February IV Photographs

So, hey, remember way back in February when I said I'd post some pictures from Wings of Paradise and Barbers Mill?

Well, its only taken me a month, but here they are.

A few birds

Some butterflies

And the mill

Images are Up

Ah, a weekend to relax, breath...
...and update the galleries.
The images from my West Africa trip are up.
And I've expanded and updated the rest of my galleries.
Check them out.

Image Update!

So I actually updated my image galleries for my Thunder Bay trip.
Updated are the Mammalia, Landmarks & Landscapes, Automobilia, Flora, Insecta, Aves, Waterfowl, Other Fauna, Sculpture Portraits and Other galleries.
I've also updated my flickr with some more picture sets.
Expect even more updates on both my webpage and flickr soon.

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.

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.

Jim Allen

Today I attended a portraiture workshop put on by the one and only Jim Allen. And it was superb. I found Mr. Allen to be immensely enlightening, especially when it came to his keen insights and tremendously thought provoking views about portrait photography and the relationship between the subject and photographer. He also divulged quite a few technical secrets included how to get great contrast through certain lighting arrangements and how to bring out the subjects eyes. I've come away with many concepts that I can't wait to go out and try. Thank you Mr. Allen!

Afterwards, I wandered over to Graffiti Alley to scout it as a location for a future shoot. Overall, it was a great photog related day.

I've added a couple pictures from the alley to the Other gallery, in addition to the ones below.

2008 Road Trip Reflection

Spent some time on the weekend going back through my pictures from my summer road trip out to the east coast.

The following have been updated:
Mammalia
Other
Landmarks & Landscapes
Sculpture Portraits

More HDR Exploration

Continued with my HDR experiments last night.
Still using single pictures with RAW EV adjustments.
Damn the halos and tone reversals.
Actually, I kind of like the halos and think they work well in images of statues of exhaulted figures.

High Dynamic Range

I've started experimenting with high dynamic range images (HDR).
At this point, I'm not doing true HDR images since I haven't completed the first step in the process, which is going out and taking multiple pictures of the same subject at different exposures.
Instead, to recreate the effect, I'm manipulating the RAW files of pictures +/-2 ev to give me the minimum required variations.
It gives new life to photographs that failed due to the high contrast between a subject and its background.
And opens up a whole new world of effects experimentation.
I don't know if I'd consider these true photographs though.
They seem more like graphics to me.
Anyway, here's a sample.

Non-HDR


HDR


I've added some in the following galleries:
Sculpture Portraits
Landmarks & Landscapes
Other

Decorating the tree...

Galleries Update

So hey, I actually updated the galleries.
New images have been added to the Landmarks & Landscapes, Sculpture Portraits and Other galleries.

Rattlesnake Point

Tonight I uploaded some images from yesterday’s Rattlesnake Point trek to the Landmarks & Landscapes and the Other image galleries.