We're off to London!
I’m off to the UK for a bit of a holiday. We take flight at 9:40 pm October 23 (that’s today) and will be gone for about 10 days. We’ll be back to answer your support questions on the week of November 1st. Remember that if you have any major concerns between now and then you can always try posting them the the Realmac Software forum and I am sure one of the kind and knowledgeable folks there will help straighten you out enough until I get back.
We’ll try to keep you posted on our daily outings. That’s likely to occur on Twitter so if your inclined to keep tabs on the leisure time of a theme developer geek like myself then you can come follow me.
Anyhow, stay safe and we’ll catch in a few days time.
Tot in the woods
Tot in the woods, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
This is from a session I photographed back in 2003 which produced what I still consider to be some of my favorite child photography captures. Again, this was back in the simpler days of film where what you caught was what you got.
This girls was a joy to follow through the woods. She made a game out of nearly every aspect of the shoot which made capturing the images both challenging and rewarding. The results spoke volumes of her attitude and energy that day.
Shot with a Minolta Maxxum 7 with a Sigma EX 28-70mm f2.8 on what looks like the old Kodak Royal Gold 100 (I miss that film). Location was Monarch Woods in Kitchener near the corner of Fischer-Hallman and Victoria.
Preston from on high
Preston from on high, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
I have written about Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 in the past and I seriously can’t stress enough how it has really changed my process and workflow. I may not consciously approach each and every image with the system in mind, but instead, Scott Kelby’s system has allowed me to identify what I think is lacking and what it is that I would like to see different.
I now look at an image and immediately identify what I can change and improve and how to go about that quickly and efficiently. I have control now in ways that I thought impossible. I can now use images that I would have previously thrown away. I now deliberately underexpose many shots knowing that I can do more with hidden details in the dark then I can with burnt out highlights.
If you look at the before and after (before being in the right) of this shot you see that I was able to turn a dull, dreary, under exposed photograph into a lively, dramatic, colorful landscape full of emotion and accurately reflecting the impression that was burned upon me that morning. And that’s what really sums it up. It’s not about the limitation of what you can capture but the freedom to bring your visions to life.
This was photographed at Homer Watson Park in Kitchener, Ontario, with a tripod mounted Sony DSLR-A100 and a Sigma EX 28-70mm f2.8
RapidWeaver's %pathto%, TextMate can help
It’s no secret that many RapidWeaver developers are quite close and help each other out quite a bit. It’s also no secret that in order to develop RapidWeaver themes you need to use some pretty powerful tools. Some of use TextMate, the most powerful one in my opinion. There are so many ways to extend TextMate’s features to streamline our workflow, one of the simplest is to edit existing bundles by tweaking their commands or snippets or making a command or snippet of your own.
So back to the RapidWeaver developers… recently, Giuseppe at Bonsai Studio shared a TextMate snippet with the other developers. A snippet that would write a very specific RapidWeaver string that we tend to use quite a bit:
<script rel="stylesheet" type="text/css | text/javascript" src="%pathto(script/filename.file)"%></script>
I jumped all over this because as you may know I am a huge TextMate nut. However, the snippet didn’t quite run the way I wanted. So I set about to make it the way that was most useful to me. The main difference being that mine would highlight the file path when activated making it an even faster shortcut for me.
But I didn’t stop there. I wanted one that would handle <link> as well. So the result is to snippets that quickly write a <script> string and <link> string that include the %pathto% syntax.
So if you are a heavy TextMate user and happen to develop RapidWeaver themes then you might be interested in these two snippets.
Film and the days gone by
Film and the days gone by, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
So I am still in the process of cataloguing all of my old photo disks, you know, the ones with all my scanned film? Man do I miss that stuff. I miss the grain, the color reproduction the continuity in all the old rules. It used to be when you went out on a sunny day you brought the film that was color balanced and ISO rated to suite your needs. Some of you might remember the sunny f16 rule.
Now it’s auto this and guestulate that. I mean all the same rules applied but now you can change on the fly. Not enough light for ISO 100? Change it. Moving from daylight to open shade? Change it. It’s all for the better I suppose but I miss the simpler days where a histogram was more likely something the doctor might administer.
This was an engagement session nearly 5 years, shot on film, looks like Kodak Portra, using a Minolta Maxxum 7. It was photographed in one of my favorite locations in Kitchener, Monarch Woods.
The fine edge of freezing
The fine edge of freezing, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Not quite as high up off the ground as the flowers and not as low as the grass, this leaf was covered in what appeared to be water half fluid and half crystalline.
Photographed with a Sony DSLR-A100 and a Sigma 90mm macro with an effective focal length of 135mm.
HDR best for rocks?
HDR best for rocks?, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Since getting Photomatix I have been playing around quite a bit with new images and old images and everything I can get my hands on that I have bracketed in the last half decade. I am coming to one realization; the reason that most HDR tone mapped images are of churches, building, and rocks is because they tend not to be effected by wind.
Even on the calmest day, trees, leaves, grasses, etc, will shift ever so slightly in the unseen wind. Though your bracketed images may look identical, mashing them together in an HDR composite will reveal otherwise. It may not even be noticeable at normal viewing sizes but zoom in to 100 percent and you will notice your once crystal clear work will have the sharpness and resolution of a oil painting.
I hadn’t ever expected more but in all honestly I could probably accomplish the range I actually want in an image by underexposing one image and bringing up the shadows in post. Sure the shadows may suffer from excessive noise but I can deal better with noise then I can a lack of sharpness.
Well any way, it’s an art that I am still learning. I haven’t given up yet.
Shot with a Sony DSLR-A100 with a Minolta 28mm f2.8 with an effective focal length of 48mm. Photographed at the Huron Natural Area in Kitchener, Ontario.
Early morning bliss
Getting it just right, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
There is nothing quite like waking up before dawn and not just enjoying a picturesque sunrise, but actually photographing one. That’s what myself and four other photographers from the Kitchener Waterloo area did early Sunday morning. We gathered or tired and weary selves at the Kiwanis park in Waterloo (Bridgeport area).
It was a fantastic little walk that presented us with all sorts of photo opportunities which included beautiful sunrises, morning mist on the Grand River and plenty of dew drenched vegetation.
To see the collection of images that I shot that day, go to the flickr set I made for the occasion. To see the works of others that were with me, try the most recent images marked “kiwanis” at the Kitchener-Waterloo flickr group.
Remnants of the old Doon Mill
Remnants of the old Doon Mill, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
I don’t know the story about the 1839 Doon Mill in Kitchener, or the dam that was made there or the mill race or the resulting Willow Lake (which is now ball diamond, trail and playground), but I do suspect that some of the debris and concrete and stone in the creek are some left-overs from that era. Regardless they make for some interesting shots with lots of places for water to run about.
I took this shot thinking that is somewhat resembled a shot I took years ago that ended up in the New York Institute of Photography Archives. I didn’t have my tripod with me to the shot was handheld by luckily the Sony has the anti-shake which made things a lot clearer than they would have been otherwise.
Photographed with a Sony DSLR-A100, with a Sigma EX 28-70mm f2.8 at an effective focal length of 105mm.
The sumac fall fate
The sumac fall fate, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Where I live, in the Kitchener Waterloo area, we have a lot of sumacs that make for quite a show in the fall when their leaves turn a deep red. I’ve never had much luck shooting the tree as a whole, there is something about the red saturation that I am never able to capture all that well. But in this case I was able to isolate a few leaves that were browning and withering in a way that appealed to me.
This was taken on Marguerite Ormston Trailway while walking with my daughter. Taken with a Sony DSLR-A100, with a Sigma EX 28-70mm f2.8 at an effective focal length of 105mm.