Available Light Portraits
Reiley – December 30 2009, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
I pulled out my 1984 50mm f1.7 Minolta lens earlier this week and have kept it on ever since. I love that old lens. I love how at f1.7 you can shoot with just about any available light and get a decent shot.
This one is a nice, contemplative shot of my son who is with us for the holidays. He’s really growing up fast.
Sunday Morning Snack
Sunday Morning Snack, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Sunday Morning Snack, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Sunday morning is a time for mom and dad to tackle some chores and projects but it only takes a little sun and childish wonder to get me to pause and enjoy what Sunday means to the girls.
Bathed in Sunday morning light, the girls enjoy a self chosen snack of BearPaws.
Bunny Escapes Zoo – 2004
Bunny Escapes Zoo – 2004, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Years ago a bunch of bunnies managed to get free of their pen at the Waterloo Park. For quite some time after (and I am sure still today) you could find the bunnies — now feral — roaming about many of the public green spaces within a few kilometers of the park. Quite used to humans being around, you could often have these critters chewing grass at your feet while you ate your lunch on the city hall lawn.
This was shot in May 2004 on Fujifilm NPH 120.
Assist your photograpy with iPhone apps
If you don’t have an iPhone and have never seen one in action, you think I am a crack-head for bringing it in a photography blog. The fact is that the iPhone has turned out to be quite the photographic companion for me. In fact I only have 2 GB of music on my iPhone, but over 6,250 images from my image library on my computer.
The iPhone has become my mobile portfolio, my flickr uploaded, my on-the-fly image editor and my insta-shot camera. But I am not the only one who has tapped into the power of the iPhone as a photographic assistant. Photography Bay recently published a list and mini review of some of the hottest photography related iPhone apps. Whether you have an iPhone or not, this list will certain make you hungry for the photographic possibilities.
Grand River Conservation Foundation Annual Report 2008
Grand River Conservation Foundation Annual Report 2008, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Back in April, the GRCA called me and asked me if they could use this image in a clean air promotion. Which they did here. Today I got another email from them showing how they used the image in their annual report (as seen above). Pretty cool.
© Grand River Conservation Authority/Grand River Conservation Foundation
The Wonder of Babies
The Wonder of Babies, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
This is from a fairly old shoot, 6 or 7 years ago, on film, couple of strobes and umbrellas. I am about to embark on a massive reorganization of my image library and I am taking stock, if you will, of the images I have, old and new. In doing so I am coming across some old stuff I’d forgotten about.
It’s interesting to look at this stuff again and see how my style has or hasn’t changed since then. I know one thing for sure, I miss the certainty I had of film, knowing just how it would respond in just about any circumstance. Knowing how many stops latitude you had with negative vs. color transparency, to push one while pulling the other, the grain on T-Max vs Tri-X… all the stuff that just catalogued in your brain after a while.
Digital is a bit more of a mysterious beast to me still. Sometimes it behaves like slide film, and sometimes like negative film and then in the end it can all be changed in post processing. I guess it’s what keeps our minds sharp, always something new to learn.
How the Time Goes By
How the Time Goes By, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
My second born child shown here on the day she was born (nearly 6 years ago). It’s looking back on images like these that make you realize just how much changes in such a short amount of time. When I think to back to this moment, I was working as a quality technician at a tool and die shop, programming a CMM, I was shooting weddings on weekends, my son still lived in town, I still lived in the first house I ever bought, I was hand coding websites using tables and some css, I was still using film…
I could write a whole book on the stuff my family has been through in just the last half decade. I dare not think of all that’s changed since my son was born 12.5 years ago.
I think I would rather lick my hands clean
There are some things about traveling with small children I will not miss, like bladder control. With older kids they can wait until you get to a more reputable rest station. But the little ones have to go when they have to go.
If the sink, who is occasionally graced with soap, looked like this, you can imagine what the other fixtures looked like. Thank god we travel with sani-wipes in the van. My daughter and I got a full cleansing after this truck stop visit.
You in there Mr. Camera Guy?
"You in there Mr. Camera Guy?", originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
Back in May, a neighborhood squirrel I were having a bit of a territorial battle. He wanted to sleep on my fence and I figured that made him fair game for photography. He thought otherwise and on a number of occasions made it clear that he was not in this for the fame and glory. He had a strict no-paparazzi policy and he wasn’t about to let me be the exception.
He came back a few times to bark and squawk at me just to drill the point into my little human brain.
Angelic looking ferns
Angelic looking ferns, originally uploaded by seyDoggy.
This time of year these small, delicate looking ferns take of quite a bit of floor space in some of the darker, wetter areas in the Huron Natural area. I don’t normally bother with them but the way this one was dappled in sunlight kind of struck me as beautiful.