Photo Impressions, Photography by Pat Beaudoin, Sioux Lookout

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!    

                                                 
          Horse’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!

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 fellow 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.  I believe this pretty bird is the male Pine Grosbeak, he and his lady-friends are regulars at our feeder.  More about them here.

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

 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…

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…

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.