photos, photos, and more photos

So I have been buys doing photos, photos and more photos in an effort to get caught up on the 1000’s of photos that I am behind. I have gotten a good start on them, yesterday and today I finished the Andrea shoot, the engagement photos and the better part of my full day drive in the country that I had a while ago . I have even started to look at the Vancouver pictures. I am so getting on top of my game and I owe it all to a new program that I got with my new camera. I am refereeing to Canons Digital Photo Professional. This a program that you can only get when you own a 1D, 1Ds or a 1D Mark II and it is amazing. It is the sole reason that I am finished the Andrea shoot so quickly. Good times but it doesn’t work with the Canon 10D's version of Raw so I still have to do those files the old way. So enough chatter and on with the show

The Country Drive

Vancouver

Andrea

Andria

These are some shots from last weeks session with Andrea. The make up was done by her friend and makeup artist Alison
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The Swifty's

I am getting sick. It is that sleepy groggy feeling that is accompanied by a really sore throat and the distinct smell of cigarettes. I am not kidding when I get sick all I can smell is cigarettes, It is funny cause I always get the really sore throat after going to the bar and hanging out in the in the smoke. I think there may be a connection. I need to have a good sleep to get over it but they are doing all kinds of construction in the space beneath us so sleeping during the day, not so good. But enough of my whining and complaining.

I am at work right now (you knew that thought because that is the only time that I blog) but I only am here for a few hours. Yesterday I had a photo shoot with The Swifty’s a country band from here in Edmonton. They picked me up and we drove all over the countryside trespassing on different farm sites and what have you. I have a few great shots from the day like this one

Other then that I have been working like a dog to finish the wedding and engagement shoots that I have had and trying really hard to get the photo shoot that I had with Andrea finished and out. Maybe after I get home tonight. :)

Oh and how is the new font size working for ya D?

Stupid People

So I have been a busy beaver I tell you. I have been working a bit more the normal this last week, I have been tiring to get this wedding finished, I had an Engagement shoot That I also need to finish, and I have been working with a new model. All taking up a lot of my time which results in me not blogging :) So here I am at work blogging as per usual, you know firing down random thoughts while I am interrupted by callers both on the work phone and my cell phone. I am very sleepy I think the plan is that we are going to go to a bar and watch duke’s band tonight I just told Miranda That I wanna get drunk to which she replied ok whatever. The truth of the matter is that I will end up having one beer and complaining about how I am tired and I wanna sleep. I am such an old man sometimes :) I was going to have a photoshoot with Swiftys tonight but that has been postponed till Monday. Ya nap when I get home :). Miranda and I are planning on going to Calgary & Banff next weekend for a minitrip. We actually used to go to the mountains all the time but my job last summer kinda prevented us from going out on weekends, and we haven’t really gotten back into it since. So this will be a lot of fun I think a nice break anyway :) I am super excited to spend a day in Calgary again. There was a lot of things that I hadn’t had the chance to see the last time I was there and this would be a great time to revisit :) well as long as it inst snowing as it is supposed to this weekend stupid Alberta Weather (insert your I think Alberta sucks ass comments here) Not to mention this is the perfect time to drive to Banff it is pre crazy tourist season but it is still all right time to be there :) Things don’t get much better then that. I am thinking that we will have to do a lot of stuff this summer before we go to Van next year cause in not so long these great Alberta sites and sounds will be gone from reach oh shit I forgot the sarcasm tags < sarcasm > These great Alberta sights and sounds are going to gone from reach < / sarcasm > Actually all sarcasm aside I wouldn’t mind firing down to Drumheller and checking it out one more time before we leave Alberta perhaps this summer if the weather is nice one week of my weekends.

People cant Count in Alberta If I ask you for your ten digit telephone number would the correct answer be
A: 555-8741
B: 8658
C: hi my Name is bob from Milllit
D: 780-555-5457

I am going to do a little study I think where I count the number of people that give me stupid comments to questions and see what the numbers are.

All things funny pale in comparison

Thank you Darren I have been checking the Space Moose site weekly, always hoping for them to be online again. All is now better in the world.

Space Moose

Funny people

So here I am in Queen Donair again waiting for some food. I think that we really need to buy some groceries some time soon. But till then I am having lunch/supper & listening to some crazy suit guys talk about the mob in vegas and other crazy suit guy type talk. It is good times. Oh now they are praising the wit and fore-sight of Don Cherry. :)

Here is some photos of an old car

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Well it is now Sunday and here I am spending what would be a fantastic and warm spring evening inside a stuffy cubical with the whirring of computers tapping of keyboards and the drone of white noise generators. Yup you heard right! White noise generators. You see large corporations bring in these experts to their offices to make the noise level not so loud, and they do this by installing a device that will sit and murmur to its self to drown the other noises in the office. Weird stuff, but I guess that they work though I have been told. So I am super stoked about the print that is going to be on display at the art gallery, I know that there is also ninety nine other photos that are going to be on display that the gallery as well but that in know way makes me less stoked about it. I am going to shamelessly plug it now and encourage every one to waddle they way down to the art gallery and see it and the 99 other photos, but to also vote on mine. I have no idea what the prizes are for being the audience choice as it were but it would be to cool to win.

On another note I had an engagement session with a prospective bride and groom today. We went to the legislature grounds and wandered about for a while it was a lot of fun. I realized that even engagement shoots are a lot of fun. I love taking photos and tiring different things with different people. The fun is in that everyone is different and has their good and bad faces that both creep in for a moment and then are gone. It is these good face moments that you have to catch and they are quicker then you can imagine. The fun of it is learning to anticipate the movements of people and being ready to capture the moments that are there, It is putting them into the correct scenarios and settings to have them naturally come to there own good faces and then be there to grab them. I kinda think that is like being a pick pocket (not that I am or ever have been one) you have to see opportunity and with quick and fluid movements you grab the picture/wallet. No I am sure that this all sounds hookey and what have you but it is so true. It is the same as street photography you shoot and you watch and you look like a fool wandering around with a camera to your eye but man o man it is so unbelievably fun. It is getting to be nice weather again (our second spring you might say) so I am hoping that there is more and more people on Whyte ave. Cause I really wanna start shooting more street shots of crazy consumers and hippies and random drunkards all squeezed in to a small space. It will be fun. I am thinking that I may try shooting some night photography of the bar yahoos on Whyte ave on a Saturday or something.

I have been here for almost 2 hours and I have taken four calls, you wanna know what else is really cool about days like today? I am making around a 180 bux to do this. Man O man I love Sundays.

So I have been here like 4 hours now and I am getting on average a call every half hour :) You do the math. So I have caught up on a few things and I am kicking ass on Defend your Castle (A flash game.) Now I am going to sort my email and work on a few other things :) 180 bux to do what I would normally be doing. Maybe I will read some indecline w00t!

My week

So it has been some what of a long week when I wasn’t furiously going though photos and what have you tiring desperately to get caught up, I was busy making advertisements. We procured some great ad space in the upcoming issue of Wedding Bells which is the premiere magazine to get if you are getting married which makes it the premiere magazine to be advertising in for weddings. So that should be showing up in the next issue.

On a less businessey note I submitted this photo

to the Edmonton Art Gallery for there upcoming 100years/100 pictures exhibit. So I got a letter this week that says My photo was accepted for the show. It will be hanging up in the Edmonton Art Gallery June 5 - September 19. I am so excited

On to other photos from the week

This is a shot of one of the Government Buildings at the Legislature

Camera: Canon 1D Mark II
ISO:50
Shutter: 1/250 sec
Aperture: F/4
Focal length: 28mm

Camera: Canon 1D Mark II
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/160 sec
Aperture: F/8
Focal length: 52mm

lunch

So I’m waiting for my food at Queen Donair down the street from our studio, & taking a well needed break from the plethora of photos that I have done nothing but work on today. I really like this crazy place, they have awesome burgers and fantastic onion rings & there is a high probability that you won’t get anything that you actually ordered, but the surprise is nice. It is good times indeed. That is not mentioning the crazy people's bus stop that is right out side the window. Good times But I am going to go for a wander for an hour or so. I will talk more later maybe post a photo or two.

Vespa

Yup its a Vespa! I figured with all my talk of late about them I should post a photo.

Taken in Vancouver

I am sleepy

I was up till 3ish last night getting a handle on the 1000’s of photos that I am behind on. When I say thousands I mean that for real, for example the months of March April and May has net me over 4700 exposures from various things and I haven’t even begun to go though the most of them. This new camera has increased the number of shots that I am taking as well so I am going to be bloody screwed if I don’t get on top of things. I am still tiring to get cd’s out to models that I had in February and I haven’t even looked at the shots form Vancouver (we have been back for almost a month) I have no idea how to make things go faster, I am going though these photos as quickly as possible I am using two computers and working on two files at a time and still way behind :) oh well I don’t have a blog so I can bitch and moan. Maybe I will get a third and forth computer and set them all up and work on a whole bunch of files at the same time. :) I can be the hyper super photo editing man :) It would be good times. Any way I am at work right now But I am almost done for the day so I will sign off with this photo.

No story or anything it is just a photo from an alley near my home. taken with the new camera :)

Yesterdays walk abouts

Today after work I went out and About and grabbed this shot. It is from the Muttart Conservatory (for those not in the know it is a bunch of glass pyramids that have different types of exotic plants in them.)

Yup it was taken with the new camera (the one that I am learning to love more and more everyday)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Shutter Speed - 1/400
Aperture – 3.5
ISO Speed - 50
Lens - 28.0 - 80.0 mm
Focal Length - 28.0 mm

Sunsets & Power lines

These are shots from a couple of days ago shot with the new Canon 1D Mark II.
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We had some time to kill because the wait for a table was about an hour at the New Joey tomatoes So we drove about and grabbed photos this a neat setting that I am eager to experiment with some more Perhaps some really long night shots.

Colour and form

Not much happened today I worked this morning so that was the better part of my day. After work Miranda and I drove about looking for something to take photos of and although we didn’t find much there were these experiments into colour and shape. This is actually a car that was beside ours in a parking lot.

The truck in the bush

Today I hauled my ass out of bed at when ever Miranda told me to and I drove her to work and decided that I would turn today into a photo wander (well really it was a photo drive because I have been a little under the weather) so I started driving with no real destination in mind and by 10 O’clock I had covered most of the east and south sides of the city all without even clicking a shutter. Did I mention that I am so tired of this town, and all its bland and mediocre sights and sounds? (my vespa and I are going to have good times in Vancouver I tell ya) so I started to head out of town on all the back roads I ended up in Leduc were I grabbed some food and went to sit at the airport waiting for planes to land or take off after a while I got tired of waiting and took off down more back roads. I drove all day with out even realizing it I made it to Pigeon Lake via gravel back roads. But the best photos of the day came from this farmyard on the east side of the 2.

This is a shot from an old truck that was in the bush at this nice woman farm. You see I pulled over by this scrape yard of old trucks and combines and started taking pictures when a woman who turned out to be the owner of the place pulled up in her car and asked what I was up to. After explaining that I was a photographer and that I liked to take pictures of old stuff she said well we keep the best stuff over close to home. Get in you car and follow me. So I did just that. And what was close to home was this tuck. This was a truck that her father had bought brand new in 1941 for the grand price of $5000 (much to his wife’s dismay I was told) she told me about how they considered a truck like this to be a larger truck and therefore required a different license kinda like a class one now. But they didn’t give out licenses as we know them now for the class one; they gave lapel pins that would denote your license to drive. You had to wear the pin while driving and renew the pin every year. I grabbed a bunch of photos and she said that she had to go but I was free to wander the yard at will and she was gone. And wonder I did.

The New Camera

So the first real impressions of the Canon D1 Mark II are thus far unbelievably fantastic. The Images are crisp and sharp the amount of detail in all areas of the photo is unbelievable. When you open the files you can immediately see the improvement over 10D’s photos. There is an understandable improvement over a 10D shot because of the new and larger sensor but this was a far bigger improvement then I had anticipated. The sharpness of some of these shots is incredible & it is even apparent with my crappatty crap 28-80 lens. (The Lens that has almost gone out the window a few times) photos seem to be crazy sharp regardless of the lens or the type of shot (as long as they are in focus of course). The five or six different colour profiles that the camera has are wonderful as well. It has, in addition to the different standard colour profiles, (sRGB and Adobe RGB etc...) a couple of different high saturation profiles that bring out the colours so they are bright and vibrant like I was using slide film. The viewfinder is so much bigger and brighter then any other camera that I have used (Much like the 1Ds I hear) and the smaller 0.3X multiplier is an unbelievable difference as compared to the 10D.
The higher ISO’s are clear and fairly useable, they are still crazy grainy when you get up to 3200, but the ISO’s around 400 and 800 seam to be very nice and for the most part grain free. The grain that does exist looks more like film grain then the easily recognizable digital grain. It is all and a all a fantastic camera. I am very very very pleased.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Shutter Speed - 1/50
Aperture - 5.6
ISO Speed - 400
Lens - 28.0 - 80.0 mm
Focal Length - 69.0 mm

Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Shutter Speed - 1/80
Aperture - 5.6
ISO Speed - 400
Lens - 28.0 - 80.0 mm
Focal Length - 66.0 mm

Down with Keegans

Well here it is Tuesday and I am getting around to blogging. It would seem that I only blog at work these days. I have discovered that since I stopped frequenting Keegans as much the blogging went down significantly. I think that I am going to finally put an end to the beloved Keegans. The place just isn’t the same. I think that Donna quit, and they have unhooked all the plug ins that are in the place because of us freeloading degenerate laptop users. Darrel has hired all the grumpiest and bitchiest waitresses that I have ever seen. (and with all my years in coffee shops has shown me many a bitchy waitress) So I think it may be time to look for something new. There is many place that one can choose from but there is not a lot that are 24 hours. There is the Humpty’s (Shudder) and we have already tired that. There is Naked on Jasper, but other then that there is not much except the bars and what not. Does anyone else know of anywhere that is 24 hour in Edmonton? The thing with Keegans is I feel so betrayed. I have been dragging people there for as long as I have been in Edmonton, much to there dismay, I may add. I held all our cast meetings there and drug a shitload of people from work to do after work coffee. Not to mention that I have probably spent more money there then any other single place ever in my life. (I know that is sad) but alas all good things come to an end. Any suggestions form out there in blogger land.

So this weekend, we shot this wedding and had a meeting with another couple. I think that this wedding thing although very stressful is a good thing. It helps pay for things like the New Camera (I felt like Bob barker when I typed that A NEW CAR !!!! Man that guy is funny.) Yup you heard right I got a new camera. It became apparent that we need at least two cameras for these weddings and as apposed to buying another 10D we (Well really it was I) decided that it would be best to get a Canon 1D mark II

Uber nice camera with a uber nice price tag. It is so unbelievably fantastic that I am at a loss for words. I am going to do a bit of a write up about the camera later on after I have had a good chance to go though it thoroughly but as it stands right now it is freaking awesome.