Just a Canadian curious about the world
Rosa, Lemin and I went to the annual Ottawa Orchid Show, hosted by the Ottawa Orchid Society. Although the ambiance of the Nepean Sportsplex leaves a lot to be desired, the orchids themselves were very beautiful.
Although I don’t have a macro lens, I was able to use my Canon 50mm f/1.4 to get some nice shots.
Today Rosa, Lemin and I went to the Butterflies Go Free (Papillons en Liberté) show at the Montreal Botanical Gardens (Jardin Botanique de Montréal).
The Botanical Garden has a series of long connected greenhouses for their indoors exhibitions. Each contains a different ecosystem, such as tropical, subtropical climates, bonsai trees, deciduous forest and desert. There was also a display of carnivorous plants like Venus Flytraps, Lady’s Slipper orchids and Pitcher plants. Trés Cool!
At each end we’re larger greenhouses (the Main Exhibition Greenhouse and the Fern Greenhouse). The Fern Greenhouse housed hundreds of moths. Some were feeding on orange slices. Most were sleeping, as moths are nocturnal. At the far other end of the was the Main Exhibition Greenhouse containing the butterflies. There were hundreds multi-coloured butterflies flying through the building. I could not get any photos of the butterflies flying, because they darted around too fast and too chaotically. I could only get photos when they were standing on a leaf or branch or eating.
Afterwards, Rosa and Lemin went shopping on Saint Laurent Boulevard. I found a quiet place where I could write.
We met up for dinner at Casa Minhota.
Photos are posted at http://gallery.myredbmw.net/v/Events/Butterflies2012/
This evening was a great night for astronomy, although it was damn cold. I could see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth and Jupiter, five of the eight planets in our solar system.
This past week was the first time I really saw the planet Mercury. I have likely seen it many times before without realizing it. Over the last few weeks, Mercury was at its greatest elongation from the sun, so I made sure that I took time to look for it.
To take the photos, I stayed in my car (motor off) and set my camera on the drivers side door. It was too cold to stand with a tripod while fiddling with the camera settings. I used manual mode.
I am so happy that I took time to do this.
After the MCO Ice Race, I drove to the Ottawa Convention Centre to attend the final evening of the 2012 Ottawa Fashion Week. My goal for the evening was to gain fashion photography experience.
I brought my camera, all my lenses and my flash, which made for a heavy camera bag. I recently purchased a Nissin Di866 MkII flash, but as I had not had time to test it out, I brought my older Canon 430ExII flash.
I arrived at 5:30pm and proceeded to the show floor. Soon after, Rosa and my mother-in-law arrived. We left our coats at the coat check.
Rosa perused at some of the booths. People were selling hats, jewelry and cosmetics. It was not a large space, but it was packed with people. It was an opportunity for everyone to dress up. It was fun to walk through the crowd, checking out everyone.
Most people brought cameras.
After an hour, we were seated in the main hall. We thought we had tickets near the end of the runway, but our seats were actually at the start of the runway – the map on the ticketing web site was not clear. We were seated in the third row, but we were encouraged to move forward to fill the empty seats in the second row.
The lights dimmed and the show started. I had expected an announcer describing the outfits, but only dance music provided audio accompaniment for the show.
The location of our seats was not ideal for taking photos. I could not see the entire outfits (including shoes), and I had to look between peoples’ heads. So I got up and went to the end of the runway where the photographer’s scrum had been set up. I did not have a photo pass; I will ensure I get one for the next fashion show. No one hassled me about not having a photo pass. I was not bothering anyone else and I blended in with the other photographers.
There were about 20 photographers and videographers. Some sat on the floor in the front row, backed by photographers in chairs, and then two wooden risers. The videographers had their tripods and equipment on the top riser.
The fashion show was a great learning experience. There were two challenges to getting good photos.
The first challenge was to get the correct exposure. The runway was brightly lit, and the surface of the runway was highly reflective. My camera struggled to find the right settings because the middle of the frame was very bright, and all the rest of the room was dark. I had to use manual exposure. I overheard the other photographers that they also had to use their lens hood to reduce the glare from the overhead lights.
The second challenge was composition. I was standing behind the top riser, shooting through gaps in the other photographers or around them. If I stood to the side, it was very hard to get shots that included the models shoes. People in the audience leaned in to see past each other and they blocked part of my view.
There were three showings. The first two showings had three designers and the last showing was a charity fashion show for UNICEF. There was a 45-minute intermission between the showings.
For the final session I pushed my way into the scrum. There were fewer photographers than the first two showings. I had better photos. Next time, armed with a photographers pass, I will get better access and better shots.
Rosa and I have been working on a new project over the last few months and now it is ready.
Over our past few vacations, Rosa has been the focus of much attention due to her fashion sense. We try to capture her different outfits when we are our trips, but it was not very systematic.
So we created a new project where I can photos of Rosa’s outfits every day. It also gives me lots of practice fashion shooting. We will try different locations, and I can try different lighting setups.
The web site is now live and available at http://WhatIsRosaWearing.com. We are both very happy to finally launch the site.
Last year Rosa and I attended the Vintage Clothing sale at the Château Laurier. It was a lot of fun, so we made plans to make sure we did not miss it this year.
We dropped off Rosa’s mother Lemin at Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica for the French service and then went to the sale. In the morning it was so crowded. I could barely move around. I stayed only 45 minutes before I left to pick up Lemin. I took her to eat a quick lunch at the RichTree Market in the Rideau Centre then we returned to the Vintage Sale.
There was a little more room to move around. But it still took 10 minutes to find Rosa in the three huge rooms.
I set a special goal this year. Last year, I was so shy I didn’t take any pictures of anyone except Rosa. This year, my goal was to actually talk to people and take pictures. There are so many interestingly dressed people at the show; it should be easy, if only I was an extrovert. Which I am not.
I found by speaking with some of the sellers, that it was not as busy as last year. I found that astounding as I could hardly move around in the morning.
I did talk to a few people. Not a lot but at least a few. It’s hard to overcome my shyness.
Rosa introduced me to a few people that she knew through other events like the Ottawa Fashion week (when I was at Mosport). It was a pleasure to meet Joa and friend. He is from El Salvador and is working in Ottawa ex-pat for a global professional services company.
I was not the only photographer at the show. I was envious that some of them were so at ease with approaching people. A few people stopped Rosa, as she was dressed stylishly as always. Marcia from the blog MarciaBCreative talked with Rosa and the photographer John Smith took her photo.
Rosa and I are looking forward to next year, which will likely be in a different location. I’ll remember get a press or photo pass from the organizer. I have been questioned by the organizer each year I show up with my DSLR camera.
Today, Rosa and I attended the annual Zombie Walk downtown. It started in the east and ended up on the front lawn of Parliament Hill.
We arrived late, so that limited me to only the Hill for taking photos. I would have liked to take some along the walk too. Additionally because of the late afternoon sun, and the desire to avoid the modern city scape as a background, I was very limited in the angles I could use.
I found a spot just inside the gates, where all of the zombies were entering. It was the best I could do, but once settled in, crouching down low, it actually was a pretty good spot. The low vantage point, looking up at the zombies backlit from the setting sun, it gave an ominous feeling.
There were some excellent costumes. One of the most photographed was the zombie of recently deposed and disposed Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. Also of note were the Lego Minifig zombies.
Some other photos from the Zombiewalk are here: http://gallery.myredbmw.net/v/Events/Zombie2011.
I have been spending a long time thinking about a logo for my photography business (Ottawa PhotoWorks). I wanted to make sure it was easy to reproduce and easy to see even at small sizes.
I think PhotoWorks has a kind of industrial or steampunk meaning. So I thought it should be something mechanical. I spent a long time thinking about different options before I settled on a idea to combine the circle of a lens with a gear, to merge photography with the industrial feel.
Next, how to create it?
I started by looking through my own photography examples. I have some photos of gears on a steam train, but it was not easy to extract the content from the background (the train itself). I could take a photo of a lens. But together, it would not look quite right. I looked for samples of lenses and gears at other photography sites. I never found anything like what I wanted.
My next attempt was to look for ways to create from stretch using Adobe Illustrator. I first found a tutorial (http://macmerc.com/adobe-illustrator-tip-simple-gears-using-pathfinder-and-the-star-tool/) on creating gear-shapes. It was very easy to do. I created a gear. I did it twice to find the best size and shape.
Next, I needed a texture to make it look more like a gear. I found a second tutorial to add a brushed metal texture (http://vectips.com/tutorials/create-a-brushed-metal-texture/). It was easy too.
The final tutorial was to create a lens shape (http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/create-an-aperture-style-camera-lens-icon/). This was much more involved, and there was a lot I needed to learn about Illustrator. When I used Illustrator in the past, it was mostly for creating diagrams for charts (dependency diagrams, org charts, software architecture). It took about 2 hours to create the lens.
Finally, I needed to merge the shapes. First I cut the gear in half vertically. I copied this half-gear onto the lens shape. This didn’t work out quite right at first, as the lens was not entirely covered by the gear shape. I had to make another box to create a path that would hide the part of the lens that should be behind the gear. I had to leave a small square in the middle so that the hole in the middle of the gear would show more of the lens.
All together, this project took most of an afternoon. I played the (Blu-Ray) documentary “The Wonder of It All” on my PC while I was creating on the MacBook Pro.
Over the summer, I was hired by a local family dentistry office to provide photography services. It was my first professional photography job. I was nervous of course, but was determined not to show it.
I rented the Canon EF-S 10-22mm so that I would have enough width to capture a dental office when there is not a lot of room. I was also concerned about the lighting, but in fact the office was very bright with big windows letting in natural sunlight.
I held two sessions at the office. The first session was to capture some of the basics of the rooms, equipment, and the staff. The second session had specific goals to capture. All of the participants signed model releases of course. As some of the models were children, this is even more critical.
The photos will be used on the web site, Yellow Pages and some advertising. The contract covered copyright, usage, and delivery mechanisms. I spent nearly a week researching pricing to ensure that I was within the correct range for photography.
The client was pleased with the results and so was I. I hope this leads to many future opportunities. As the web site is not active yet, I haven’t included a link.
I spent a long time thinking about a name for the business. I didn’t want to use my last name, as many people don’t know how to pronounce it. I eventually settled on Ottawa Photoworks. I had envisioned a sort of steampunk or industrial feel to it without being about a specific genre of photography (i.e. “Bob’s Cat Photos, Inc.”). It provides opportunities for a logo too. I want something simple to reproduce, even at small resolution, but easy to understand.
Today I participated in a model workshop in Gatineau Park. It was organized by Denis Duchesne. I found out about the workshop through the RA Photo club.
We met a parking lot near the Mackenzie King Estate. There were three models and about ten photographers. We split into groups of two or three photographers and a model. I joined one photographer, Steven, and our model for the morning was Tania. We started with some simple posing in a clearing, and learning to use Steve’s huge reflector/diffuser.
After about 30 minutes, Denis gathered us together and went through some of his own images on his iPad, and talked about the use of social media. Seeing the photos on his iPad made me want to buy an iPad on the way home. After the discussion, we broke into the groups again.
Tania changed into one of her outfits. The three of us went up the nearby steps and on to a forest path and started shooting. Tania is great to work with. She is beautiful and fun to work with.
I noticed a stone bench a short way off the path, so we tried that for a while. Tania changed outfits again. We used Steve’s huge reflector to bounce a sun beam into the scene. It was meant to fill the shadows. Visually it looked great, even on the back of my camera. However when I downloaded all the photos to my computer this evening, I could see that it was too strong – it created upward facing shadows that looked unnatural. We should have used a feathering – bouncing the light so that only the edge of it is reflected at the model. This would reduce the harshness of the light.
For lunch, we walked up to the MacKenzie King Estate. I brought a lunch of cold pizza (my favourite). Others bought hot dogs from the BBQ there.
After lunch Steve and I joined Jennifer, our next model. We were working areas along another path, including a huge fallen tree and a stream. As with the morning, we were using Steve’s 6-foot bounce, but this time we also tried to use it as a diffuser panel holding it high in the air above our head to soften the early afternoon sunlight on Jennifer. It was hard to hold it up for very long.
Looking at the photos of Jennifer, we were much better at feathering the light in the afternoon. The light we created was more balanced.
I need to work on my posing the models and visualizing what I want. I had hoped to learn about that during this workshop, but I was actually stressed and unsure what to ask for.
I will take more workshops in the future.
I also felt that my nervousness was being reflected from the models. I’m sure I had a terrified look on my face, even hidden behind the camera. I don’t yet have the confidence I need. And I continue to find my style. Looking at the selects from the day, my favourites were the close-up head shots. If those are the ones that turned out the best and those are the ones I like the most, then I should continue to refine and explore that realm of portraiture.