This past weekend I managed to make it to Forks of the Credit Provincial park in Caledon just as many of the trees were reaching the height of their colour. I haven't photographed landscapes for many months, as my work usually keeps me photographing people and events. Landscape, though, was my first love in photography, and I was excited to return to one of my old passions.
Equipment used included a Nikon D750, Nikon 24-70 2.8, Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR I, and a slim B+W circular polarizer.
On Good Friday I had the opportunity to try out some macro photography at the Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory with my Nikon D750 and the AF-S Micro 105mm f/2.8G. The conservatory makes for a great day trip for anyone in the area - hundreds of brightly coloured butterflies are constantly flying and feeding, and it's not uncommon for visitors to become a landing-pad for one of these insects.
It's also a great opportunity for photography, especially since the park staff allow flash photography - which will always make macro work easier. This is one advantage I quickly found needed to be leveraged as much as possible. Unlike flowers, which tend to stay fairly still, the butterflies never stay still for long. I composed and shot each of my photos in a matter of seconds, with my SB-700 flash pointed behind me; despite the glass high ceiling, there was enough overhanging foliage to bounce light back. Sadly, action shots weren't possible as 1/200 sec - the D750's sync speed - was nowhere near fast enough to stop motion blur in the wings. Given the limitations, I found the combination of my D750, SB-700 and an AF-S 105mm 2.8G to be more than adequate to create some compelling images. The D750's autofocus was accurate, rarely hunting, and the AF-S 105 was fast to focus.
Shooting and writing for Snapd Brampton has given me the opportunity to see a new and different side of my local community. While I often report on charity fundraisers and other local events rubbing shoulders with politicians, philanthropists and business owners, I've also had the chance to expand my photographic repertoire to include sports photography. This couldn't be more fun; a press pass gives me access to a whole venue, so I can go where I want to go to get the shots I need. So far, I've covered the Brampton Beast's home opener, the Brampton A's home opener, and a couple of charity 5k races.
Photographing sports requires speed in everything - fast lenses, fast autofocus and the ability to predict when the moments you want to capture are about to happen. Fortunately when you combine all of this with a high framerate and a little courage, the results can be great.
Friend, photographer, artist, historian and fellow University of Edinburgh alum, Jess Lessard, gave me and several other friends a small challenge, to post a photo a day for five days and write a little something about it. (My photo of Johnny Bower was my first submission, since it was a fun story). This photo comes from a draft horse pulling competition in Caledon, Ontario in June 2013. Essentially it's a competition to see whose gigantic horses are the strongest. Bred for ploughing fields and pulling heavy cards, these horses needed little encouragement from their trainers to do what they were designed to do. Above is my official "submission", shot with a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. Below is a detail shot that I quite like, shot with my Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8.
Hockey Hall of Fame Member Johnny Bower giving an autograph on his 90th Birthday
Working for SNAPD Brampton, I've had the opportunity to photograph some sporting events, including the local basketball team, the Brampton A's, as well as the local hockey team, the Brampton Beast. I went back to shoot freelance on Friday November 14th, 2014, purely with the goal of expanding my sports photography portfolio, which I did (photos to follow in a later post).
When packing my gear, I decided I wanted to go a bit lighter though, and ditched my 30mm prime. I also had the thought, "Why take my flash? I'm shooting hockey. You don't use a flash for that. But whatever, I guess I'll take it. You never know what's going to happen." Turns out that what happened was Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender, WWII Veteran, and all-around Canadian hero, Johnny Bower showed up and celebrated his 90th birthday, and I managed to photograph him. Thank goodness I brought my flash!
A line of doors in Elora, Ontario. Pentax Spotmatic F and Kodak Portra 400 @ 400.
My blog may have been quiet, but Summer 2014 has been busy - both with my photography and in my personal life. In September, my wife and I had our first child, a healthy boy. Life has changed tremendously, but despite the sleepless nights and dirty diapers, it's only for the better.
Also, a part-time job I took photographing and reporting for a couple local newspapers has occupied a fair bit of my time. While it keeps me making photographs and meeting people, the photos I take only go to the papers, and not my website.
In the meantime, I've been shooting (and developing and scanning) film. It's a slower process, but one I thoroughly enjoy. Digital photography encourages a photographer to focus on the last shot - checking the LCD to ensure everything's perfect, and if it's not, to re-shoot. Film encourages a photographer to be accurate the first time, and focus on composing the next shot.
A few weeks ago I visited Mountsber Conservation Area in Halton. Just off the 401 between Cambridge and Milton, it's an easy drive out from the GTA. There's a pleasant lake and some trails, but the real star of the show is their Raptor Centre. There, visitors get an up-close and personal view of some local birds of prey, which include the barn owl, red-tailed hawk and kestrel I photographed here.
I went for a short drive, north on Highway 10 into Caledon to catch the sunset somewhere interesting. I could have done with a few clouds to liven up the sky a bit, but the setting sun's light was at the perfect angle to bring out the texture in the wood of these barns and fields.
A chipmunk at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, ON.
I just developed and scanned a roll of Kodak T-Max 400 from my Pentax 645. This is an interior shot from Whitehern Historic House in Hamilton, ON. I normally shoot on Ilford, but Henry's was only selling T-Max, so I gave it a try. I pushed it up to ISO 1000, which allows for much of the drama in this photo with the bright highlights and deep blacks.
Whitehern is a real gem. Unlike many stately homes at which the curators simply buy period furniture to fill the rooms, almost every single item at Whitehern, from the books, clothing, photographs, paintings, plates, cookware, beds, and the hat in this photo below, belonged to the original family who lived in this house. It's well worth a visit.
A couple shots from a stroll around Terra Cotta Conservation Area in Ontario – a pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening in the end of April.
Chivalry might be dead, but jousting isn't. I'm always looking for something new and different to photograph, and based on a Facebook advertisement for Knights of Valour (www.knightsofvalour.ca) I decided to head up to the Mono Fairgrounds near Orangeville and see what "full contact jousting" was like. This team's website is very clear; this isn't a theatrical event like what you might see at Medieval Times – it's an unscripted, combat sport where the human competitors can and do get injured, and the outcome is the result of strength, prowess and perhaps a bit of luck.
The competitors can only score points when they strike a reinforced piece of armour on their opponent's left shoulder about the size of a frying pan. Even when they don't unhorse each other, the competition is dramatic, as competitors score points for breaking their lances against each other – something I was able to capture dramatically.
It was a fun way to spend a Friday evening. There were many broken lances, a couple unhorsings, and plenty of excitement. The troupe's leader, and MC for the evening, Shane Adams, really knows how to work a crowd. The Knights of Valour have a full summer of events; I'll definitely go again next time I have a chance.
Niagara falls is always a great place to visit. These photos are from late March - winter hasn't quite decided to let go completely here in Ontario, so this was a nice chance to catch the changing of the seasons.
Niagara Falls during the spring melt.
On April 10th I had the pleasure of covering the Volunteer awards ceremony and AGM for Volunteer Mississauga Brampton Caledon at Greenbriar Recreation Centre. VMBC promotes volunteerism and runs an excellent volunteer-opportunity search engine (think Monster.com for volunteering) at http://peel.cioc.ca/volunteer/. Once a year during National Volunteer Week, they honour volunteers who stand out for work in our community.
I've covered several events for VMBC including awards ceremonies, open-houses and the opening of their office in Caledon, ON. Besides the good work they do for the community, I have always been eager to support them for my own personal reasons. When I first came to Canada, I was able to find two volunteering opportunities through their database – one as a volunteer teacher, and another doing grants research for VMBC. Now that I'm more established, I still donate my time and energy to them in the form of my photography.
Last Sunday, I went out to capture some more images of the snowy owl from my previous blog post. I spent about five hours freezing in the snow, and getting more than a bit sunburnt, but it was all worth it. Bright sun and freshly fallen snow contributed to a beautiful setting for some spectacular photos.
Photography always takes you to compelling and thought-provoking situations. Recently, I had the pleasure of photographing Perry Monaco (Twitter: @elvisrun / Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/perrymonaco), Strategic Product Specialist for the major social networking site Linkedin, give a talk on how best to leverage his employer's network to more effectively search for jobs. The location was the sleek Bay Adelaide Centre on Bay Street in the central core of Toronto. It was a lively talk, with much useful information, given as part of a series for Hispanotech.ca (Twitter: @hispanotech), a non-profit aimed at supporting the Canadian hispanic community in the technology sector.
Photographing events like this is in some ways straightforward documentary photography, but there are definitely challenges. Photographing people in the act of giving a speech requires precision, to ensure you get photographs that show the speaker comfortable and natural, rather than mid-word/mid-blink/mid-gesture. Fortunately, everything seemed to work out, and Mr. Monaco has now updated his Linkedin profile to one of the ones I created at the event.
I ran into my friend, the snowy owl, on Sunday, 2 March. I came back with over 700 photos between two memory cards. I plan to post a full set. This is a special one, though.
So I've needed a photo of myself for my website for a while now. Like many photographers I spend much more time on the business end of a camera rather than in front of it. I knew what I wanted – I've always liked Stanley Kubrick's self portrait that he took in his youth. It has many of the features I like in my own black and white photography: dramatic lighting, deep blacks, a few highlights in the right places, shallow depth of field, and a bit of grain:
Source: http://www.ananasamiami.com/2012/03/stanley-kubrick-self-portraits.html
I don't have a suitable mirror in a suitable place to try to make this shot the easy way, and I really don't like the idea of photographing myself in a mirror if I can avoid it. I tried once before to get this shot of myself using my digital camera on a tripod, while holding a film camera. It's a cumbersome process, mainly due to the shallow depth of field; a few inches one way or another can completely throw off the focus.
Thankfully, this time my wife was willing to help out, and the whole process took less than ten minutes. After getting the right settings on my camera, I could pass it off to her to press the shutter. I used a corner of our basement next to our laundry room. I could get a nice sliver of light by turning on the laundry room light, and adjusting the folding door, or my position, to get the light to hit my face just right.
The next step was the editing. After importing to Lightroom and making some minor adjustments there I opened it up in NIK Silverefex 2.0, which is one of the best programs out there for simulating black and white film. I used the curves tool to bring up the whites, crush the blacks, and a few control points to darken my white walls and bring out the catch lights in my eyes. The last step was to add some simulated film grain and, of course flip the photo horizontally, to give the impression it was taken in a mirror. Final result:
An Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F stands in for a M39 screwmount Leica quite well.
Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time. Working on some information from a good friend, my wife and I decided to track down a Snowy Owl he'd spotted that hunts in Caledon, ON, not too far from our home.
Naturally, I packed a couple camera bodies and lenses, but I knew we'd have to get very close, as the telephoto lenses I have are better suited to creating portraits and landscapes; I don't have or need paparazzi-style super-telephoto lenses. A white bird sitting in a snowy field, a hundred metres away, is just going to be a speck.
As we approached the spot we hoped to find our owl, we saw a parked van; we weren't the first ones to try to catch sight of this bird. The owl was about two hundred metres out in a farmer's field, hunting.
After catching a meal, she flew off, and we followed her to a new post, perched in a tree just on the side of the road.
This was the opportunity I was waiting for. We observed from a distance that she had no fear of cars; several zipped past her, not causing the slightest reaction. Knowing we wouldn't disturb her, my wife maneuvered the car into position, and - with a freezing wind blowing through the open window - I was able to take several photos that really showed her form and grace.
It was such a treat to see this animal in the wild, up close, hunting, going about its routine.
