Leafy Impressionism ~ Exploration Thursdays!

"Concert of Color"

(1/25sec @ F/13, ISO 125, 23mm fl into zoom, 18-55mm Nikkor kit lens, remote shutter, overcast)

Welcome to Exploration Thursdays! This will be the one day of the week I can let my hair down and explore the more creative sides of photography. There will be anything from playing with slow exposures and playing right in the camera, to experimenting in the digital darkroom, to having guest bloggers and new tips for you all to be trying at home! Sound good? Cool. So let's have our first fun Thursday!

My first image featured for these Thursdays is a personal fave, and I don't think I've really had a chance to showcase it yet... I'm considering having it printed on canvas actually. I took this while scouting for photo ops for my Parks job this past fall. The light that day was very bland, but it was great for macro/close-up type shots of the flora and fauna just flourishing in the beds. But you know me, I HAVE to look up too... and I happened to be standing under a blazing Maple Tree. It's leaves were barely moving in the whisper of a breeze but I could tell one good stiff wind, and down they'd come. It doesn't matter how old you are, falling leaves evoke days of jumping in crunchy piles being raked, and pressing the biggest most colorful ones into crafts or into big books for safe keeping.

Looking up into the giant canopy, I decided I needed to portray how I felt, and not just how all the leaves "looked". I also knew to do that, that I needed to think outside the box on this one. One of my favorite Canadian nature photographers is Freeman Patterson (I know, I've mentioned him before) because he sees nature as something to explore emotionally once he understands the intricate ways it grows and lives. His images convey energy, motion, and poetry. And I think his in-camera manipulations are some of the most beautiful and inspirational I've ever seen. So I looked up into the tree and thought, "now how would Mr. Patterson approach this?"

One of the most fun things you can do with your camera is to create a sense of motion, and you don't need photoshop or special gear for it. All you need is a slower exposure time and a sense of anticipation, cause you never know what your lens is going to capture! There are several ways to achieve these cool abstract effects - slow your shutter speed down and while taking a picture swing the camera around, jump up or down, or use your zoom lenses. Zoom in or out as the shutter snaps to

 accentuate length or height, to emulate something speeding by, or something rushing towards you as I did above. Then do it several times, changing your speeds, your views, and your lighting.

I used my tripod and remote shutter release for this shot, simply because I wanted my hands free to carefully zoom up into the leaves overhead with my kit lens without the camera wobbling. And it took a few tries before I realized where I liked seeing the branch peeking through the composition a bit, as well as one or two more discernible leaf shapes in the mix to hint at the subject. All that was left to do with the shot when I got home was improve the saturation levels a bit more so the color was bolder and that was it.

I now officially have a "theme" for every day of the week! I'm excited to see if I can find ways to challenge myself every week... and I'd love if you folks out there wanted to practice each different theme with me! Send me links to your best results and I'll post them here! Let's inspire and motivate each other! Thanks for letting me ramble on about all this, and make sure you all have a fabulous day! See you tomorrow for another "Floral Friday". 

Wide Angle Wednesday!!!

"Converging Above the Marketplace"

(1/30 sec @ F/8, 18mm fl, ISO 500, 18-55mm Nikkor wide zoom, pattern metering, handheld)

As mentioned yesterday, I'm using themes for the next while in order to keep myself motivated and challenged as a photographer. Wednesday's will be dedicated to wide angle shots. Some days I'll use ultra wide lenses, others just a standard wide angle. I'm starting off though with what all manufacturer's call the "kit lens". This is a moderate, all purpose zoom, it's widest view at an 18mm focal length, it's tightest at a 55mm focal length. It's great for anything from landscapes, to architecture, to candids. It's the lens they usually throw in with your first DSLR purchase. And I never leave the house without it.

I spent part of the day yesterday wandering our newly renovated Farmer's Market downtown. Those of you who know me well know I took one look at the design elements and construction of the space and totally forgot all about actually photographing farmers and their wares. You enter at the top level of the market overlooking the entire space and see all the duct work, piping, and support elements... and it's pretty cool looking! Not to mention the ceiling being peppered with glass spherical lighting and the original Jackson Square Clock residing now indoors after being restored to it's original glory and safe from vandals. Obviously I wanted to emphasize all the converging lines and shapes, showing the height and the angles that spread through the space. So my choice was naturally my wide angle lens.

Because I was indoors and without the tripod (which would have been in the way since the aisles are tight and very busy with shoppers) I had to bump my ISO to 500, which adds a bit of noise but allowed my camera to get the shot without any shake on my part. I was still able to rest my arm on the railing for a sturdy position. There was northerly side light from a big bank of windows providing enough light throughout the space. I have corrected any lens distortion in PSPx3, and at 18mm there was some slight curving to the column on the left specifically. I also decided to work in a cross processed color filter effect layered over a darker B&W version to really draw attention to the designs and lines along through the composition without being over saturated. Very industrial looking as a result, and exactly what drew me to the scene in the first place!

This was a fun edit for me, and once again, I KNEW this shot was one I would love to work on the second I took it. With my average kit lens, at it's widest focal length. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to have a thousand lenses. Learn first to excel with the ones you have! My high school photography teacher taught me that way back in my film camera days, and I've never forgotten it!  I think he'd enjoy wide angle Wednesdays too.

Thanks for letting me ramble on for today folks! Have an awesome day... can't wait to show you what's on tap for Thursdays!

Accidental Reflection ~ Telephoto Tuesday!

"Reflections of St. Andrews St"

(1/640 sec @ F/5.3, ISO 200, 160mm fl, 55-200mm telephoto zoom)

My first "Telephoto Tuesday"! I've decided for the next while to use themes here at the blog. Just to challenge myself, with my shooting, and my blogging. This way I'm not stuck in a rut at some point always using the same lens or the same style of photography. It keeps the creative juices flowing.

When I first started in digital photography, it did not take me long before I fell in love with my telephoto lens. It's a Nikkor 55-200 mm zoom with an adequate range, adequate F-stop and the much needed VR (vibration reduction) feature in case you're handholding with this heavier type lens. But the technical is not what drew me... it was the ability to get in tight on any subject. I love to take one key element, and make it the entire image. My tele zoom does exactly that. And that makes me a very happy photographer!

I chose the image above to kick off this Tuesday's post because it epitomizes why I will always keep my telephoto lenses close. REALLY close, as in sitting ready in my front pocket of my kit bag or jacket, right next to my elbow close. This image is the reflection of an abandoned red brick building in downtown Toronto, and the street sign in front of it in a warped window front. I had my trusty little Nikon D40 with me at the time, and we had just left a tour of Castle Loma. I always like to keep my camera in my lap when driving through the city, even when I think I'm done for the day. And it's a good thing I did, because there we were sitting at an intersection waiting for the green light and I turned to look out my window. Voila! I was met with an entire warped windowed wall of an old storefront across the street from me, and it was reflecting this bold red in it's framed sections. I leaned out the window and snapped this shot right before the lights turned green and my husband pulled away. No time for settings, dials, or adjusting the shutter speed... just zoomed in to crop a section with the most interesting part of the reflection, and then we were gone. This was the first image I rushed home to see. Never mind the glorious castle I had spent all day shooting... I knew this was the shot of the day. It's funky, bold, and abstract, yet for me, still smacks of the everyday ordinary city living.

This is what photography should do for you! It should excite you, it should grab you, it should bring unique details to life. A telephoto point of view can do that... it'll eliminate all the clutter, give you a bit of "tunnel vision" if you will, and make you stop and really look at what's around you. There's some cool stuff out there... even at the crowded intersection downtown.

I look forward to bringing you a new telephoto shot every Tuesday, keeping my eye trained to look for opportunities like this every week. I'd love if some of you did it with me... and if you have a shot you're particularly proud of as a result, I could ask you to let me arrange to post it here, and we can ask you how you did it too! You never know!

As always, you folks reading along with my ramblings are the best! Hope you have a great week....

Icy Formations ~ Mono Monday!

"Her Icy Face"  ~ Tiffany Falls, Hamilton, On

(1/2sec @ F/14, ISO 100, 28mm fl, 18-55mm Nikkor kit lens, tripod, pattern metering, ND filter)

I'd like to make a confession here on Mono Monday. Some will shake their heads when they read this, some will understand completely. But I feel I must be honest. So here goes.

I have lived in Canada my whole life. It's February. It's winter. And (taking a deep breath here...) I don't like it. Ah, there, I said it!!!! I know that out there in all the snow and ice are great photo ops but it requires putting on a thousand layers of clothing, tucking gear and batteries safely and warmly in any available crevice in said clothing, and wandering treacherous and slippery paths and locations with a tripod in one hand and a Timmie's coffee in the other. Often it's while my family tags along under the guise of sledding or only being out walking "for a sec". Ha, could only pull that one on them a handful of times before they got wise to me and started "disappearing" every time I suddenly hunted for snow pants in the back of the house.

Let's be honest, I'd much rather be out in the warmer weather, catching the tulip festival at the park, or driving back roads with the windows down and the tunes cranked looking for barns and farm gear to shoot. But having said all this, there is something to be said for winter photography. Despite all the extra work before I even get out to the car, despite the fact that every year pulling on the monster boots seems to wind me more and more, and despite the way my hubby looks at me when he realizes I need a walking buddy in -23 weather without the wind chill... despite all that, there's a treasure to be gleaned every time I head out to shoot. And it's this: YOU LEARN TO WORK FAST!

Shooting outdoors in the chilly Canadian weather (and yes, I'm aware there's chillier, don't get me wrong) forces you to work fast. Sum up a scene quickly, decide what's important to portray, to emphasize, and what to eliminate. Your composure skills are naturally honed when you know that the cold is eating at your battery, that your tripod adjust knobs are freezing in place, and that you've stopped feeling your feet. Your brain goes into adrenaline mode when you can hear your husbands teeth chattering from twenty feet away and you've only been on the trail for ten minutes. You realize you need to get those other angles NOW since once you get back in the car there's no way you're getting back out for that one forgotten shot. And you learn to think quickly about all the tools at your disposal. Filters are at the ready for the slow exposures of the trickling water still running through the icy rock face, the tripod doesn't leave your side, and your other lens is already waiting in your pocket for a very quick switch indeed while you have a plastic bag waiting for the other lens to defog in once your finished. And your settings! You learn to sum up the light real quick and no foolin' around in your menus, cause no matter how warm those gloves are, they're a pain to use when you have to push tiny buttons right?

See what I mean about working well but working quickly?

It's a good test of your natural skills... seeing how far you've come with your camera. Limited time means you have to harness all the things you should know without even really thinking them. You should try it. Just not with me. (little humor there... heh heh heh)

So all kidding aside... if you visit the cooler climates that require sled dogs and snow shoes, or simply live where you've shoveled another eight feet of snow out of your driveway for the fourth time (shovelers unite!) then make yourself get out there with the camera, give yourself twenty minutes to an hour to photograph, then go home to some winter stew and warm pj's and review how you did. You'll get a very clear picture of what you still need to remember, and what you excel at under pressure.

And how a frozen finger looks after you pry it off the shutter too fast...ouch.

Have a good Monday folks... and thanks for letting me ramble on! Tomorrow is our first Telephoto Tuesday! Hope to see ya then!

Red Red Rose ~ Floral Friday

"Red Red Rose" Royal Botanical Gardens

It's Friday! Floral is our theme again, and today I've posted one of my absolute favorite images from the past summer. Maybe because Valentine's Day is a week away (guys...tryin' to help you out here) and more likely because here in Hammertown we're still swamped with snow, but the deep dramatic color and velvet shape of the petals just seemed to be my next logical image choice for you all to enjoy.

Not entirely sure where my exposure data went to on this file but I had to dig way back into original RAW files before I could see how I shot this one. For all you photogers out there that crave info here we go: 1/200sec @ F/5, ISO 125, 50mm fl, 50mm Nikkor Prime lens, overcast morning light, tripod, remote shutter release, reflector, pattern metering. I find red a difficult flower color to capture sometimes, it's extremely saturated on it's own. Detail in the petals can disappear if you're not careful with deep reds, but on overcast days I can underexpose slightly to get an accurate color, then change the levels slightly in Corel later to ensure the image isn't actually too dark overall.

One of the best places to practice photographing deep or bold color in flower beds is over at the Royal Botanical Gardens. Indoors or out, it's a nature photographer's paradise. It's the largest garden of it's kind in all of Canada, situated between Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario. And the most eclectic of it's kind, from the world's largest natural lilac dell, or tens of thousands of tulips in the rock gardens, to it's wide naturalized areas with marshland and wildlife, not to mention the trails you can walk. And the greenhouses are always displaying the unusual. It's also a National Historic Site. What's not to love? And it's full of intense color. I've spent many a day wandering the grounds in all seasons.

In particular, this image was taken out in the Hendrie Park gardens, where they have thousands of roses through the summer months along with live jazz music and various events. So.... how many months till the warm weather returns? Think I'll go over to the flower shop at the top of the street and get a handful of roses for my studio/dining room and immerse myself in a bit of summer in February. With the camera. Of course.

Thanks for letting me ramble on a Friday! As always take a moment to leave me a comment here or on my Facebook Page, and have a fabulous weekend. (oh, and "go Green Bay!")