Day 364 - Lying in wait

One last image of Marlee Marie, this one taken Christmas Eve as she surveyed the presents under the tree.

The Olympus sat on its tripod, with the aperture at f8 and the shutter at about 1 second, thanks to the light coming from the tree's lights and other lamps in the living room.

That's how still Marlee will lie when she smells food, such as the (human) treats hidden in the stocking with the reindeer on it that is just inches from her nose. It's like she's not even breathing. Don't worry: the stocking found a new home on a bookshelf moments later.

Day 363 - In search of Willie O'Ree

An interesting, though not entirely successful, experiment in sports photography. I was at Willie O'Ree Place (see lower photo) in Fredericton's north side today for the public free skate and I took the opportunity to try to get some shots of skaters and hockey players.

The challenge I faced was that the lighting was too dim to take traditional photographs yet too light to make slow-shutter shots worthwhile. Even with the aperture as tight as it could go (f8), I still could only slow the shutter to about two seconds, which is nowhere near slow enough to create interesting movement images.

So I was surprised and pleased to find the top photograph: the unmoving elements (net, ice, boards and stands) in perfect focus; the goaltender fairly crisp as well; and the two other hockey players reduced to red and green ghosts in front of the goalie. It could be a lot better, I know, with less space between the goalie and the net, a little more definition on the two other skaters, a little more contrast overall. But still it's not bad. An interesting attempt with decent results.

Day 334 - A jumpy collection of lights

No photo blog is complete without the classic "driving down dark streets with the shutter open" shot. Here's mine. With the Olympus on the dashboard, set at f3.4 at 15 seconds, we drove along Brunswick Street in downtown Fredericton at 8:30 at night. The result is this jumpy collection of lights, captured as the car moves past them: greens and reds from the stoplights, yellows from street lights and whites from headlights. Neat.

Day 328 - Deep evening colours

The days are short in Fredericton and the night comes early. This is what it's like now as I wait for my bus home from work outside King's Place downtown. By taking advantage of a post box that is under the cover of the mall's overhang, I am able to place the Olympus on a stable surface and slow the shutter right down, in this case to four full seconds. This allows me to keep the depth of focus strong with an aperture setting of f8, while still getting enough light to make a clear photo.

I really like this photo, especially the composition of the structures at the top and bottom of the frame, as well as the full, deep colour the long exposure gives me. The picture shows up, however, the limitations of my camera: I'd have preferred to shut the aperture even further, to f16 or smaller, which would allowed an even longer shutter and made the lights of passing cars interesting streaks across the frame. I like those types of photos but my little Olympus isn't really capable of them, at least not under normal evening conditions.

Day 245 - Fun with fog

Fog represents a great opportunity for the photograph. It adds mystery and texture to a shot, making an average landscape special.

We've had fog most mornings this week but, unfortunately, I'm usually out and on my way to work just after the sun starts to eradicate the stuff, so it's too late for the really great fog photos. That's not to say I'm unhappy with this shot of King's College Road, looking east from York Street in Fredericton. I'm actually quite fond of it. But you can see that the fog in this picture is not pea-soup thick and, in fact, is at this point in the morning receding fast.

Still, I'm happy with the dark intensity of the trees on the left, the foggy figures in the distance and the crispness of the lines on the road. I think it's a nice photo, not an iconic fog picture but not bad nonetheless.

The lower photograph is more of a standard fog shot, this time with the sun serving as the central focal point. I don't think this photograph is as successful as the top one but it's interesting nonetheless. I played with the shutter speed to adjust the amount of light getting in to create the proper contrast between the dark trees and building (the new Fredericton YMCA, by the way) and the bright sky. I wanted the sun (through the fog) to be a crisply shaped ball in the sky and I think I've come up with a decent picture.

Day 199 - White bobbles and roasted tomatoes

I had to play with the focus to get this photograph of roasted tomatoes on a white platter. The Olympus' autofocus function wanted to find the nearest object (the white porcelain bobbles that rim the platter) so I had to force it to see the tomatoes, hold the focus there, and then move into position for the perspective of the picture.

Then, of course, there was the challenge of adjusting the exposure to get enough light on the subject. Instead of slowing the shutter, however, I opened the aperture to enhance the light, thus also creating the very short depth of field, which limits the focus to just the closest of the tomatoes.

It seems such a simple shot but it was devilishly difficult to take. I'm very pleased with it, though, since I think it is actually quite stunning in beauty and fairly fascinating in composition. Can you guess what provided the patterned background?

Day 149 - Sitting on the fence

I'm trying to train myself to look for interesting photographs in places and situations that just don't seem to promise much. To find beauty in squalor, so to speak.

Okay, maybe not quite squalor, but you catch my drift.

When I saw this battered old fence, losing the battle against the bushes behind it, I thought I'd found exactly what I've been looking for.

Then it became a question of how to photograph it: go in close or pull way back; include just the fence and the fern or put it into a context; focus on the first couple of slats or try to ensure the entire line of pickets is crisp and clear.

I'm not sure if I should have included the baby-blue wall in the left-hand side of the frame. I like it, to be sure, but I wonder if the photo would be more effective with just the fence and the bush. The focus question introduces, once again, the limitations of my Olympus, since I just can't make the aperture so wide and the shutter speed so fast to create the kind of shortened depth of focus that I would want to get. Still, I'm quite happy with the photograph. It makes me feel quite serene, for some reason.

Day 56 - Snowfall in the Backyard

We're getting hit with another blizzard here in New Brunswick tonight. Expected accumulation of the white stuff is 35 centimeters (14 inches for our American friends) but we're well on our way to beating that prediction. The streets are almost impassable and walking the dog has become hazardous: the combined snow from this and previous snowfalls is easily higher than Marlee's head. It's the kind of night when she trudges through the shoulder-high snow for a couple of steps, then turns to you and makes a face that says, "Are you kidding me?"

I thought the combination of nightfall and snowfall would give me a chance to play with the manual settings on the Olympus without even having to step foot outside again. I put the camera on top of a jar on the windowsill in our kitchen, pointed at the backyard. I then set the shutter to stay open for 15 seconds and tried a bunch of pictures at different aperture settings, placing no trust in the internal light meter as I worked. The meter told me the top photo was just slightly under-exposed and the other two were strongly over-exposed (if you can believe it!).

All three pictures tend toward a sepia-toned black-and-white feeling, due to the lack of light and monochromatic colour scheme in the frame. The top photo (f8 at 15 seconds) is my favourite. Its shades are deep and soft and the snow itself has a texture to it. The middle photograph (f6.2) is still nice, with more details coming through on the trees thanks to the extra light but the snow is starting to bleed out. I find the lowest photo seems like it was taken in daylight almost, which is interesting in a way, but the image itself loses something as a result. Look at the snow in the last picture: it's almost completely lacking in detail.