The Bonnyville Hotel

Fire broke out on the third floor of this hotel on December 16th, and local firefighters spent a day and a half soaking it.  The net result is that these pictures, taken six days after the fire initially broke out, are really more an ice show than a visual depiction of a burned out hotel.

Of course I'll never say no to street lamp lighted night photos, apparently even if I have to freeze my toes to get them, so please enjoy!  As usual, these pictures are on Gallerama too.

My first attempt at black and white

Prints for the holidays

Over the past year I've gotten a lot of positive comments on some of the pictures I've taken and I've even had a couple of requests for prints.  Since the gift giving season was upon us I decided to dedicate some shopping time to looking at frames and doing some prints to give to friends and family.  Here are some of the photos I had printed and gave out as gifts.

I found the 8x10 crops difficult since the composition I aimed for in the viewfinder gets constrained by the width, but I think they came out fairly well.  All of these photos are post-processed at least a little bit beyond the cropping, though many of them are currently still in unedited form in my other blog posts and my galleries.

Lunar eclipse

I didn't have my camera on me when there was more moon showing, and I didn't drag out my tripod, but I think this came out fairly well.  Shot at 55mm, so there was a lot of extra black sky I cropped out.  I'm surprised it came out as well as it did, considering I was shooting by hand for a 1/30 second shutter.  I don't often try to shoot the moon, this is hands down the best result I've gotten.

Holiday break

Turns out I've been too busy to bother posting, expect things to pick up again next week or the week after.

Happy holidays!

Let there be light

I made a small addition to my small collection of photography gear today (if it even qualifies as a collection).

That's a Nikon SB-400 "Speedlight" ("Speedlight" is apparently what Nikon calls a flash to make it sound cool.)  It's roughly the most basic add-on flash on the market, but it's a fairly big improvement over the flash that's built into my D40.  Case in point ... the following two pictures:

A mannequin's arm with the D40's built-in flash

The mannequin's arm with the SB-400

Ignoring the fact that neither of these pictures are good, the first one has very obvious hard shadows under the table and behind the arm, as well as a bright reflection on the elbow and pretty complete wash-out of the table surface.  The light also falls off a lot toward the edges of the picture, and this wasn't even taken as a particularly wide shot.  The second one, by comparison has much more natural looking light.  Both of these pictures were taken using the camera's TTL (Through The Lens) system to let it automatically set the flash intensity, but with the SB-400 I was able to tilt the flash to point upward from the camera to reduce the intensity of the light hitting the arm and table.  From where I sit it looks like a pretty huge improvement for the zero effort it took to get the better shot.

The wash-out in the first picture has been a very large problem for me when trying to take pictures of people and objects, so I'm pretty excited to have just a little bit more flexibility in my lighting.  The SB-400 can also be moved off-camera with a cheap cable, so my photo taking capabilities have just improved fairly notably.

Sell fear to the sheep

Wherever you happen to be located, and since you're reading this I'm fairly confident in the assumption you're not living isolated in the woods, there are almost certainly great bands making great music in your community. You walk past their posters every day on the street, you probably "know a guy who knows a guy who's in this band". Do yourself a favour ... go out and see them play.

Friday night I went out to see Suburban Syndrome play (the second time I've seen them) and it was an awesome show.  Not only a great local band, but one of the best metal bands from anywhere I've heard (and I'm not just sucking up because they're on my followers list!)

Enjoy some songs, courtesy of their youtube channel.

Playing tourist in South Korea

I was fortunate enough in the last year (-ish) to make two trips to South Korea for work.  I brought my camera both times, but didn't find much time to get out and take pictures.  Notably disappointing, especially given that I was in and around Seoul, was that I didn't get even one of my beloved city-at-night pictures.

On my first trip, which would have been around this time last year, we did manage to get out and "see the sights" on our last day there.  The trip and the little bit of sightseeing were great ... the resulting images on my SD card couldn't do it justice.  I pretty much got a lot of touristy pictures against bright, overcast skies, nothing as aesthetically pleasing as my pictures from Ottawa. Nonetheless, here they are.

Most of these pictures were taken in Seoul on my last day there.  I did a small amount of post-processing on these, notably white balance and contrast adjustments.

Is this a cure or is this a disease?

Listening to Audioslave today, I'm just going to post a link to one song from each of their albums.

"Show Me How to Live"


"#1 Zero"


"Wide Awake"

You can't always pick the dog you find

I went to see Econoline Crush at the Pawn Shop last night, it was an incredible show.  Give me a great band and I'll always choose to see them in a small bar (like last night) vs. an arena or stadium (like when I saw them play at a festival in 1998).  Here's a couple of songs to enjoy, all of which they played last night.

"Home"


"Surefire"


"Wicked"

My favourites gallery

Continuing the flow of posts I would classify as "mundane" at best, I'd like to draw attention to my Favourites gallery on Gallerama.  The idea is basically to filter through my various sets of pictures and focus on the ones I'd like to draw more attention to.  I'll hopefully continue adding photos to this gallery over time.

I think there's only one photo in the set that I haven't already shared on this blog, I guess now would be the opportune time.

Along the Ottawa River - May 2010

The thought has occurred to me that having a "favourites" gallery of my own pictures is, or at least borders on, narcissistic. I've decided I will quite willingly accept in that if it is the case.

Conch piercing

I got a conch piercing on my right ear last week ... that makes 10 for anyone who's keeping count.

In other news ... it must be winter because my motivation to do anything has plummeted.

More post-processing, developing workflow

A few weeks back I did a photo set at night near downtown.  I picked out the shots I was happiest with as they came off the camera and posted them (both here and on Gallerama) without any editing at all.  I included this picture and remarked that it was my favourite picture of the set:

This was actually my second attempt at this shot

Immediately preceding this picture was one with the exact same composition that was underexposed as a result of setting a much smaller aperture.  The underexposed one also had a larger depth of field (more of the picture was in focus), but given how relatively pleased I was with how the larger aperture version I didn't pay it much attention at the time.

The first attempt, obviously the second attempt was better as shot

Since I've been playing around with exposure compensation a bit I decided to do a bit of editing on that underexposed shot and do a comparison between it and the shot I ended up using.  I added some exposure compensation and then used the "Fill Light" slider to brighten it more without having such a drastic effect on the relatively bright lamps.  I rotated the photo to correct a very slight tilt that had been bothering me, and I was very pleased with the results.

Edited version of the underexposed shot

Once I had a look at the edited one, I was surprised to see that I hadn't noticed car headlights lighting up the foreground trees in shot that I had posted.  There's definitely a case to be made for that coincidental lighting, but in comparison (and my opinion) the lighting looks harsh and uneven compared to edited photo.  From where I sit I think the edited version gives up nothing from the version I had originally posted and improves slightly in lighting and focus.

I've since updated my galleries to include this picture instead of the "as shot" one that I originally posted.  Going forward I'm going do some simple editing like this whenever I post a photo set, I've been pleased with the results and I hate going back and uploading improved versions after the fact.  It'll be a fairly drastic change for me, since I'm used to posting photos whenever I find a few minutes to quickly scan through them as shot, but I think the results are worth improving and lengthening my process.

Workout music - Part 2

The continuation, as promised.  Contained in this post:

• Corrosion of Conformity - Vote with a Bullet
• Metallica - Damage, Inc.
• Black Label Society - No More Tears
• I Mother Earth - Rain Will Fall
• Machine Head - Old

Again, possible NSFW lyrics ...

Workout music - Part 1

I was at the gym last night thinking that it had been a while since I did a music post, the obvious solution was to share some of what I was listening to. I don't actually have a playlist dedicated for this purpose so it's essentially just a sampling of some of the more aggressive songs on my phone. I reckon that posting any more than five songs in a single post is overkill so I'll break this up into two or more posts, expect a follow-up soon.

Songs in this post:

• Nine Inch Nails - Last
• Machine Head - Bite the Bullet
• Filter - Under
• Metallica - Dyers Eve
• Fear Factory - Pisschrist

Some of these songs may contain NSFW lyrics ... consider yourself warned.

Post-processing: Tentative first steps

There can be no doubt that winter is upon us, or upon me I suppose, since I cannot claim to presume that the icy grasp of winter has somehow managed cover the entire span of geography inhabited by the population of the internet.  At any rate, it's bloody cold.  Bone chilling cold.  Nearly cold enough to make smoking unpleasant.  Lucky for me that it's only "nearly" that cold since while I was shivering outside, destroying my lungs, I noticed that it is also berry-freezing cold and that it looked kinda cool.

So I did what any good procrastinator would do during work hours, I grabbed my camera and took a picture of the flora outside my lab.  I very briefly (cold weather and all) checked the picture on my camera LCD then got back to work.  Loaded up Lightroom a little while later and saw this, disappointed to say the least.

Really ... I wanted a picture of this?

The composition and focus were right ... but the picture looked terrible.  Specifically, the whole thing looked blue and drab.  Part of the drab I knew was impossible to fix, Edmonton in November isn't exactly the most colourful locale, but I certainly had an idea about how to fix the blue tinge.  So I took the unfamiliar step, or click, into what Lightroom calls the "Develop Module".  Carefully scanning the unfamiliar sidebars before me I happened upon the white balance and a handy dropper icon.  Thanks to some limited experience with MS Paint I enthusiastically clicked the dropper over a part of the background wall that I figured should be white, and my simplistic assumption about what would happen was correct ... the colours were better.

The blue is gone, too bad it still doesn't look right

Buoyed by the improvement I saw in a split comparison I proudly posted my masterpiece.  Reviewing my work I was overcome with a feeling very similar to when I'd viewed the picture on my computer screen the first time, that it didn't look good.  I was apparently so enthralled with the reduction in the blue tinge that I failed to notice that picture was still much more drab than I had intended.  As an aside, I should have paid more attention to the LCD on camera.

I'd be damned if I was going to let my first, simple, stab at editing provide results I was quite that disappointed with, so off I went to find the exposure compensation.  +0.95 EV later I finally had something that I could look at and not wonder what on earth I was thinking!

Frozen berries - Edmonton, AB - Nov 2010

It's still not a vibrant photo, but it finally had the frozen aesthetic that made me want to take the picture in the first place.  The edits really only took a couple of minutes at most, they're roughly the most basic tweaks I could possibly be making to my pictures, but I figured the results were interesting enough to show.  I added the final version to a Gallerama gallery containing assorted pictures from around my lab.

Update:  It has been pointed out to me that the white balance dropper should actually be used on a grey standard, which certainly explains why I ended up getting the best results using it on the darker portion of background wall and lousy results when I tried to use it on the snow.

Ottawa through a lens

This isn't a new set of pictures, I visited Ottawa for a conference back in May, but as I flipped through them today I realized that I was far more impressed with some of these pictures than any I've taken in Edmonton.  (I also realized I'm narcissistic enough to be impressed by my own pictures, but that's neither here nor there).  I was actually a bit surprised, looking back, to see how well they turned out.  Besides the fact that I ventured out to take pictures after dark without a tripod, I hadn't taken any pictures besides of work pictures and family snapshots in months.

Apparently I did a couple of things right though, I went out without solid preconceived notions about my compositions (since I'd never been to Ottawa) and I took more pictures than I usually do (over the three photo sessions I did I took more than 250 pictures).  Even the tripod I didn't have when shooting at night turned out to be a good move since my search to find solid, level surfaces to support my camera resulted in some great pictures.

So where better to start than some low light pictures, I must have been something to watch as I looked for any post or rail, or any level surface, to put my camera on.  I'm only going to post up a few here, the set itself is in a Gallerama gallery.

Rideau Canal - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

Rideau Canal - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

Parliament Building over the Rideau Canal - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

Tulips - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

My daytime pictures were, for the most part, tourist fare.  As usual, there's more on Gallerama

Byward Market - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

Parliament Building - Ottawa, ON - May 2010

The night breathes

Anyone who's been paying attention (and I appreciate both of you) will have seen me mention how much I love taking pictures in the city at night.  I'm generally useless when it comes to actually creating good lighting conditions for my pictures, but city lights provide a seemingly endless parade of interesting lights if you're willing to bring along a tripod drag out your shutter speed.

Of course I am a rank amateur in all matters photographic, so every time I head out with my camera is a learning experience in some way shape or form.  Typically I get very few shots taken on a given night and each one will be taken with a specific goal in mind that I may or may not achieve.  If you, kind reader, are inclined to indulge me I'd like to share the results of my latest night of picture taking with some mundane dialog about the goals, achievements, and failures of the shots.  I haven't done any editing or post-processing on these at all except to resize them.

Downtown - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

Downtown - Edmonton, AB, November 2010

The views of downtown were fairly normal shots for me, I generally just aim for good depth of focus and nice composition.  I like the composition of these shots, but I was less than pleased with where my focal plane ended up (I seem to have trouble manually focusing on distant buildings) and I wish I would have gone with a longer shutter speed to brighten them up just a bit.

Tree under a street lamp - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

I took this picture entirely because I liked the way the street lamp was lighting the tree.  Not entirely happy with the composition I got (completely displeased that I didn't avoid the car in the lower right) but other than that I got the effect I was going for.  The tree is focused well, the brightness is right, and I love the way the street lamp is shining.

Lighted path - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

This shot is pretty much exactly what I was going for, just a look down the path.  I'm very pleased with the composition, brightness, and focus, though closing up the aperture and drawing out the shutter speed to get more depth of focus and maintaining this brightness would have been good.  Overall it's probably my favourite picture of the night.

Park Benches - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

This is my other candidate for favourite of the night.  I'm not really sure what specifically it was about this scene that I was trying to achieve, perhaps how the benches seemed like a sanctuary, but whatever it was I like how it came out.  If I was doing this shot over again I wouldn't change a thing.

Park Benches - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

The benches also had an interesting shape a design, which is what I was trying to convey in this picture.  I'm not sure I achieved that but I certainly am pleased with how it came out, especially the intricacies of the bench and the wall.  I don't think I would change anything in this shot, but I might take another with different composition to frame the benches in the manner I was hoping for.

Lamp post decoration - Edmonton, AB - November 2010

All of the lamp posts were banded like this with two different phrases on each post, I really liked the way the light played on them.  I was actually trying to get a very narrow depth of focus on this one (strange for me) to get bokeh on the words (ie. have it focused in the center of the words but blurred toward the ends).  I failed in that respect (even the wall in the background isn't terribly blurred) but it ended up being a nice shot anyway.

Overall I'm fairly pleased with the night's pictures, even if I didn't quite get what I was going for with all of them.  I'd love to hear any and all feedback on them, so please feel free to comment!  I have these pictures available in better resolution, with some metadata included, in my Gallerama gallery

Flammable: The sequel to "Donating Skin"

Today I had the tattoo appointment I wrote about before! I love it, I'll be going back to get it filled at a later date, and without further ado ...

I've been planning this one for a long, long, time ... so happy to have it.

Songs for a late night of work

In the spirit of dedication to work (which could also be any of: wanton self-destruction, masochism, repentance for sins, punishment for wrongs committed in a previous life, masochism, boredom) I pulled an all-nighter last night just to get some equipment put back together so I could run two 1-minute long tests before a meeting this morning.  Thankfully as I'm typing this I haven't quite yet collapsed, nodded off, or succumbed to any of the plethora of viruses that, even now, are almost certainly eying my sleep deprived and weakened body as the perfect breeding ground to cause a new pandemic

Regarding the topic at hand though, since it's a music post today, I was having a tough time finding a good balance between energy and chilled as my eyelids were falling closed.  I settled on a playlist of Nine Inch Nails and Filter for the bulk of the night.  I'd love to post more for each of these bands than I could reasonable expect anyone to listen to, so I'm going to limit it to only one song each.

Dose - Filter
Sorry, embedding disabled ... you'll have to follow the link.

March of the Pigs - Nine Inch Nails

The deconstruction of Harry III

I've been silently looking for some inspiration in photography lately.  It's not that I find anything particular lacking in the shots I've been taking, nor is there any shortage of inspiring photography out there to draw from, but I've been missing an idea of sorts ... an idea for a shoot or a subject to break me out of my norm a bit.  The idea of breaking out my camera at work certainly wasn't that idea, but tonight as I looked out at a mannequin spilled open on a table combined with some odd makeshift lighting and magnification I'd implemented to simply to make work easier I decided it'd make some pretty interesting subject matter.

If you've stayed with me through that brief introduction I present to you a short series of photographs dedicated to the idea that anything can be ripped open and probed to determine exactly what makes it tick.  Sources of lighting for this shoot were a fluorescent light built into an arm mounted magnifying lens I use to do electronics work (I also put the magnifying lens to work in a couple of pictures) and a simple halogen work light suspended from the ceiling.  No post-processing or editing was done at all, though I would like to remedy that at a later date.

Higher resolution pictures can be found in my Gallerama album