulder wedged into a railing so the shot would be steady - because at that slow speed even pressing the shutter release too hard will move the camera a bit. I don't shoot hand held long exposures much - models tend to move at just the right speed to not require it, so I called upon some of my rifle shooting/breathing skills to keep the camera steady.

You can see the water cascading over the edge of the dam and appearing really blurred. It looks smooth and silky, and yet the concrete of the dam in the centre is fairly sharp as it is the only stationary object.

In the second shot, I upped the shutter speed on the DSLR to capture a much smaller slice of time. In this case 1/1250th of a second. You can stop motion on most things at that speed: whether it's rushing water, a race car, or an airplane. You can go faster still, but you come up against a barrier of not allowing enough light in the camera to take a good photo as it is opening and closing the shutter too fast.

I had a circular polarizer filter on the lens to reduce the light to make the long exposure in the first shot possible - as keeping the camera shutter open long on a sunny day lets in way too much light. Since I wanted to keep the same angle in the two shots, I didn't remove it. Doing that restricted my setting an even faster speed as the shot would have been too dark. But you can certainly see the difference in the two. Everything is frozen. Silky smooth is now chaotic. Individual droplets are now visible.

Both images have their own appeal, but each have a completely different feel to them. I am partial to the long exposure though because it is something the eye doesn't get to see. :)

Mike

End of winter

Along a rural winter fence, 2011

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter will end very soon. The clocks changed this past weekend, and it is still light at 19hrs. Signs of optimism.

It has been a hard winter for me personally, but all this fades into the background when watching earthquake news from Japan. As I write this, there are new radiation evacuation warnings around a nuclear power plant that has exploded two or three times - with potential meltdown concerns ranging somewhere between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. More and more video is cropping up of horrendous tsunami surges of water erasing entire coastal towns and valleys, turning everything to match sticks mixed in with cars, trucks and boats. The death toll is rising dramatically and catastrophically.

The events of the weekend and into this week are really tough to comprehend. Superlatives are often bantered around in the news for much less significant stories - a disastrous bus crash, a catastrophic house fire... All of them and more are appropriate when describing quake ravaged Japan, but are somehow insufficient.

News will get worse before it will get better, and I can't do one thing to help out except think good thoughts their way. If you can help out, you really should.

Mike

Tree Skirts

After a rapid snow melt and subsequent rain, a meandering river overflows its banks about 1m higher than it normally would be. The water floods out for more than 100-150 meters in a small ravine valley and stays for better part of a day. At night, the top freezes over. And then it snows.

Sometime during the night, the water recedes. As the water level drop, the ice on the flat surfaces separate from the ice around the trees. In the growing warmth of the morning sun, the remaining thin tree snow-ice begins to sag under it's own weight: The results are what I call tree skirts.

Playground covered in snow

After a fresh snowfall in January: A children's playground in a wintery park. I was the only one there that morning. Mine were the only footprints. Something about being the first person to tread there combined with a blank canvas that makes for - despite the cold, a compelling opportunity to photograph.

Swing seats patiently covered in snow waiting for kids who were too small to sit in them last year and for faithful visitors to return.

I saw this wavy blue plastic triple slide one day when it was overcast and covered in snow. That time the snow was grey and a different texture. This time it was granular and coating the horizontal surfaces only.

I called this 'Snowlociraptor'. I am running out of titles I know, but I liked the image. In the global winter after that asteroid hit, I am sure it wasn't much different. The snowy dino's, not the bad titles. :)

Mike

Separating from chaos

A simple pair of low wooden posts and a metal cable were all that stood between a parking lot and a park. Without it, in the fresh snow, there would have been no evident barrier between chaos and cosmos.

January 2011.

Mike

Go The Distance

Earlier in the evening, I was reading some posts over on written inc, technology analyst Carmi Levy's blog. I left a comment on one post he did about obtaining autographs from some local baseball players where he lives and that got me to thinking.

Back in the 1990s, I was into collecting first edition hardbound books. I still have a good number of books in storage, and one that I prize the most is a 1982 1st edition of WP Kinsella's Shoeless Joe - which was adapted in the late 1980s into the film Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner.

During that time, I worked at Harbourfront in Toronto where they had an annual Authors Festival and a Reading Series that brought in a wide range of well known and lesser known authors. I knew Kinsella was going to be doing a signing after his reading, so I sought out a copy of Shoeless Joe at a rare and used book store on Queen West in Toronto. Field of Dreams had been was immensely successful a few years before, so this was not a cheap purchase. Lord knows I am whistling a different tune now, but at the time I felt it worthwhile to buy a copy for him to sign.

I lined up with everyone else to get it - and a copy of the book he was actually promoting, signed.  I wasn't the only one to have more than one book, but I was the only one with a Shoeless Joe. I recall him  being pleasantly surprised and saying he had not seen a first edition in quite a while.

Recently, I have been having a really hard time with, well lots of things, and it has been quite literally impossible to make ends meet. It seems like not just success is out of my grasp, but living as opposed to just existing is as well. I struggle with my perception of my self worth, with missed opportunities to photograph what I want how I want, and with how I can continue to do photography in any manner at all.

It's not in front of me, but I recall Kinsella inscribing the book to me 'Go the distance.' And I think that was something I needed to be reminded of today. I either keep plugging away at photography or I don't. Finish what I started or hang up my hat. But either way, pick one or the other and don't do it in a half measure. I can't not photograph, so I guess that gives me an answer. I just need to find a way to translate that into reality.

And go the distance.

Mike

The extra ones

Jaclyn Feb 2010

My post shooting image selection process goes something like this.

Import into Lightroom with exif copyright info added and no initial post work applied. Overall images whittled down to a selection of keepers with the flagging feature. Then depending if it is for me alone or someone else, I will cut that initial selection in half. These will be the ones I really like and are unique enough to stand out. Sometimes I will use the Compare option to view two or three very similar ones side by side and grab the best one selecting them with a colour marker.

I might leave it a bit if there is no pressing time urgent need. I find it gives me a critical eye slightly distanced from the photo session - which I might have loved and that could be colouring my feelings about the photos. I will then pass through the newest subset again and pair down the choices with a star a rating system which will be result in a fraction of the original number. I really don't 'do' hundreds of pics only to have them all posted or displayed online -as I have mentioned before I am sure. Everyone and every shoot gets the same treatment.

But what to do with those left behind? Delete? Keep? Some choices are obvious and I will flag them as Rejected and delete them completely: people blinking, a car getting in a shot, and so on. But what about the others that are fine?  Usually they sit and gather dust - figuratively anyhow. When I was backing up images a couple of weeks ago, I spent some time going through the images as the DVD laser did it's thing over and over.

There are many tens of thousands of images, such as the one above from my shoot this time last year with Jaclyn, which have remained pretty much sight unseen. And for the most part they probably will be. Sad in a way.

Mike