My New Printer

Well, I bit the bullet and I bought a printer. I wasn't expecting this to happen, but after my last class of madness, it had to be done.

There were 4 of us trying to print pictures, and of course, every one was doing fine. I started off fine, but then every single one of my pictures came out with lines through them. Lines, like the rollers of the printer was screwing everything up. Every. Single. Time. Did this happen for anyone else? Maybe the guy with thicker paper than me? NO! Argh. I was so frustrated that I had a mental breakdown. It was brutal. Imagine trying to print from 9 am and finally giving up at 3 p.m. and all you have to show for it is one picture and a test page. So these are the options I was left with:
1) Come back next week and try again with even MORE people who are desperate to print - not an option, as my mom and dad were visiting this weekend
2) Go and print them at a print house (which would cost about $100)
3) Buy a printer.

So the only 2 viable options for me were 2 and 3 and I figured if I'm going to invest $100 to print pictures for a class project, I may as well invest money in something that I'll have to make more prints later, and thus "Buy a printer" was my final decision.

So the next decision is: which printer? The most difficult part of this decision was how much to spend. I hate spending money. My husband LOVES it. He kept telling me, buy the good one, buy the good one. So, I bought the Epson R2880. The one good thing about spending all this money is this: Every time I spend money on photography, I feel like I have invested more in it. As such, I feel like I absolutely MUST make the money back through photography, thus giving me even more of a push to do it professionally. Hopefully this works.

As I have said before, I have never regretting any of my photographic purchases (except maybe that dang paper that was giving me such a hard time - btw I won't be shopping at Vistek for a while, because they were giving me a hard time as well. One guy, super nice, but then they sent me to "bad cop" and I just don't like being played like that. This unfortunately means that I will have to give Henry's my business when buying paper, which is okay, because they have a much better selection of paper than Vistek anyway, but still. I still heart Downtown Camera though). Hmmmm... that was an unexpected rant.... where was I?

I tried my new printer, and me likes. Me likes a lot. The colours (even on my matte paper that I didn't really like before, but now seems to work) pop. I've had some issues with the black being REALLY black, but I wonder if perhaps I should have been using Photo Black instead of Matte Black. This is something that I'll have to figure out on my own, but I won't worry about it just yet. I will say this though, I am excited to print more. It's fun. I really feel like I've accomplished something. I get a feeling that I don't get when posting images. It feels nice. I think I may have created a monster!

:) Roon-bop

And now what you've all been waiting for ... waterfalls!

So, on our trip in Argentina, we took a couple days to see the sights of the Iguazu Falls, which are in a word SPECTACULAR! Just beautiful. Okay, well, there are a lot of words that can describe them.

The Iguazu Falls are in the Iguazu National Park. They are in both Argentina and Brazil. We stayed on the Argentinian side, so I don't even get to say that I went to Brazil. One day. And that is what is SO great about the Falls (that they are in a Park). It is trees and trees and trees and far as the eye can see. Unlike Niagara Falls which is a commercial cesspool.

The national park is a subtropical rainforest, which I now know means that it is humid (yes, yes it was) but not as humid as a tropical rainforest. Okay, this is how I would describe the humidity. It felt like I was spending my entire days in hot yoga. The sun was beating down on us at all times, and there were stairs ... so many steep stairs. I should have taken a picture of them, but I was concentrating so hard on not losing my life to a heart attack, that it slipped my mind.

The Iguazu Falls was most definitely the highlight of the trip. I saw toucans for crying out loud and vulchers. How could that NOT be a highlight?

All these pictures below are of the Devil's Throat, which is the largest of all the waterfalls in the park. It is the section that is shared with the Brazillian side.

:) Roon-bop

Happy Anniversary!!!

I can't believe it! It has been ONE WHOLE YEAR since I started this blog and on May 6th it will be one year since starting my Photography classes.

Because of this momentous day, I've taken some time to look through some of my first posts. Boy has my skill changed! It's pretty amazing to look back on that person who was interested in learning more about photography. That's still me, but I have definitely evolved some.

I don't regret my decision to go back to school, getting a camera and spending all my money. I am proud that I have kept up with it and continue to have goals. It's not my usual self, but it feels good.

I can't wait to see where I am April 23, 2010. For now, I encourage you to take a moment and look at some of the older stuff. Take some time to smell the roses and see what one year can do.

:) Roon-bop

I'm on yet ANOTHER website!!!

Well, cheers be to me! I can be found on the front page of another website.

The Ontario Community Support Association asked me to take pictures of a press conference. Yes ... I realize they are my employer (I work as the program assistant for the Personal Support Network of Ontario, which is part of OCSA), none the less, my work is there!

There were definitely some challenges and I learned a lot!
1) The lighting was poor, so I had to use my flash, which meant I had to wait for the flash to reload after every shot - there were a couple GREAT shots that I missed because of this - some that I tried taking anyway, but were too dark even to salvage.
2) The people I were photographing were speaking, therefore most of the pictures their mouths are open, or their eyes looked closed (because they are reading). Therefore, I really need to work on my timing, making sure to pay attention to when they are looking down, and try to shoot as soon as they look up.
3) I tried to move around the room often to get different angles, but I would sometimes find myself on the wrong side, so I need to better anticipate the speaker's potential movements.

One step closer!

:) Roon-bop

The pier, Diego and some random Parks

Here are some more random shots. First is the pier where we met Diego. Diego is a stray dog we managed to pick up at the pier. On our first day there, he came up from behind us. We assumed the guy walking close to the dog was his owner, so we gave him a little pat hello. Turns out, Diego was a stray. He followed us for a good 2 hours. He followed us across from the pier, across very busy streets, not always obeying the rules of the road, until finally we made our way back to the pier, had a seat on a bench, and he left our lives as quickly as he came into it. We named him Diego, because he was cute, and I like that name.

The other pictures are of random parks we came across on our various walks around the city. They are small parks that locals spend time in. One beautiful thing about BA is that it has a lot of parks and greenery.

:) Roon-bop

These pictures are some miscellaneous pictures, and the last 2 are from the Botanical Gardens.

I really can't say enough about the photographic opportunities in Buenos Aires. There are beautiful parks everywhere, with statues and monuments and fountains. Dogs, cats, birds, butterflies. There is always something to look at and explore.

:) Roon-bop

These pictures are from the Japanese Garden in Buenos Aires. Overall, this was a very disappointing portion of the trip (and the only thing we paid to enter). It was a nominal fee, so not a big deal, however, I got a lot of nice shots while I was there, so complain, I will not.

:) Roon-bop

The February 3rd Garden

This was one of my favourite places in Buenos Aires. I have a soft spot for parks to begin with. I love walking around them, finding bench to just sit relax, breath in the fresh air, take in the sights. Quite honestly, my fondness for parks has grown since moving to Toronto. It is just nice to be around greenery some times.

This park was BEAUTIFUL! It had a pond, bridge, rose garden, statues, fountain. It was very peaceful and a great place to sit and rest after a long morning walk to get there.

:) Roon-bop

Oh do I have pictures for you!

Well, I am back from my vacation in Argentina and I took over 1 THOUSAND pictures.

Let me tell you, that is a lot to get through.

So far, I think I'm about half way through. As such, it is time to share.

I won't really get into details of the trip, because this isn't a travel blog, but I have to say, it was a great time. We spent the majority of our time in Buenos Aires, which is basically a European city in South America. Then we spent 3 days in Iguazu at the Iguazu Falls National Park, which was amazing. I haven't got to the waterfall pictures yet, so for now, please enjoy these pictures of La Boca.

La Boca is a district in the city of Buenos Aires. It is a poor part of town, however attracts tourists because of it's brightly coloured buildings. They were originally painted this way, because residents were so poor they would "borrow" paint from the docked ships to paint their homes. This tradition has been kept up as a means to bring in tourists, and boy does it every. On the main strip you will find tango dancers, artisans, guitar players and restaurants. A great place to take pictures! Very inspiring.

I hope you enjoy.

:) Roon-bop