It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, mostly because the weather has been so crappy outside, it’s hard to have the chance to take any photos! Here are a bunch of sets, a trip to a Jays game, a phillies hat from Colin, my new Jays hat.. some lilies flowers I bought for Chantelle, a photoset of the ROM! I’m loving my new flash that Chantelle bought for me at christmas.. it does wonders when photographing in low light.. I just have to learn how to use it! Click on the photos to jump to flickr to see the photos!

Raptors Hat

Ever since I came across a random wallpaper site that had a few photos of MLB hats photographed, I’ve always wanted to do so.. and with my latest purchase I decided it was the perfect time to photograph my Toronto Raptors Hat. 3 photos in the set, I love the way it turned out in black and white.

Raptors Game

I went to the Raptors game with my friend Colin.. Our seats were in the 3rd deck, but there aren’t that many bad seats in the place. The Raptors lost, but we got a free slice of pizza pizza out of the game since they scored more than a 100 points.

Mississauga Morning

Just a couple shots of the intersection near my house as I waited for my bus to show up..

xBox 360

The controller to my beloved xBox 360.. not much else to say.. perhaps that xBox 360 is awesome.

Snowy February

Superbowl Party

We had a bbq in my front driveway and a keg. Too bad the Pats lost, good thing we were pretty well off by the time that came around..

Sometimes I just take too many photos and forget to blog them all.. so here you go, 8 new sets of stuff for you to look at…. annnnnndddd….go!

Chantelle Made This - 12_01_2007

December Lilies - 12_01_2007

Non-Denominational Festival Shrub - 12_01_2007

Playing With Light - 11_26_2007

Banana Bread - 11_25_2007

Walk To Work - 11_23_2007

Phone - 11_21_2007

Random - 11_20_2007

Chantelle’s Lab - 11_17_2007

On Saturday Chantelle had to go into work because of an experiment she was working on had to be changed or something something.. (I swear I listen to her, but on this occasion, I usually can’t make out what she says when describing her work).. Anyways, we went down to her office and while she was doing her thing, I did mine…take photos! The office to her was her playground to create, experiment and do science.. to me, it was an amazing place to photograph! All those bottles and tubes! It was great getting a reaction from Chantelle when looking through this set of photos, because to her, she looks at these things all the time, but for me, it was a first to photograph. Take a look through the photos, and next time you see Chantelle, think of this place and strike up a conversation! She doesn’t just do craft, but does all sorts of crazy mad scientist stuff at work.. Compare this to your work office.. it makes my head spin when I think of our new office digs.. or as us interactive folk like to call it now.. ‘the call centre’

The photo above is a ‘centrofuge’.. I think i spelt it correctly.. It spins and makes weird noises.. I liked it because it was fun to photograph, but I think there is a chemistry purpose for it.
Enjoy!

Here are some of my favs:

A-way-back, Chantelle asked if I could write a tutorial about something I do for her site, I said I would, so I’m finally getting around to writing something up for her. My tutorial will be about getting from point A to point B, or in the photography world, the process of taking that awesome photo and the whole editing process.

I guess, you could break down the process into 3 parts. The first probably would be the most important of them all - Perspective. The ability to shift your perspective is the key to taking that unique photo. More often than not, I usually get “I never thought to take a photo of that”, in which I reply “exactly!”. 99% of the photos that I take are of simply random slices of life, or the average / mundane objects. You don’t have to be a professional to take an amazing photograph, but simply have the ability to photograph that one moment or the ability to look at something in a way that you normally wouldn’t. I may get teased by Chantelle that I usually end up taking photographs of chair legs, but most often these photographs end up being the best.

Next up on this tutorial would have to be the equipment. You don’t have to have the most expensive camera, or the fastest computer, but it certainly does help to have the right equipment for the job. A point and shoot can get the job done, but a digital SLR certainly helps. I have found that the camera helps, but the lens is where all the magic happens. Simply going from a stock lens to just one step up helps leaps and bounds in taking photos. I mostly use a 17-85mm lens (I can take photos of stuff close up and at a wide angle at the same time).

Finally, the most tutorial-ish part of my post will talk about the editing process. Going from the image on the left to the image on the right is really easy to do!

Using the right software really helps in the editing process. I use iPhoto as my main editing program, and use Photoshop from time to time. Getting the photo to look just right, usually ends up being a personal preference, with the slightest tweek to get it the way you want. What you want to focus on is adjusting the levels, the saturation and the sharpness of your photo. Moving the levels darker or lighter can totally affect the way a photo looks, just as the saturation of a photo too. The photo on the right has the contrast bumped up, the black levels increased giving the highlights that much more of a focus. Converting a photo to black and white totally changes a photo too!

I didn’t go into that much depth on the whole process of editing a photo, but in a broad general sense, getting from A to B in photography, from my perspective, is more so just that - perspective. Don’t be afraid to take many photos, since it is digital, you can simply erase what you don’t like! The same goes for editing a photo. Sometimes I spend hours editing my photos, or at times only 5 min.. If you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask!

This is a response to Chantelle’s post ‘The Story of my Craft’.

I distinctly remember the first camera that I bought, I still have it somewhere upstairs in a drawer. I was in my second year of my BFA at Western, and decided to enroll into an introduction to media class. I never had used photoshop before, or a camera for that matter. The extent of my photography skills was limited to a point and shoot found at Walmart. The first class we were being divided up into 2 sections, 1 to the computer lab, and the other into the photography section. I was put in the photo section, and the first thing my prof says is for everyone to bring their camera’s next class to start to work on the first assignment… which for me meant having to go to the store and actually buy a camera. This turned out to be from one of my best friend’s Colin’s Dad’s store.. but that’s another story.. Anyways, I had no clue of what to look for, and probably ended up basing my decision on the price, which I attribute to my Finley background. So here I was with my brand new-used Vivitar camera, ready to learn this new trade. I learned all sorts of knowledge, the history of the camera, film and the process of developing black and white film. My love for photography took off from that class, and eventually focusing my 4th year at Western specifically in photography!

The next phase in my story would probably stem from my move to college and the multimedia world. My program at Sheridan - Interactive Multimedia, required us to make a website as one of our final projects.. I wanted to have a photography section on my particular site… which lead me to scanning, cropping, editing the multitude of photos that I had up until then, taken with my old Vivitar camera. Needless to say, it was a laborious task, but I finally ended up having them all into my site. It was this process that I realized that photographing something was just half of my craft, and the whole editing and digital processing was a whole other spectrum that I started to love. So I finally broke down and bought my first digital SLR, a Canon Rebel, and now never have to scan anything ever again!

Looking back, I find it funny that my love for photography all started with a class forcing me to buy a camera. Who knew that taking one class could change everything! Today I have a new digital Rebel xTi, and a newer computer to edit my photos, and don’t go anywhere without my camera.!