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Welcome...

Welcome to my website and blog, designed as a place for my photographic interests to congregate and grow.

I'm an amateur photographer with no real niche at the moment - I enjoy it all!  The majority of my images are taken in Northwestern Ontario, Canada where I reside.

Please scroll down to view my Photo Blog. 
Left-click to enlarge the thumbnail images.

  

 

The Photowalk badge below denotes my participation in the 2010 Photo Challenge, this year totally revamped as a Virtual Photo Walk.  Consider joining in, it's a great way to advance your photography skills and enjoy doing it. 
                           
The badge itself will take you to the official site and complete details.  Sample a few of the blogs I'm following here.    


Which photography books in my library do I find the most useful.... ?   Click here


  

 

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."  - Henry Miller

The Artists Who Inspire Me

     John Shaw, John Shaw Photography

     Martin Bailey,  Martin Bailey Photography     

     Darwin Wiggitt,  Natural Moments Photography   

     Klaus Rossler,  Klaus Rossler Photography

   
                                   Sioux Lookout Lakeshore


COMPELLING PHOTOGRAPHY SITES...

       Photo-Quotes - Quotations from the world of
       photography.

       Transform - A short film made by Zack Arias, for
       Scott Kelby.com. If you have ever felt discouraged
       with your photography you will relate to this piece,
       just see it through to the end.

       Strange Buildings of the World - The original list of 50.

       button-125×98   Vision and Verbs - A collaboration of
       women of a certain age.      

SIMPLE THINGS 2…

More things I found in the snow, a continuation of my post here

I saved the best for last…. meet ” Sioux “ (prn. Sue) who is simply a delight!    

                                                 
          Hors’n around…                                 Someone’s watching me…

 I tried out a cloudy white balance for the cabin shots  in an attempt to counter a very grey, overcast day.   

 A big thank you to Val and Elso for allowing me the freedom to wander their property, one of my favourite places to be!

Photo Composition – Avoiding Merges

A simple example of unsightly merges in your photographs.   Make a final visual sweep of the scene in your view-finder before you press the shutter button, to be sure you have separated all of the elements in your composition.   Keep your eye on the bench in the background…

                                                          

All it took was a little “side-step” to the left,  to avoid having the bench appear to grow out of the tree trunk.  In this instance the trees nicely frame the bench by the 2nd step and it becomes another subject in the composition.  Merges are hard to avoid in bushy scenes and there are more I didn’t correct - take a closer look and see what you can find…         ( 17-55mm lens @55mm, F/22 & 1/25s, +1EC, ISO 800 )

Click on the Photowalk icon above - it will take you to details of this first assignment and a further link to an excellent article on the rules of composition.

Some warmer composition tips and examples than I have shown, are explained in this  article I came across as well.

This cheery little Finch waited patiently for me to finish up with the picture-taking and sweep out the bird feeder so he could eat – we’ve been hit with the freezing rain and blustering snow the last couple of days.

( 100-400mm lens @ 330mm, F/5.6  &  1/1000s, +1 EC, ISO 800  – still had to be cropped a bit )

Simple Things…

 With the unusually warm weather we’re experiencing, I went out to look for things in the snow… what caught
 my eye were the simple things. 

                                             
There was more to enjoy here, but I’ll save those for the next post…

Calla Lily

With the cold temperatures last week I resorted to some macro work indoors for a few days.   The florist introduced me to this Eggplant or Black Calla Lily.  Quite an exotic colour and one I hadn’t seen before; from a short distance I did think it was black initially.  The light brought out the reds and the texture, making it even more of an interesting subject.  

However, it also proved quite challenging to photograph.  The dark colour made it difficult to distinguish the details of the flower through the view finder, although that just might be these old eyes.  I wondered about it being coated it was so reflective itself – do they wax these things?  I used the natural light of  a large north-facing window with a small diffuser.  

I tried a variety of backgrounds but none did it for me.  I would love to try the flower again, but outdoors in even summer light with natural greens behind it; I think the results would be more satisfying. 

All but the last image were taken with a Macro lens 100mm at f/4 – f/22.   I didn’t find that the unique blur of the Lensbaby lent itself well to this particular flower; the last image is with that lens, plus the macro accessory at f/4.  This beautiful lily is just not a soft flower…

                                   

The Door – 2010

Doorway into the old vault at our cemetary… once used to store the dead over the winter and the catalyst of many ghost stories over the years. 

The thumbnails have been resurrected from the Fall of 2009.  This could also be titled  “A Study in Grey” as in grey days. 

                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

New Year’s Eve Confession…

This story begins back on October 7, 2004 when we two chickens ( well, one cocky rooster and an old hen) went missing from Drayton Road.  We were assumed to be abducted and the mystery began.   A search for us ensued over several months to no avail and we’re here to tell you that those first few months on our own were tough go’in.  The truth is, we were never abducted… we were totally ABANDONED by our former owners (who out of common decency will remain nameless of course).  Yep, just thrown in the back of a truck and taken to an obscure spot further down Drayton Road and dumped by the side of a road.   Imagine our shock!  But we should have known something was up given that it was done in such a sneaky rush… the “Nameless Ones” acting all nervous like someone was going to arrive home and catch them or something.  They couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

 

Well, it turned out that a family lived on either side of that road.  We tried to hide at first, but it is pretty tough to do while dragging a ceramic body around.  The people mostly ignored us, probably totally po’d at having junk dropped off in their yard.  The snow kept us warm over the winter and by Spring everyone had mellowed; before long we had grown on them and were accepted into their family.  We now had a spot by the side of the road to call our own! 

                              
Oct 7th, 2004  2:37 p.m./pre-truck                        Oct 22nd, 2004                                         Feb 8th, 2005

Turns out the ”Nameless Ones” did us a huge favour – we LOVE it here with Uncle Roger and Auntie Anne!!!  We hang with our best ”bud”, Licorice and now a new horse, Raven.  It’s so fun to have regular meals, swim, frolic in the field with Licorice’s mega bouncy-ball and Uncle Roger even takes us for rides with Licorice!   Uncle Roger’s pretty good with the poopy-scooping thing too.  The puzzling posters about us that came unexpectly, anytime-anywhere, have stopped arriving for the last couple of years.  Thank goodness, it near drove poor Uncle Roger crazy!

So, we are neither abducted nor abandoned  -  we are instead, very happy run-aways.

The mystery has ended… we confess!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

ROGER & ANNE ! 

 

‘Tis the Season…

Not much time for photography during this busy season, however, I did want to stop and wish everyone a Happy Christmas! 

Truthfully I enjoyed these few minutes away from all the preparations with my camera… .  hopefully I’ll get out for some seasonal shots soon to  add to this theme. 

The poinsettia was taken with the LensBaby Composer plus the Macro accessory.

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justinimg_18341                    grey_mg_4163_v311    

The thumbnail images are the result of a fun photo excursion with my 11 year-old grandson on December 23rd.    Justin brought home his wonderful interpretation of Xmas lights with my Canon PowerShot G5 and a whole lot of movement – a reminder for us adults to “just try it” and see what happens!    The day was grey and almost over for my landscape shot but it verifies that we do indeed have more than enough snow for Xmas.

Late One Evening…

Ralph Lake on November 6th, a little after sunset.

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Early One Morning…

Gorgeous warm sunshine during that last week of October even though the air was plenty chilly.  I set up on one of the shores along Pelican Lake and very quickly forgot about how cold I was with the reminder of how beautiful nature is at this early hour._mg_3083-sgn2

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I could hear the float plane taking off long before I could find it.   The last image is Frying Pan Island on Pelican Lake.

Wind Song…

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