HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Well, today is October 31st and that means Halloween. My husband and I weren't going to dress up this year. We were going to hang out with the neighbour's dog, who we're dog-sitting and go to hot yoga, but last night my brother called to let me know he's coming to town, today for a Halloween party and he'd like us to go... so... we're scrambling for costumes. I plan on becoming a mime... because I have black clothing. Curtis, sent me this picture of him of who he intends to dress as. He went and got his head shaved and is now Michael Schofield from Prison Break.

How do you think he looks in this grainy web cam photo?

I plan on bringing my camera tonight, so hopefully I'll get a couple of nice shots. It'll be a late night, which of course isn't the best plan I've had, since my class starts tomorrow at 9 a.m. I've done worse.

:) Roon-bop

Shirley Douglas

As requested (see comment re: Kiefer Sutherland's mother), here are a couple photos I took at the conference of Shirley Douglas and my coworkers.

As my first experience as a semi-professional photographer... well it was lots of fun. I would say that I clearly have much to learn. Once I've taken more classes and know more about lighting and flashes, I would like to act as an assistant for a professional photographer to help hone my skills.

Please enjoy & let me know if you have any suggestions on what I could have done differently.

:) Roon-bop

Class begins November 1

So, with Photography 2 done and out of the way, I'm on to Photography 3. I'm not really sure what to expect with this one, whether its more camera stuff, or continuing with Photoshop.

Class starts this SATURDAY! This will be my first (but not last) Saturday class. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Its from 9 am - noon, which means, no sleeping in on Saturday morning, but being done at noon is better than 1-4. At least I still have much of the day left once I get back home.

Here is the course description:
This course covers both the art of photography and digital image manipulation – two important and extremely useful fields of visual communication in the rapidly expanding digital world. Explore composition, lighting, point of view and subject matter, and examine the technical aspects of cameras and computer interfacing. Expand on skills acquired in PHOT 9038 (Digital Photography II) by manipulating images in Adobe Photoshop.

I suspect that it will be both learning more about the uses of the camera and Photoshop. One thing I have to admit I very much like to get out of classes is the teacher's inside information and experiences as a photographer, that I otherwise would not have known. I like to hear them complain about certain things, or praise others. More than anything, that's what I am looking to get out of this. Any one can pick up a camera, a book, do research on the Internet and figure out how to be an amazing photographer. Through school, I hope to learn from the people and find my way through this crazy career.

:) Roon-bop

Back

Okay, well... admittedly I was gone for a while. I was sick and then I had a conference to run. The good news is that the conference was a booming success! I was even asked by my boss to take some photos. The lucky duck that I am was able to take pictures of Shirley Douglas, who is quite spectacular. She is an actress and activist. The daughter of Tommy Douglas, who was the amazing man who brought universal health care to Canada and mother of Kiefer Sutherland, who spends his time bringing down terrorists as the unkillable and never-wrong Jack Bauer.

She gave a very motivational speech - a long motivational speech. As such, I got to meet her. That was pretty great. She is very photogenic - must be nice. It was a great experience. I almost felt like a pro, so about 5 minutes. We did have a professional photographer for the duration of the conference, but he had another engagement to get to, leaving the door open for me to have some fun.

What did I learn?
1. I am in desperate need of a flash. The difference it would have made is HUGE! In every shot that I took, the background is completely black, which can be a very nice effect, however, not always what you want. The blackness makes the photo very dark and cuts into people's headlines. If I had a good flash, and had bounced it up, the whole area would have been lit up, which in this instance still would have been nice, because the background was a lovely velvet sheet. This would have lit up the people's faces, clothing and hair nicely. The other problem I had with my flash was that because it was pointing directly at the people I was shooting, if they wore glasses you can see the flash in them. This was annoying to try and photoshop out and I wasn't completely successful at it.
2. I should have taken more pictures while Shirley Douglas was speaking with people. One of the best shots I took is of her and the CEO of my organization chatting and laughing. It would have been nice to have more of those.

It was a great time, but it made me very tired (hence the long break in blogging). Now I am rejuvenated and ready for my next project.

:) Roon-bop

Thanksgiving weekend

So, after being crapily sick... I am back with photos.

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend in Ottawa, and I blame Ottawa for getting sick. I had a wonderful time with my family & a quick visit with a couple friends. Thanksgiving is great because:
1) You get to see your family, extended and all
2) Amazing food - stuffing is my absolute favourite... mmm... I could go for some right now.

This year, at my side of the family's T-giving dinner we even got to play Rock Band... which of course, I love and rock at.

So here are a few pictures of my family & 2 of my friends' kid - Brayden.

:) Roon-bop

Photoshop Class

Alright, well I am in class as I write this.  It is break.  I got called out today in class for this panorama I put together.  No skill was involved (automatic stitching) and it is far from perfect, however, considering the difficult of the shot (many seats, many people) it did a pretty good job.  The teach told the class to come 'round and have a look at my shot, which is both pretty cool & pretty embarrassing... such is life.  And of course, because of the width of the panorama, it will come up very small.

Now I shall share it with you.

:) Roon-bop

ZOMBIES!!!

Well, the question before us is this:

Who doesn't love zombies?

As such, I will post pictures I took, of zombies, at this year's Nuit Blanche in Toronto Ontario.

I'll repost my two faves. I love the first one because the way the two bodies frame the bottom of the picture. It makes it shows the people being attacked by the zombies, as well as the scary zombies as well. All in all, this was a pretty happy group of zombies though.

:) Roon-bop

Nuit Blanche

Every year in Toronto at this time is Nuit Blanche, which is a free all-night art festival, where galleries and museums open up and you can find art in the street from all over the world.

This year I went with my husband and a friend. We were out from 7 - midnight. We walked all over Zone A, because it was closest to our place.

We had a really great time going around. There were people everywhere! It was great. Below you'll find some pictures that I took. I would say the highlights of the festival were the zombies and the ROM.

I struggled with night photography. I still have much to learn. There were many times when I couldn't use my flash, which of course slowed the shutter speed, and I didn't have my tripod, because I didn't want to lug it around and I didn't want to slow us down setting it up and down constantly.

You will see two of my favourite zombie pictures below, but I will post a separate blog dedicated to the zombies.

:) Roon-bop

Some work from class

I thought I'd post a couple of the pictures I submitted in class for my assignment. This was assignment #3, extracting & melding images.

I'm really looking forward to next class. We're going to start learning about panoramas and HDRs. I think that's what they are call... High Definition something...

On another note, I am currently working on creating my very first business cards. Staples is having a sale! WOO HOO!

:) Roon-bop