My First Attempt at a Calendar Desktop Background

I made my first calendar desktop background this week. I like it although I'm not entirely thrilled about the font and layout of the numbers in the calendar. That'll be something I work on for December but I think that it's not bad for a first attempt at something new.

The picture is from a shoot I did with a friend of mine and his little one two weekends ago. I hope to have more to share once I get sign off from him.

P.S. It's set-up for 1280 X 1024.

Barney!

This is LazyBoy Barney!

Long story short, we almost lost him when we was about 6 weeks old when he lost a fight with the LazyBoy. Now almost 2 years later he's obviously recovered.

I can honestly say I think he enjoys posing for me. He's must more patient with me than our other cat, Nermal.

I know I promised templates last month and I will still get them up here. PLUS I'll also have some pictures of my first sewing project since high school!

Cheers.

P.S. Thought I should thank Glebe Pet Hospital for all the amazing work they did with Barney. They were so uplifting when things seemed so bleak.

Vin & Jen's Wedding Part Deux

Finally finished the wedding pictures. Final photo count was 372. Many of them are multiples with an image in colour, a colourized/colour fade and a B&W. I also made a handful of triptychs and a larger multi-image collage.

Can't say that I won't do another wedding. In reality, I'd love to do another wedding. I had such a blast with the wedding party and their families.

My next project is a baby shower at Thanksgiving.

Vin & Jen's Wedding

I shot my best friend's brother's wedding last weekend and I had a blast!!

They were so easy going and happy to be photographed that I forgot I was working!

I should have their pictures done by the weekend but I just had to post some of them now.

From Jen & Vince

From Jen & Vince

From Jen & Vince

Concert Photos

Concerts are always so hard to shoot especially if you can't bring your dSLR with your. Life would be so much easier if I had a media pass. A girl can dream, can't she?

So instead of my Rebel XT, we brought my boyfriend's FujiFilm point'n'shoot to the Disturbed et al concert the first week of July, and well, I couldn't use it to save my life. I kept trying to adjust all the controls to give me an experience that resembled by dSLR.

Finally after the first two bands had played, I said that I was done with his piddly camera and that he should take the pictures he wants. This was more of out of frustration with myself for not being able to take good pictures than his camera being a piddly piece of equipment.

Nonetheless, my boyfriend took some great pictures and I'll give him full credit for them too.

From Disturbed

From Disturbed

From Disturbed

Think about this before you buy your next lens

Over the past month or so, I've been toying with the idea of upgrading to a full-frame camera but will probably put that off until 2010. In the meantime however that doesn't mean that I can't browse and ask questions about my future purchase.

I went to a camera store this week to purchase a Gorillapod and started quizzing the sales rep about my future purchase. We're talking about my needs and my possible future needs and everything sounds promising then I ask can I build my lens collection in the meantime?

He asks "Well do you have any EF-S lenses?"

I say "Yeah, the stock lens with my Rebel XT."

He says "Hopefully that's your only EF-S lens because full frame cameras use EF lenses."

Now luckily I've only just recently started to invest in my equipment and haven't made any serious purchases but then I remembered that I bought a telephoto last year and all that was running through my head was that I had spent $400 on a piece of equipment I won't be able use! How am I going to justify buying a second 300mm lens when my boyfriend knows I already have one!

When the sales rep and I finish our conversation, which after the lens discussion is kind of a blur to me, I thanked him for his time, got on the next bus home, went straight upstairs, opened by lens case, and lo and behold, I read on my lens two little letters "EF".

I was relieved and oh so happy...and felt a little guilty that I hadn't did more reading up on the subject when I bought my first dSLR.

What I learned:

• When buying your first dSLR think about your current needs and any possible changes to those needs down the road. If this is just a hobby for you now, but you'd like to upgrade to professional level equipment think about what will help you now that can help you in the future.
  
• Map out those needs in a 1-year to 5-year plan including an equipment wishlist.
  
• Do your own research first, talk to friends who own their own dSLRs or visit a camera trade show. Bring all that knowledge and your questions with you to the store to speak to a sales rep.
  
• Whenever you're in a store, even if you're just browsing, don't be afraid to ask questions. The sales rep I spoke to knew I wasn't buying a camera right then but the time he took to talk to me that day laid the groundwork for me coming back in with more questions, and most likely an eventual camera purchase.
  

From the practical to the unique, Photojojo has a little something for everyone.

I’ve been receiving Photojojo’s newsletter for about six months and each month I’ve been surprised by either the product, the how-to or DIY topic spotlighted in the issue.

Last week, Photojojo had a piece on copyright free photos. The Best Free Photos on the Web (Where to Find Them and What to Do With Them)

Most photography website forums seem daunting at first, not Photojojo’s as experience levels from beginner to professionals and cameras models from P&S consumer cameras to the bigger DSLRs.

Interesting and innovative products:

Bottle Cap Tripod

Doodle Frame

Super-Secret Spy Lens

A watermark and a "backwards" compliment

My best friend (we'll call her Nicole) was married in August 2007 right around the time I got my first digital SLR.

She had enlisted her uncle, a photographer with 30 years experience, to do her wedding. I was asked by Nicole and her uncle to take the bridal shower pictures as well as some photojournalism-style photos at the ceremony to help round out his staged portraits and ceremony photos.

Two years later and Nicole still hadn't received more than the 30 or so photos in an album where her uncle had chosen the pictures for and the layout of the album, and a few prints of a handful of the dozen portraits he took that day. The reasoning was to protect his rights as an artist.

After much chagrin and going back and forth and no hope in sight, yesterday, Nicole received a couple of CDs filled with her pictures!!!

So Nicole called me at work and she was gushing over the great pictures he took and all the portraits, ceremony and reception photos she never got to see - especially the one of her grandmother who passed suddenly the following year. So she ooh-ed and ahh-ed over her pictures describing the ones she liked the most and said how surprised she was that he was there to take this picture or that picture and how great this picture was and that one was. She was finally happy!

Ten minutes after we ended our conversation, she called me back and said "You know, he didn't send me all his pictures."

I said "How do you know?"

She said "Well this picture and that picture was taken after the dinner, they were gone by then. And this picture was taken before they showed up."

And then it dawned on me, they had given her my pictures mixed in with his without so much as giving her a note explaining what they had done!

Now Nicole doesn't really know if she has all her pictures from her uncle, or if he padded the CD with my pictures!

What I learned from this experience.

• Make a watermark as soon as possible!
  
• Experience doesn't always mean business sense.
• Don't underestimate yourself, the simplest pictures can mean a lot to your clients.
• Take the compliment, the uncle providing the bride with my pictures shows that some were good enough to potentially pass off as his. ;)
• Be up front about what I'm providing to people. Nicole thought she was getting a package comparable to other professional photographers, but her uncle's old school view of client/photographer expectations disappointed her terribly.
  

Mozart

Not the composer, the cat.

At my sister's request, I've been taking a lot of cat pictures lately. And I have to say it's much harder than photographing dogs because they do so very little during the peak hours of the day.

Here's my sister's two other cats (Mozart and Skeeter) to complete her collection and fill our her multi-photo picture frame.

Postcard or Poster?

I took some pictures of my sister's cats a few weeks ago and her mother-in-law said I should make a poster out of the one of the big fluffy orange cat.

I know a guy, who knows a guy - well I know him - he's my printing house account manager - wonder if I should get a couple of postcards or posters made up.

New Pictures

I was able to snap a few pictures over the Easter weekend - and played around with my flash a bit.

I had the flash set to auto just to see when it would decide to go off or not. To be honest, it probably only went off less than half the time.

I also realized looking at my pictures over the weekend that I like the warmer look to my photos which can mess around with skin tone but gives my pictures an earthy and homey feeling . Don't know if that's a good thing yet but I just can't seem to get away from it.

Here's my baby cousin, Jordyn.

My Brand New 430EX II

Bought my first flash yesterday! I was able to find a great price at Vistek, here in Ottawa. www.vistek.ca

I hope to get some great practice shots in tomorrow. I don't know where to go first with it! I've got some errands to run tomorrow morning so I might stop by the school on the way home and take some pictures of the empty jungle gym. I've always found an empty jungle gym to be more than a little sad. Fingers crossed, I'll be able to capture that aura tomorrow.

Projects Update

Just a little update on what I'm doing in my spare time at the moment.

A friend of mine has asked me to repair and edit her wedding pictures. I'll be working on that for the next few weekends.

I haven't asked permission to post my work on this project yet but I hope to have something soon.

430EX or 430EX II Speedlite

I'm in the market for a gently used flash for my Canon Rebel XT.

If anyone has a 430EX or 430EXII that they're looking to get rid of, send me an email.

Or if you know of a great local store or website that sells refurbed or used camera supplies let me know!

Printed and framed this photo for my aunt Heather and my mother-in-law. Both have them hanging in their living rooms. :)