Week 13: Monday 29th March, 2010

So this week's entry is a little late. A friend of mine is helping organize the Art for Aids fundraiser at Queen's, so I spent part of the weekend combing through my pictures for ones to donate to them. The final album is available here, and a link to the Art for Aids fundraiser is available here. For those in the Queen's/Kingston area, I highly recommend checking it out.

So a little background to this week's shot. One thing I used to do voraciously when I was a wee young whippersnapper was read. Reading for pleasure was replaced with "Sibley's Field Guide to Birds," "Ecology and Field Biology," "Animal Behaviour and Neuroethology," and my personal favourite, "Fundamentals of Biostatistics" which was a riveting and compelling story of the little p-value that could.

Anyhow. I've started to read more lately, but, like my taste in music, my taste in books is all over the place. So I laughed when I saw this on my bookshelf.



From left-right: Something Permanent (Walker Evans, Cynthia Rylant), Many Are Called (Walker Evans), The Defector (Daniel Silva), Lincoln Revisited (Harold Holzer), The Inferno of Dante (translation by Robert Pinsky), Stones into Schools (Greg Mortenson), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith), Moby Dick (Herman Melville). Between the 14th century Italian poety, 1930's photography, life lessons from the 16th U.S. President and the simple fact that "a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains," sometimes I wonder how I ended up with this eclectic collection of books.

Week 12: Sunday March 21st, 2010

This week's picture has no changes to it from the original picture - no changes in Lightroom, Picasa, Photoshop, nothing. I usually underexpose my pictures slightly (you know that little EV setting on your camera? I set than to about -2/3). Two reasons for this: 1) it is easier to increase exposure in post-processing than decrease it, and 2) it means the photos can be quicker (as it needs less time to let the light in). When I'm doing indoor/night shots, it is the difference between a crisp shot, and one that looks like it was taken through the bottom of a dirty glass.

Anyhow. Here is this week's shot:


As always, I welcome your comments :)

Week 11: Sunday, March 14th, 2010

So St Patrick's day is coming up, and the Irish Society of the National Capital Region (link) had a St Patty's day parade to celebrate. Lots of people were there, including Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, the Knights of Columbus, and, my personal favourite, Vaders Fist, the 501st Legion Canadian Garrison (link). Grown people dressing up as Tuskan Raiders, Stormtroopers and even Snowtroopers complete with random green paraphernalia. Good times all around - full album is available online here.

Technical info: I used the stock lens for this shot, as I was outdoors and so the fixed length of the faster f/1.8 became a bit of a liability. Canon XSi at ISO400, 1/400s, 43mm, and f/16.

Week 10: Sunday March 7th, 2010

This weeks shot was done as part of a contest at Gizmodo (link here). They do biweekly shooting challenges, and this week's was to do a shot with only a single candle for illumination. They've had some amazing shots up in the past, and it's always great to see what kinds of things people come up with.

Technical information: This was shot using a Canon XSi with the Canon 50 mm f/1.8 II lens at ISO 1600, f/14, 6.0 s exposure. I didn't use a tripod, since I don't own one, so I propped the camera on a book while I set up the picture (full manual focus, f-stop and exposure length), set a 2 second delay, hit the shutter and then let it do its thing. Special thanks to my sister for letting me borrow her jewelry for the shot. No post processing for this one beyond the conversion from CR2 to JPEG.

Week 9: Saturday, February 27th, 2010

So this week's post is a day earlier than usual. This is a direct consequence of tomorrow being the Gold medal game for Men's Ice Hockey, and I'm going to be parked on my couch, watching the epic battle unfold. And by epic battle, I mean Canada whupping the USA worse than they did in 1812.

So here is this week's photo. I tried to go for the "antique photo" look, inspired by 1920s-era photographers who used relatively primitive equipment (compared to what we have at our disposal now). Let me know what you think. :)

Week 8: Sunday, February 21st, 2010

So I'm starting to get into the swing of Project 52 now. I've got a few photos under my belt I really like (Weeks 6 and 1 in particular) and a few that I've just done as a laugh (Week 3). So far, so good.

I spent my Saturday afternoon taking pictures of my friend Unice's newborn baby boy Brayden (album available here). I've done some pictures of kids before with Mothercraft Ottawa, but one of the biggest challenges I had in this shoot was trying to capture everything he did - babies move incredibly fast, so unless you're constantly ready, you'll completely miss the moment.

Now, to completely go against everything I just said, I'm going to give you this week's picture. Brayden was passed out on top of his baby pillow, and I took this picture. Be prepared to go "awwwww" :)



Finally, I'd like to give special thanks to Unice and Nick for letting me put this photo up, and for agreeing to do this shoot.

Week 7: Sunday, February 14th, 2010

So last week I promised that I would be trying my hand at some sports photography. I volunteered to take pictures for the annual "Shave for a Cure" event organized by University of Ottawa medical students to raise money for the Childhood Cancer Foundation this past Friday (www.shaveforacure.ca). Held at Lansdown Park, I got to take some pictures for them, as well as take some shots of the Ottawa 67s.

For this picture, I used the 55-200mm USM Canon telephoto lens (link) I'm not completely sold on it, but it was a great deal, so I'm hesitant to return it. If anyone has any thoughts on either the 75-300mm Canon or an alternative telephoto, let me know.



This shot was taken from the front row of the 200 level, using the 55-200mm USM Canon lens at 200mm, f/5.6, ISO 640 at 1/250s. The other pictures I took are available online at my Picasa page.