house after sunset

I was asked to photograph a house for a company that makes the wood siding and trim. The sun never hits the front of the house so i decided to try it after the sun set to provide a more even softer light and decided to shoot an hdr to control the sky and the shadow areas. I was somewhat happy with the end product but think i will try again tomorrow night just a little bit closer to sunset as my longest exposure on a 9 frame bracket was something like 15 seconds which was hard to hand hold in minus 7 temperature, kidding.

portrait for politics

I photographed a very nice man in my living room tonight and his personality came through in what i thought were some great shots. I used two lights, one main light in front and to right and one as fill and background light. They were both quite close to him and the power was down quite low. My background light did not always fire as it was being a little quirky tonight. This gave me some nice variety in lighting. Im glad i dont have to narrow them down to one or two keepers as there were 108 shots that got 5 stars in lightroom.

Matt Andersen Concert

I photographed a matt andersen concert recently as a donation to the new brunswick symphony orchestra and i truly enjoyed it. These are a few of many from the evening. You can listen to some of his music at www.stubbyfingers.ca

baseball action

I took a few shots at a senior baseball game tonight and my wife's cousin, or something like that, was playing. Had to of course get a shot or two to send to his parents. I turned the clarity to 100% on this one for the look.

ny hats

Slowly going through photos a little bit each night. Still just scratched the surface

food truck

While i was at the horse race i walked by this food truck a few times and had to take a shot of it. After looking at my photos of New York it kind of fit in, the look of it anyway.

back to new york

I took another quick look through my new york photos tonight and noticed that i did a 5 frame bracket of this scene from the staten island ferry. I chose three of the photos and ran them through photomatix pro. I found it interesting that the police boat with the huge machine gun at its front, follows one ferry out half way and then picks up the other ferry and follows it in.

horse racing

I just happened to be at a horse race this past weekend and thought i would take a few shots. I tried many different angles over the course of about 5 or 6 races and was happy with the variety of angles that i came up with. This shot however had not only the action but also a humorous side, which i always look for.

New York 2

Since i shot over 3000 photos in new york guess what i will be posting here for about the next year. Im kidding of course, mabey. I actually plan to do a couple big posts of my favourites but just need some time to sit and play with them. I shot with a nikon d800 camera and so far am very happy with the results. When you look at this image zoomed to 100% it really shines. It has taken me much longer to love the d800 than it did with the d700. That camera was great out of the box but the 800 really not so much. I am getting to know its personality more every day however and we have become friends.

New York City

The last 5 nights were our families first trip to New York City and we loved it. We did alot and are all very tired so this is just my teaser post as i am heading to bed. I did manage to shoot around 3500 photos however so i will be posting a few here very soon and giving details of the things we liked best including food and sights.

The Spa Club

Over the years i have done many shots for the spa club in fredericton so i can say from experience that they are awesome. Go there and spend some money and you will leave beautiful and happy. For the group photo the lobby was by far the best location. We moved furniture around and quickly placed people as the phone rang, and then rang again. I set up two portable flashes with medium sized umbrellas and shot at f5.6. I tell you this because i should have shot at f8 or f11. I am still getting used to the nikon d800 as i find the depth of field somewhat shallow in comparison to the other nikon cameras. All those megapixels must have something to do with that. I also used a very slow shutter speed to bring up the ambient light and provide more warmth to the background. Because of this i used a tripod, which is very rare for me. I photoshopped it a bit, and then a bit more and placed a vignette on and was finished and also happy.

afterglow

I was very lucky to shoot a great wedding recently on grand lake, NB. I actually was lucky to shoot several great weddings this summer and have one left to go. After 99% of my work was done i wandered down by the lake with my tripod and camera and did a few shots at about a 1 minute exposure. I had shot about 1653 photos, give or take, and it was nice to wind down a bit. I am hoping that my posts become much more frequent now that vacation days have almost run out.

Wedding Party

downtown blues band

I had some fun recently photographing my good friends in the downtown blues band.

New Pet

Obviously i am kidding. This little guy moved onto our deck the night after we bought new patio furniture. He has been the only one that has really used it so far. This shot was taken this morning on his way back to the woods. He's cute and i will miss photographing him in the mornings but i rented a trap today and will hopefully be finding him a new home first thing in the morning.

My Buddy Bob

We just got back from a nice little weekend trip to Portland and Freeport Maine. We had a great time and i had my camera around my neck while Bob and I rode the elevator to the basement in the American Eagle store in Freeport. The light was cool and bob looked up at just the right time. I retouched the elevator wall quite a bit, desaturated, and not much more.

Dominican 2013

We were very glad to have been able to spend a week in punta cana this month. It was the first trip that i took a real camera on as i needed some images for something im working on for this summer. It took me a few days to come up with an idea for the images but luckily i still had time to go with it. I did a bunch of 180 degree panos that made the beach look like an island. This image is actually not one of the ones i plan to use. This one was an hdr pano test. I did three panos all at different exposures and planned to strip them together and then run the images through photomatix. I was able to stitch two of the panos together but the lightest exposure did not work. I ran the two images through photomatix and this is what i got. There were a few troubled areas but really not too bad. I retouched the problems and did a curve for contrast and sharpened and that was it.

spotlight

I had a request this week for an photo of a hockey player named darryl boyce who played for UNB and then went to the Toronto Maple Leafs. This was not the image they wanted but i had shot a few shots of players before the game in the hallway getting ready which i never did anything with. A good idea at the time but then no time to follow through, just move on to the next shoot and repeat. I am glad i found this one however as it was not much to begin with but after 5 minutes or so i was happy with it. It was quite flat and the color was bad, and everything else in the shot was as bright as he was. I started by darkening a new layer and masking him out. A couple curves for highlights and shadows and a bit of sharpening and i was pretty much there. I took out a couple distracting bright objects around him and was done.

Hockey clarity

Thought i would enjoy a couple periods of hockey tonight and took a camera with me just in case i saw a shot or two. I didnt shoot many but got this one which i liked. To get the "look" i just increased the clarity to 100%.

snow day

I shot an event today that there were not many people at. This meant that for images i had to make something out of nothing, or not much. This girl was ready to head down the hill when i yelled to her mom "just a sec". It ended up being about 5 minutes because the video guy was lugging much heavier gear and wanted to go further down the hill than me. So while she sat there and started to get bored i asked her to try and catch some snow in her mouth. I put the falling snow on the darkest background there was around so i would show up and then i took a bunch of shots. She was great and the photos and video both prove it. I was a little worried because my camera was very wet but it dried off well and still seems to be working fine. I am still learning the tricks to the d800 but the one thing that i find seems to be giving me the sharpest images is a fast shutter speed. When i shoot at 1/15 or 1/30 sec, i am not happy with the results. When im above 1/500 then all is well.