What is still life? It was our photography club’s monthly challenge. None of the club members were all that taken with it as a forté. But we stretched our wings and tried to expand our still life based horizons. To me, still life lives in a macro/normal 24-70 range. Too wide and it’s a landscape shot, too close and it’s full blown macro. Hehehehehh….. 
oh well. We’ll eventually figure out this still life thing. These are my still life shots. Wee bit of tonal post production.
I still love Macro Photography. Always will. There is no bigger bang for your buck than a macro lens. EVER! It’s so fun and enjoyable getting up close and personal to the tiny world. But it also takes some rockin’ portraits too. I love the extra bokehlicious num-nums I get when I use this lens. As the sun was sneaking away again for another night, I ran out to get some blossom photos. The kids were playing, it was loads of fun. The light was soft and directional. It was indeed a beautiful evening. Then, my dog rolled in cow crap in the back pasture and ruined the whole night. Sigh. 
We went for a little adventure today that was close to home. Newborns have a way of halting any and all progress in life. heheheeh… So we grabbed the GPS and went to do a little geocaching. If you’ve never heard of geocaching before, its a high tech treasure hunt using satellites and the internet to locate caches hidden by other people. It’s a super fun, low-cost family activity. We found five caches today and got to see some pretty cool places up in the Moose Mountains and around Kenosee lake. The majority of the caches we found were at old one-room schools. It was neat to drive into the middle of nowhere and bam, there’s a school were oodles of kids went years ago. They’ve become the haunts of birds and coyotes now (and nerds with GPS units). The last site was in a beautiful open field where we had a picnic and nabbed some photos of the kids. I had a flash with me so we put it to good use in the middle of some dandelions. All in all a super fun day!
EDIT: Here’s the video we made from the day!
Been swamped lately with all manner of this that and the other thing. Not the least of which was meeting my newest niece yesterday in Grenfell. Ruby Ann was welcomed was welcomed with open arms by her whole family. We got some cool photos from the shoot but I’m keeping them in the vault for my in laws. Pria has 6 week up on her but you’d never tell. Check out the SxS photo on the blanket! Ruby out weighed her by a bunch so she’ll have to eat her wheaties! heheehehh… :cool:
But Pria’s been taking lessons from Ethan so she’s more than unto the challenge! heheheheeh…
Pria Bravo!
Bob King is the King of Bobs. His majesty visited the humble town of Oxbow for a little concert on 05/05/2012. I like sandwiches, sandwiches are fine!
Pregnancy usually is impromptu isn’t it? The kin folk were in town last night for Ethan’s b-day party, part deux. My sister in law is due any time now and we hadn’t done any maternity photos at all so we braved the horde o’ wood ticks and nabbed these impromptu shots. The rim light makes it look like we shot the photos at sunset, but it was scummy overcast and cold. We had fun anyways. 
Plus it was a scavenger hunt to find the wood ticks afterwards. *shudder* 
Spring is springing, the blossoms are blooming and the butterflies are flying! :cool: Exciting stuff. At lunch I noticed these butterflies swarming around like my brother at an all you can eat buffet. I grabbed the macro lens and went to town. It was awesome! Later I identified them as Vanessa atalanta - Red Admiral butterflies. The sun was high so everything was nice and contrasty and colour rich. Boo ya!
Ok! At long last, here is flowerpot’s baby story. I put some video clips together and incorporated some still images too. I LOVE the thumbnail that YouTube chose for the video. Bwawhahhahaa… Regan’s face = “Whatchoo talkin’ bout Willis?!” 
Also, here are some of her baby photos I’ve been working on but I still have some more that I want to take but haven’t had the chance just yet.
Keep reading for my rant on newborn photography or just stop here and enjoy the media! Read the rest of this page »
Bokehlicious! It’s a term blatantly stolen from DigitalRev TV presenter Kai. Bokeh, that lovely Japanese word for “the stuff not in focus in the image” is awesome. Normally we think of big apertures like f/1.4 or f/2 to get amazing bokeh in an image, but you can squish a background with a long telephoto lens and get a similar result. I shot this self portrait (mainly because it’s infested with wood ticks back there and nobody else would go as my subject) tonight as the sun was beginning to get low and directional. It was super cloudy so it was diffused nicely. I put a speed light on a stand camera left and shot it through a Lumiquest Softbox III light mod. It’s a sweet little modifier. I mainly wanted that new growth poplar behind me to go into bokehlicious heaven. And I think it did nicely for being shot at f/5.6 @ 270mm (which on my DX Nikon actually is like 405mm)! All you get is a background that goes smooshy and gooshy, like a painter’s canvas. Certainly, this would have been even more pleasing had I shot the photo at f/2.8 or f/4. But even at 5.6 I like it! I just love that green bokehlicious background!
In the pub “Bobby’s Place” in Moose Jaw, there are his and hers bathrooms like in any other public house. However, in Bobby’s the doors are labeled “Laddies” and “Ladies”. I watched for over an hour as woman after woman went through the “Laddies” door! bwahahaah… They all came out with the same shock & awe embarrassment face! . . . That little anecdote has nothing to do with this blog post other than it’s about Macro Photography of Lady Bugs. Sorry for the red herring. Anyways, nabbed these shots of this lady bug today. Everything is super saturated in colour from the rain and dark cloud lighting conditions. I love the textures and the colours in these shots. The lady bug stands out like Shaquille O’Neil in Alameda.
