Project365 - City at Night

Introduction

We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I love living here, and equally I love showing it off ! I am proud of the city itself, and the people who live here. The city's catch-phrase is "The Spirit of the New West". I hope that some of these photographs capture that feeling !

 

The Photographs

Calgary is a remarkably photogenic city. Everywhere you look, there is something noteworthy to capture !

 

 

Nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, the city is well-serviced with parks & public walkways. For a city at the edge of the Prairies, there are trees everywhere !

Calgary is situated at the confluence of the Bow & Elbow Rivers. There are many bridges throughout the city. This one crosses into the downtown core.

The Langevin Bridge crosses the Bow River into the downtown core. The city has chosen to bathe it in this gorgeous blue light, which makes it look positively ethereal at night !

Sculpture such as this one are key to the city's allure. There are giant sculptures all around the city. This one, In front of the Bow building, is one of my favorites.

 

Being built on hilly ground, the city often has to connect public pathways using creative means. This outdoor stairway connects the neighbourhood of Bridgeland with the Calgary Curling Club, and beyond to the pathways along the Bow River. At lunch-time, runners from the downtown core can be seen "challenging" the stair-climb !

 

Calgary's new Science Centre "Telus Spark" is a welcome addition to the city's skyline. It is especially beautiful when viewed at night.

Lessons Learned

Most photographers will tell you that the best time to shoot, the "Golden Hour" if you will, is the hour just after sunrise, and the hour just before sunset. I think I disagree... I loved shooting this nighttime skyline series.

 

Project365 - A Moment of Humility

I promised you that you would participate in Project365, good or bad. Well, today was not so good. Photography is a balance between the speed of the shutter, the size of the aperture, and the sensitivity of the sensor. Today, I neglected to consider that despite sitting down, people tend to move quickly ! I wanted some pix of the kids opening gifts. Sadly, due to my oversight, this is what I got. Object lesson learned !

 

While this pic has the beginnings of some nice bokeh, it's about the only redeeming quality. The lighting is messed up, and the subject isn't completely in focus.

 

Yep - blur. Just blur...

 

The whole exposure is messed up !

This one didn't turn out badly focused, but even with artistic cropping, it would not be so hot.

 

 

 

This is the only one that turned out reasonably. With some proper post-processing, this will clean up nicely.

 

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Project365 - Shortbread !

OK, I admit it. I am unabashedly addicted to shortbread. Pat indulges me from time to time, and Christmas is no exception ! My friend Steve, who is highly sensitive to gluten, lives vicariously through my Food Porn. This entry is for you, Steve... Merry Christmas !

Pat makes her own pastries, doughs & cookies by hand. A talent that I will never master...

Can you guess which cookie _I_ decorated ? :-)

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Project365 - (Christmas) Food Porn !

Merry Christmas, everybody ! As you can imagine, the holidays are a very busy time, so I am multiple-tasking. The subject of today's Project365 entry is the preparation of Christmas dinner. It's a time-consuming labour of love, so I thought I'd double up & document some of the steps as I go. If I have done ANY of this right, you will be salivating as you go... Enjoy !

 

Here are the beginnings of the "in the bird" dressing. I took this series without a flash, so as to better learn to compensate with ISO, shutter & aperture.

I know you're wondering just what I am up to... All will be revealed soone enough !

 

 

 

Tada ! This is something my mother taught us - using bacon to baste the bird. After this, all the normal spices & seasonings go on.

 

 

After a couple of hours in the oven, tented, the bird is starting to look pretty good, although it needs the cover off to brown up.

 

 

And here we see the finished product - nicely browned & ready to go. I'm going to let it stand for about 30 minutes before we carve it.

 

 

 

Who doesn't like pie ? Here's Pat's "front scratch" Apple & cherry pie...

 

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Project365 - Brining the Bird

When I was learning how to prepare meats in the smoker, I kept reading that fowl of all kinds should be brined, so that they would stay moist & tender through the process of cooking it. The bigger the bird, the longer the soak. Yurkel the Turkey will soak overnight, until he is ready for his extended stay in the tanning bed... Shhh.... We're not going to ruin Yurkel's Christmas by telling him what's really in store for him !

I love the way the turkey looks like it is emerging from the shadows in the deep, dark ocean !

This shot didn't turn out as well. While I like the "malevolent" feel of the bird in the dark brine, the effect is marred by the reflection of the light on the surface of the brine. Better to take the shot from a slight angle, like the image above !

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Project365 - Down the Chimney !

Thee was no Project365 entry last night, as Pat and I were super busy running around malls and shopping plazas. When you go out thinking "We'll just pick up a few last-minute things...", you just KNOW you're in for the long-haul. Then it was home to wrap-stravaganza, with a flurry of paper, ribbons and bows...

This morning, I was rudely awoken by a certain feline (Diesel !), who has decided 4:30AM is a reasonable time to begin attacking the fingers and toes which peek out from under the blankets. Bleary and tired, I was struck by how the Christmas tree lights illuminated the walls of the living room.

I decided this morning I would pull out my wide-angle lens, and see if High Dynamic Range (HDR) would help with the uneven lighting. HDR is a process of blending highlights and lowlights from multiple exposures to create one photograph. I don't use it often, as it tends to be for landscape photography more than anything else.

I especially like how the lighting stays soft & warm, while the HDR allowed the (very) dark foreground to feel like it was basking in the glow as well. In the original pictures, the presents are dark and difficult to distinguish.

It should be noted that the lights on the Christmas tree are the ONLY source of light in the room.

 

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Project365 - Gingerbread Construction Company

So Tessa & I decided we wanted to build a gingerbread house for the holidays. Pat bought us a kit, and we had fun putting it together & decorating it. Here's a few shots...

The walls go up without the help of a single Amish person. Oh well, we got them up without too much fuss !

The roof is on and the windows & doors are going in. Look at the colorful candies on the roof !

There are more windows on the side. Who knew it took so much icing to build a gingerbread house ?!?

 

The finished project, complete with snowman & owner. The candy cane fencing completes the front entry, while the gumdrops from a perimeter for the yard. And look at how OCD Tessa was - the lights around the roof line follow a perfectly repeating sequence !

 

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Project365 - At the Mall

I took the kids to the Mall to finish their Christmas shopping today. I thought I might take the opportunity to take pictures of crowds, with some depth of field. Who knew there wouldn't be a crowd at the Mall first thing in the morning. One of the basic rules of photography is to always have a "Plan B". so here they are !

I always liked the icicle lights, and the Mall was festooned with them ! So I decided to look almost straight up at them. Only then did I notice the sun was lighting the lights !

Yet another example of forgetting to change the white-balance. Again, very blue due to the light reflected off the snow. Not a particularly interesting composition, but I wanted to point out that I'm not the ONLY guy to put a wreath on the front of his truck at Christmas. Mine USED to light up, but a trip through the carwash fixed that !

 

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Project365 - In the Kitchen !

Pat has gotten into the full swing of Christmas spirit and is spending lots of time in the kitchen, baking up a storm ! Since the weather outside is lousy, I was looking for an indoor subject. It created an opportunity to work on my skills with my flash. We've all seen gorgeous pictures of food in cookbooks, so here's my first attempts...

This first shot illustrates a challenge I had not expected. The under-cabinet lighting is flourescent, and my camera was set for incandescent. Hence the blue tinge to the colour !

In this shot, I had a "softbox" on my flash, softening the light, while still keeping the shot nice & bright. And yeah, I like gumdrops too !

Ben wandered through, looking for a post-dinner "snack". I thought this would be my "magazine shot". I like the way the lighting from the flash created a bright picture, with nice shadows. I could have taken more time to move things around the counter, to isolate the food, but I was up against a hungry teenager !

Although this isn't as visually interesting as the previous shot, I like that Sandy decided to photo-bomb my project !













Many thanks to Pat for enduring the flash in her eyes with good humor !

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Project365 - Night Lights !

I am learning to love Christmas again, thanks to Pat. I especially love the festive lights seen all around the city. Be they on private homes, on the sides of office towers or strung along the construction cranes dotting the Calgary skyline - they are simply marvelous to behold. I hope I have done them some small justice...

It must be a challenge getting the taller trees wrapped !

Even the moon wants to be part of the beautiful display of light !

It's a relatively warm winter's night - care to go for a walk ?

I love all the colors.

 

Here, I tried to let the night sky be as dark as possible, allowing the bulbs to be tiny points of light.

These may not be some of my best works, but I am learning to look at light in a new way.

 

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Photography - The Shorty McForty

When I bought my first camera, I was eager and excited to get started. I took a course on basic photography at one of the local Community Colleges, where they taught me the "exposure triangle". I learned the relationship between aperture, shutter speed & ISO. We learned why to shoot raw, and how to manage simple lighting situations.

As my skills progressed, I soon wanted more than what my kit lenses could do. But being a novice, I didn't know where to start. A friend of mine suggested that I acquire a "nifty fifty" - a 50mm prime lens. They were inexpensive, and taught a noob the concept of properly framing the shot. You see, there is no "zoom" function on a prime lens. At the time, Canon had just come out with the widely popular "Shorty McForty", a 40mm prime lens, which suited my needs perfectly ! It's called a "pancake" lens, as it is very shallow, and looks funny on the front of my camera body !

These lenses are really wonderful for portrait work. They have nice wide apertures (mine is 2.8), which allows for some amazingly narrow depths of field. Or, as I did tonight, you can start to explore the world of bokeh. Here are a couple of photos from tonight. I thought the Christmas Tree would provide opportunities to showcase some bokeh & depth of field.

 

In the image at left, the foreground is crisp & in focus. As we move further to the back, away from the lens, the image becomes more blurry. This is "depth of field".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this image, the focus is shifted further back, blurring the foreground, and the items behind the white bulb. The lights are beginning to blur, creating soft bokeh effects.

In this final image, the lights to the back are very blurry, making them appear round. That's bokeh !

 

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