Photos for August 20–26, 2017

I liked the multiple layers and patterns in this scene. There's the door frame, the tree shadows, the tree highlights, and the faint shadows from a distant streetlight. 

It was eclipse day and these little half moons were everywhere. It was great taking a cereal box and turning it into a pinhole viewer too.

The partial eclipse viewing was exciting, but it also reminded me about the basics of photography and optics. 

I tried using an s-curve composition for this photo. I think it may have been more effective to take a few steps to the left to show a larger portion of the pathway. 

I went out around golden hour instead of after sunset this week. It was interesting seeing the usual spots in new light (literally).

I'm exposing for the sky here which is making dark silhouettes in the foreground. I found the car roof worked in a similar way as exposing reflected light on water. 

More silhouettes against a gradated sky. These photos don't mean much as one-offs, but they work well in a series of related images. 

I tried some more product photography this week. The lighting setup was quick and there's definitely room for improvement, but I'm happy about the background fading away. 

A quiet street corner at night. I love how the elements in this picture peek out of the dominantshadows. 

Stained glasses windows and the maintenance door of a church. I liked the tension between the elegant stained glass and the messy behind-the-sceneslook. 

I fit in a drone flight on the weekend. I'm trying to get a few more flights in before it starts getting too cold to fly. I'm slowly learning the different kinds of drone shots (or tropes, cliches, etc.) and I've found it productive to not get caught up in trying to be original yet.

I purposely left my mirrorless camera at home and went out at night with my iPhone instead. I wasn't sure how the photos would come out with the low light situation, but I found that manually dropping the exposure produced clean images. 

I used a manual camera app for iPhone called Halide to shoot in raw, adjust exposure, and adjust focus. 

Photos for August 13–19, 2017

It wasn't until I brought this week's photo collection together that I realized the dark trend. 

It rained one night this week which made for lovely reflections on the pavement. In this photo I tried being intentional about the interesting mixed light situation from last week.

I missed my chance for a photo this day but I still carried my camera around the house in the evening looking for a photo. The light from the TV made for interesting addition to a common scene around the home. 

I love using spot metering to expose for the evening sky and capturing anything in the foreground as a silhouette. 

I'm trying my best to stick to the photo every day habit in August. Despite a busy night and seemingly uninteresting subject matter, I made an effort to find a photo. 

This photo walk happened late at night with strong winds. I could feel the anxiety that Robert Adams described. At any moment, a sound in the distance can conjure a feeling of dread, but it's all part of the excitement. And I found a classic car—it couldn't get better. 

This particular street didn't have a sidewalk so I walked down the middle of the road. I loved the canopy of trees with the streetlights dotting the way forward. When it's this late at night, the roads are quiet and the traffic is rare. 

I was happy with the simplified subject matter of this photo. It's a photo of willows, a streetlight, and a car. I always wonder how photos with contemporary cars will age though. Will these cars look classic in a few decades? 

There was a better photo here but I missed the opportunity. I walked by and noticed the door of the car and screen door of the home open. The whole scene was dramatic. I was about to lift the camera to my eye but I noticed someone rustling around in the back seat of the car. I already feel like a creep walking around taking photos at night, and capturing someone in this vulnerable position made me feel bad. 

Repeating this same walk multiple times has given me a new appreciation for the things I normally pass by. The streetlights make the light glisten like water on the leaves. 

Photos for August 6–12, 2017

I used to keep as much detail in the shadows as I could but this held back interesting positive/negative shape relationships. Eventually I realized it's alright to let things disappear into black. 

I took this accidental photo while running one day. I loved the motion blur and colours (likely a byproduct of the forest fire smoke). 

There's haven't been many thunderstorms this summer so I was excited to finally see some lightning in the sky this week. I set up my tripod and started taking 30 second exposures at f/22 until I captured some lightning. 

I have a small series of “gas stations at night” photos. I love the little beacons of light set against a plain backdrop. 

There are two gas stations along my typical photo walk route so it's easy to see what's up at both. 

I was interested in the mixed light temperatures in this scene. I need to experiment with this more. 

I see photo opportunities while driving but I rarely pull over to take them. This project is encouraging me to park the car and make the photo. Unfortunately, they're usually failures because I'm looking in the distance with a telephoto eye which makes the 35mm lens unsuitable. 

I used to take food photos for my girlfriend's blog. They were always amateur, but it was still fun. When I saw this beautiful assortment of pastries and baked goods I had to try again.

This is environmental portrait around golden hour in Vancouver. I was using the balcony door as a frame within a frame. One trick I learned is to temporarily crop in tight on the bright areas of the photo and adjust the photo until the histogram shows a proper exposure. Then I reset the crop and bask in a properly exposed subject and a naturally darkened frame. 

I was thinking of a story from Understanding Exposure—likely the most useful photography book I own—when I took this photo. The author is a self-described “very specific time of day” photographer. He described the light between 11–3 as poolside light, because that's where you'll find him—sitting by the pool. Now I also happened to be at a pool so this photo was a subject matter and light challenge. 

Luke Beard takes some of the nicest photos of cocktails (and food) I've seen. I'm trying to channel him here, but the photo ended up looking a bit flat and dull. (The drink was good!)

This sunset was dramatic. I've been watching the photographers I look up to closely and, unsurprisingly, noticed they rarely take pictures of a sunset. What they do instead is find an interesting subject and make a photo of it at sunset. I think this one still falls into “sunset photo” territory, but I'll get there. I'm also trying to figure out a series name for these photos from my balcony. My girlfriend recommended “Balcony Shotz” but that's been taken over by people drinking booze on their balcony already. 

Photos for July 30–August 5, 2017

August is a bittersweet month for me. Reality sets in, summer no longer feels endless, and the threat of winter looms (autumn barely exists where I live). With photography demanding more effort in winter, I addressed the dread with an August photos project. The goal: bring my camera (preferably the mirrorless one) everywhere and take a photo every day. In addition to simply taking more photos, I'm trying to explore subject matter and types of photography that are outside of my comfort zone. 

I started a monthly project for two reasons. Firstly, I hope this turns into a habit and I continue bringing my camera everywhere (the iPhone will do, but I really should bring the mirrorless considering how portable it is). I really mean everywhere too. I brought it to the grocery store this week. Secondly, a yearly project is a monumental commitment and I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I want to develop a sustainable photography habit I can continue with. 

When I was planning out the Sunday drive I wanted to stop at Siksika 146 and visit the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park. I'm working through an online Indigenous Canada course so seeing some of the places in real life adds more to the education. 

The centre is closed on weekends so we had the surrounding trails around the river valley to ourselves. 

Our destination for the Sunday drive was Bassano Dam. A few families lined the riverbank, fishing and swimming in the Bow. 

On the way home we saw a Rolls-Royce on the highway. I tried a frame within a frame technique instead of pressing the camera up against the glass. 

Levi always falls asleep on drives. The light coming in through the window created strong geometric shapes and I tried to emphasize them by underexposing the interior of the car. 

Part of bringing a camera wherever I go in August means more running photos. The daytime heat in midsummer is intense so sometimes I run at night. The Peace Bridge is always impressive and attracts Calgarians and tourists alike. 

As part of the “bring a camera everywhere in August” thing, I'm also trying to bring my mirrorless camera more places instead of relying on my iPhone. Rain was on my shot list for August and this photo captured the mood of the drive home perfectly (Mazzy Star was playing in the car). 

Part of the August photos project is shooting in ways I'm not comfortable with. I watched a few videos on lighting glass and liquids and wanted to give it a try. I didn't have much of the equipment they used in the video, but I did have a diffuser which helped soften the light and remove hard shadows. Some improvements I'd like to make: softer reflections in the glass, larger depth of field (does the cap need to be out of focus?), and more liquid in the bottle. But hey, this stuff is tasty. 

Summer Nights, Walking by Robert Adams is one of my favourite photo books and I tried to emulate the style while walking one night this week. I went out around 10:30pm but I think these photos would be even more successful after midnight. 

Something I didn't realize about the Summer Nights, Walking book until much later was the anxiety in some of the photos. The photos aren't all about innocence, quiet suburbs and warm nights. 

I love how the repetition turned out in this one. The road branches, and on one side is the streetlight and on the other side is the the moon. I recognize the luck in this photo. The moon isn't always in this position and it's an essential part of this photo. 

I take many, many photos of my cat, but they're almost always snapshots. So for Pawpaw's second birthday I decided to spend a bit more time setting up the environment so I could make a photo instead of take a photo. 

Photos for July 16–22, 2017

The soft ombre sunsets were caused by forest fires in BC which produced smoke spreading into Alberta. I gave Filmborn a try this week and enjoyed the colours. I also love the limited selection of film emulation options in the app. VSCO's filters are a little too intense for my tastes now and I have way to many to scroll through 

I have a long way to go in aerial photography but I'm enjoying the learning process. This is the street where I grew up. I'm really interested in how a simple change in elevation made a familiar place brand new again. 

Photos from July 9–15, 2017

When hiking, one of the biggest photography challenges for me is making photos that work in mid-day light. Partial cloud cover helps soften the shadows. 

I love Saul Leiter's work with glass. The smeared colour in the photographs make them look more like paintings. This experiment wasn't successful, but it did make me go back and examine how Saul Leiter used glass to his advantage. 

Epic sunset and light after a storm. I exposed for the sky which put most of the foreground in complete shadow. 

Experiments with coloured light. Blue is a powerful, vibrant colour on screen. 

Part of the goal of these blog posts is about finding ways to make photos that look unlike my other photos. Panning, motion blur, and black and white made that happen in this one. 

I was noticing a trend in my photos where I was centring the subject of my photo in the frame. This made for a bland composition when dealing with landscape or portrait aspect ratios. However, I've found centring works great for square aspect ratios. I'm trying to be more intentional about my usage of the rule of thirds again. 

The Bow River in south Calgary. I'm limited to taking JPGs in my aerial photos so I've had to be more aware of the dynamic range. My “big” camera is extremely forgiving, especially when shooting raw, so this is a nice reminder to double check the exposure.