Tyrone Mills

Checked out the Purple Woods Maple Festival on Saturday.
Mmm, maple.
We had some pancakes.
And some fudge.
And brought home a litre of syup.
I didn't take many pictures though.
But after the festival, we dropped by Tyrone Mills.
Quite an interesting place.

Added images to the Other gallery.

They're Back

Looks like the birds are returning.







Gotta love spring.
Time to put the EF300F4L to the test.

Added a couple images to the Aves gallery.

New Lens, baby

Friday night I picked up a lensbaby 2.0 and on Saturday I had a chance to try it out.





I love the effect.



Added images to the Aves and the Landmarks & Landscapes galleries.

Simple Equation

Canon 50D
+
Canon 100mm macro lens
+
Kenko 36mm extension tube
=
THIS close to a butterfly's eye.
Nice.



P.S. I've managed to update the Insecta, Aves, Other Fauna, Sculpture Portraits and the Other galleries.

Day Tripping

In one day I managed to use all my lenses, both my cameras, my off camera flash cord, and even my extension tubes. And what single destination had such diverse subjects to require such use?

Niagara Falls.

Our day trip down to Niagara Falls included a stop at the Butterfly Conservatory, which resulted in some interested images thanks to the extension tubes and my macro lens.



That headless shirt is actually me. Apparently, while setting up and taking a shot of another butterfly, I looked like a pretty attractive place to land.

Of course, we stopped to see the falls.



And walked up Clifton Hill.
So who else would utilize his off camera flash cord to take pictures while at Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum?



Yeah, I got some great images...and some odd looks while shooting there.

Finally, we ended up at Bird Kingdom, a massive aviary.
Some birds cooperated...



...some, not so much
Its like he's screeching "no pictures! no pictures!"

I'll be uploading pictures this week to the Insecta, Aves, and the Other galleries.

Blowers Make me Drool

Spent today at Performance World. I love hot cars, especially ones with mean looking blowers bursting through their hoods. So the event was definitely not a disappointment.

I will be adding some pictures from the event to the Automobilia & the Other galleries this week.

Lighting Workshop

A Saturday spent in a classroom is a Saturday lost...
...unless its spent gaining key insights about the art that you love.
Which, for me is the art of capturing images, moments, objects at a certain moment in time...capturing time...taking photographs. And on this Saturday, I did gain some key insights. About light and photography.

I attended a workshop put on by a fellow photographer named Andy Mina. If you picture David Schwimmer mixed with Christopher Walken, you get a pretty good idea of Andy. The workshop covered some basic principles, then focused on off-camera external (non-ambient) light sources and how to effectively utilize them to create desired effects in images. Andy spent half the day sharing his knowledge, then we spent the other half experimenting with what he taught. Overall, it was a great workshop in which I learned and understood more about properly and effectively using light, then I have from all other workshops/sources up to now. Great job Andy!

Results of a few of the experiments:

B&W Portraiture

Experimenting with black and white.
Two images.
Same subjects.
Different styles.
Not sure which I like more.