Victoria Sunset

I took my wife to Victoria, B.C. on Monday so she could fly to Kelowna on Tuesday to help out with the new grandson and his parents and brothers in Vernon.

Of course, I took a bunch of pictures but most of them were taken in bright daytime sunshine and I knew they wouldn't be the best. Good practice though. After we hooked up with my daughter-in-law's parents, who graciously put us up for the night, we went for a drive to a couple of spots along the water front. I'm not real sure just where this was but I like the sky and the sun framed by the tree branch and the silhouettes of the trees and plants.

Painted Sky

I ran out to the car last night to get something we left in it and the sky looked pretty amazing. I went back out with the camera and eventually took this from my back deck. It needed something a bit more than just the photo so I applied a dry brush filter in Photoshop to give it a painting effect. I kind of like how it turned out.

3 from Vernon

Here are three pictures I took around the area where my grandson was playing T-Ball. I took them on a sunny day at the end of April when I was in Vernon, B.C.

I found this shadow interesting and wondered how it would like in camera.
















This is just a picture of a wall. I liked the different textures.

















This final one is a portion of an old freezer that was sitting in a parking lot a half a block from the ball field. I was intrigued first by the very fact it was in a parking lot and secondly, by the patterns of the rust and the MagicMatic logo and symbol.

Kitsuksis Creek Dike

My wife and I went for a walk after supper yesterday and I took my camera along and grabbed a few shots. We walked along a walkway around Kitsuskis Creek which is about 3 block from where we live. This is one of the shots I took.

Another Cathedral Grove Pic

One more picture from our walk through Cathedral Grove a few weeks ago.

For this image, I used a cross processing action and then converted it to black and white. I did a little bit of work to tone down the blown out highlights a bit on the bridge railing and cross beams. I like the look.

I think it's time to find another place to walk and photograph.

Another Picture from Cathedral Grove

Here's another photo from our walk through Cathedral Grove a few weeks ago. Interestingly, the Grove is currently shut down to visitors so that they can do some removal of dangerous limbs and such.

This picture is of a wooden walkway that leads up to a kind of patio type place with some info about the grove. I used an action suggested by DIY Photography that mimics the Dave Hill look to a small extent. Check out Dave's site for some awesome looking portraits.

Weekend Picture - March 15

Though the idea of a picture of the day or a weekend picture is to get me to go out and shoot pictures, I haven't yet had the opportunity this weekend. I thought I would post another picture I like from last weekends photo shoot.

The beauty of Cathedral grove is in its majestic Douglas Firs. I saw these several (I think there are five in the picture) trees standing majestically. I did a conversion to black and white but I had to come back to the beauty of the green. Often, my wife and I comment that God's favorite color must be green, at least in our part of the world, because there is just so much of it in a rainforest.

ISO 100, f4 at 1/10 sec (handheld), 24 mm lens focal length.

Weekend Pictures Finally

After talking for several weeks about getting out on the weekend and trying to do a photo a week type project, I finally did it yesterday. Rena (my wife) and I went for a drive and stopped at Cathedral Grove which is about twelve miles out of town. Though we live incredibly close to a major tourist attraction, it has been years since we stopped and walked through this treasure of huge and old Douglas Fir.

I was looking for a shot that was a bit different, not just pictures of big trees, and I actually captured a couple of shots that I am posting here. So, two pictures this week.

This first one is just some branches, full of moss, that kind of resemble a large, bony hand reaching out. The vivid greens are fairly reflective of what it really looks like in our temperate rain forest, at least to my memory, and I added a gaussian glow action to give it a bit more feeling.









The highway actually runs through the middle of the grove and on the other side of the highway we found a road that led us to the west end of Cameron Lake where I took this shot.


I especially like the glassy surface reflecting the clouds and the trees but also allowing some of the stuff underneath to show through. I double (maybe triple) processed this shot to brighten the trees up a bit and keep the rest of the shot looking natural. I also darkened up the reflection of the trees a bit so the junk underneath was a little less obvious. There was also a fisherman in his boat that you can just see on the left side motoring away from me.

All shots were handheld. I hauled the tripod around but didn't use it for the first shot and so I put it back in the car. I could have used it for the second, but it's still okay.

Weekend Failures

I have absolutely no excuse for not going out shooting this weekend except laziness and a lack of inspiration. I am only posting here because my son asked "Where's the weekend picture" in a comment on the previous post.

I did throw the camera and tripod in the car when we went shopping in Nanaimo on Friday night because we thought we'd stay overnight and I would have gone looking for some shots on Saturday, but we came home and I spent all day yesterday at the computer.

I have been wrestling with what printer to buy. There isn't really one out there within my perceived budget that is perfect but I am leaning toward the Epson 2400. It is older and requires switching between photo black and matte black cartridges depending on paper use but it has gotten fairly favorable reviews and currently has a $100 rebate offer. Of course, as soon as I buy it they'll announce the upgrade printer but that's okay, I kind of don't want to wait the 4-6 months between announcement and availability.

The picture above was a weekend picture, taken in January on the west coast of Vancouver Island, part of the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet.

Revisiting Pictures

Here's a picture I took in June 2007 with my brand new Canon 30D. I was on a ferry from Comox (on Vancouver Island) to Powell River (on the Sunshine Coast) just trying out the new camera and I took this shot. I had processed a similar shot of this sailboat last year, but thought I would take another look at it, applying a few things I've learned since then.

The primary technique used involved opening the picture from Camera Raw (ACR) as a smart object, duplicating it and reopening the duplicate in ACR, pushing the exposure way up, bringing it back into Photoshop, masking that layer and then painting the brighter boat back in to make it pop out a bit. This was a technique learned from Scott Kelby's 7-Point System and it works great. Then I applied a gaussian glow action, and this is what came out. I love it.

Camera data - f8, 1/200 sec, -1 exposure compensation, ISO 100, lens focal length 85 mm.

Another Picture from Vernon

Here is one more picture from the park in Vernon that I took the day we were supposed to leave but didn't because of the snow. I walked by this tree once and almost walked past it again but thought I'd better stop and take a few shots.

Same camera and lens as the past posts. Lens at 41 mm, f11 at 1/250 sec. Post processing in ACR and some curve adjustments to try and pop the tree out a bit.

One For the Road

We arrived safely home today with no incidents, no problems on the ferry and no snow or avalanches, just sweet west coast rain. I even went out after we got home, in the rain, and washed all the highway sand and grit and dirt off the car.

But here is another picture taken Thursday morning when we decided not to travel due to snow. This is from the same park as Thursday's picture. The park and subdivision is up on a hill and it looks out over this area. These trees line a couple of fairways on a golf course and they kind of caught my eye. I used a blue channel bleach bypass action I have and then converted to black and white and added just a touch of blue tint to give the picture the cooler look it deserves considering the subject.

It was shot at 85mm, f10 at 1/50 sec with a +1 exposure compensation.

Vernon PAD - Tree in Snow

Thanks to about 5 inches of snow and an avalanche that shut down the highway we wanted to travel on back to Vancouver, we decided to stay an extra day in Vernon. So, I ventured out this morning and took a bunch of pictures in a little park right behind where we are staying. There are several nice shots I considered and will probably showcase here over the next few days, but I picked this one because it shows the snow and has a kind of irony to it with the unused park bench waiting for spring and for people to sit and enjoy the view from. Plus, I have a thing for trees, especially solitary ones.

Hopefully, we should get away tomorrow, although, if I got totally snowed in and had to miss some more work, I wouldn't really mind. Really, I wouldn't.

Canon 30D, 17-85 IS at 17 mm, f16, 1/40 sec (+1 exposure compensation).

Vernon PAD - Trees

Here is today's picture and possibly the last one from Vernon since we're heading to Vancouver tomorrow for a couple of days. There was a line of trees behind a small mall near where I am staying and so I stopped and took a few pictures and picked this one to share. I experimented a bit with throwing a funky frame around it and this is what I got.

Same camera and lens - lens was at 44 mm and it was shot at f9, 1/320 sec with a -2 compensation and ISO 100. I spent some time playing around and I think I used two different shots overlayed to get a dark sky and light trees.

I'm not sure if I'll have another shot of the day tomorrow since I am travelling but I have a couple of others from the last few days that I may post.

It's been a good challenge to force me to get out and get only a few pics instead of wandering around randomly shooting a whole pile of pictures and never doing much with any of them. It has been a good discipline and a good learning experience. I'll have to do it again but I don't think I could do a PAD for a whole month, say, like some bloggers I follow.

But, it is good to challenge yourself to projects and I'll have to do more of that. I really have to get going on the lighting thing and some of the stuff from Strobist, since I have a lot of the equipment I need already. Have to twist some arms for models, though.

To those few who visit, thanks and have a great day.

Vernon PAD - Sawhorse in the Snow

I didn't go very far today and I spent more time fooling with the image in Photoshop (including a crash that shut the computer right down and losing all my unsaved work) than I actually took shooting the photo. This is just in the backyard of the place my son and his family rent in Vernon.

I used a filter to do a black and white conversion and then painted the little red patch back in.

Details: Same camera and lens as yesterday; focal length 72 mm; f8 at 1/100 sec and 100 ISO.

Now, time to focus on the Superbowl.

Daily Picture on Holidays

I'm on vacation for a week in Vernon, B.C. and I thought I would try and do a picture a day (PAD) while I'm here. Plus, maybe actually get this blog going.

I took this picture this morning just up the road from where my son and his wife and children live. It looks out over Kalamalka lake and I like the curve of the shore and the reflected curve in the development on the hillside.

Click on the picture for a little bit larger view.

It was shot in RAW and adjusted there and then I used a couple of actions in Photoshop to get this.

Shot with a Canon 30D, 17-85 lens at 59mm, ISO 100, f8, 1/100 shutter speed.

New Year Picture

Happy New Year to those two or three of you who drop by from time to time.

My wife and I went for a walk in Sproat Lake Provincial Park which is very near to our home in Port Alberni, B.C.

It was good to get out and I took my camera and tripod along to see if I could capture anything that interested me. This was one of the first shots I took as we got near the water. I had been wanting to get a shot that had some reflections in it and this is a start for me. I did do some post processing work with a couple of actions, notably a gaussian glow effect that seems to work good for landscapes since I have yet to bite the bullet for the NIK filters. I also cleaned up all my sensor dust and finally duplicated the layer and used the overlay blend at 44% opacity to boost it a bit. I also cropped it a bit to tighten up the image and cloned out some distracting remnants in the left corners.

This is all great fun for me.

Resolutions for the New Year? Just to take more photos and increase my skill and understanding of all things photographic.

All the best in 2008.

Revisited Photo

I have taken over 4900 images on my camera since I purchased it in June of this year. Most of them are probably throw aways. Many are still waiting to get developed from the RAW format I shoot in. Plus, I've learned a lot about developing them in Adobe Camera Raw and then playing with them a bit in Photoshop. Tonight I went back and looked at some of the first shots I made. This one was taken when I was in Campbell River in June. It is shot number 288. I'm not a boater but the shot appeals to me tonight, probably because it is gloomy and cold outside and this looks much more inviting.

Still Playing with PS

I played around a bit more with a picture posted previously. I just did a vivid overlay and then added a border.

Old Fire Engine

This is a close-up of some detail from an old, horse-drawn fire engine taken at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, SK on October 18, 2007.

The picture itself was taken just with the on-camera flash. The ISO was at 800 because initially I thought I could shoot inside this museum with available light. Some post processing was done to remove the color and get the look I was happy with.

For the most part, I am still just experimenting with the different features in Photoshop (and only Elements 3 currently.) Lots to learn even in an older version of Elements.