This is my favorite photo from our fall visit to Parliament. The clouds, the trees and the spires of the church all came together to make the scene interesting - not to mention some good light. This was another good use of the telephoto lens. I haven't had nearly as much opportunity to use it as I would like.

I honestly don't recall where this photo was taken. I know that it was taken in early September. We left town on a photo journey, but as usual ran into problems with there being nowhere to turn off of the highway. Also, every square inch of waterfront property seems to have someone's house or cottage plopped on it. I miss the desolate prairies sometimes!

Although I have no idea where this photo was taken geographically, I know that there was a bridge to the left of the frame. Directly across from me there were little kids playing in the water with homemade boats. I was a bit angry with myself - so many interesting things to take pictures of, but I was obsessed with getting a good shot of this tree. I tried a few different lenses before settling on the wide angle. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence, but the tree shot was the only one of the whole lot to turn out.

I still can't figure out how to reply directly to comments on Blogger, but someone asked me if I am thinking of making my own site to display my photos. The short answer to that is 'yes'. I spent most of yesterday looking at other photographers' sites and figuring out what I like and don't like. I guess that's a bit of a start. I've also gone way back and read this blog from beginning to end and realized that I do have a bit of attachment to it. I figure I will probably make a site to view the photos larger and uncluttered with text. I will leave a link to my blog, or maybe have a 'find out more about this photo' link which leads to more of a blog-like post, plus or minus camera settings. I'm not sure how many people will look at my site, but it will be an interesting diversion for those (too plentiful) days when the weather is too bad for photography.

My mom recently moved to Sackville, New Brunswick, and I went to visit her there for the first time in mid October. The fall colours probably would have been more brilliant had I gone 2 weeks earlier, but there was still some bright foliage left for me to see. It rained most of the weekend I was there, but I did get some very good light. I like this particular shot because it was taken right after a heavy rain, and the leaves have that saturated, wet look. The desolation of the highway is also nice... Small town NB is very different from Ontario. This photo is a little underexposed, though, and the light is not stellar. It was still one of the 'keepers' from the trip, and one of my mom's favorites.

I often read about landscape photographers who don't even bother taking pictures if the light is not 'exactly' right. I always considered them to be kind of 'photography snobs'... There is a finite amount of time in life for photography... for most of us, not nearly enough! Why pass up an opportunity to take pictures just because the weather/light is not cooperating? Recently I've come to see their point of view, though... the New Brunswick trip is a case in point. I was half-heartedly clicking away at some trees beside the highway with the sky completely overcast and the sun obliterated. My subject matter was beautiful, but I knew that even if my shots were perfectly composed, I would end up with mediocre photos at best. Bad light makes for flat pictures, with little latitude for adjusting the contrast and colour saturation in post-processing. As I was standing there snapping, the sun came out, setting the foliage on fire and bringing out the colours in the ominous grey/blue clouds. I only fired off two pictures before my mom got worried about the time and we had to go home... but the difference between those two pictures and my 'cloudy' pictures is really night and day. I'll probably be posting those shots soon. Does this mean I'm becoming a photo snob?

This is another photo from Hog's Back. Lately I've been letting the random number generator decide what I post. Today is an exception. For some reason, I wasn't happy with anything it chose, even after 5 or 6 clicks. I decided to just go ahead and post this shot. For some reason, I was infatuated with the purple shimmer of the water behind these trees and took about a million shots trying to get it right. This one was taken with my 50mm lens. I have another one taken with my telephoto, which I thought better at the time. I can't remember why I deemed that one 'unpostable'.

The random number generator doesn't have much to choose from these days... No new shots in a while. I have a few ideas for indoor photo sessions with my flash and/or candlelight. I feel like I'm in limbo right now; waiting for Jackie to get better (or not), waiting for spring to come... It feels like both are just around the corner and that I should just hunker down, hold my breath and wait. Not the best approach, I know.

Here's another shot taken at Hog's Back Park near sunset. It would have been a rather mundane shot, if not for the shaft of sunlight shining through the trees and reflected on the snow. I adjusted the levels a bit to try to accentuate the light on the snow.

This is one of my wide-angle tree shots from the Experimental Farm. The shape of the tree reminded me of the palm trees in Costa Rica. I was lying on my back taking photos of them (albeit not with a wide-angle) and they had the same long and lazy shape. Maybe I'm just sick of winter and everything I see is starting to remind me of the tropics.

A combination of cold weather and illness is keeping me tethered to home, despite having a rare 4.5 days off from work. I don't have many new photos to upload, although I took a bit of a trip earlier on in the week. The photos are not uploaded yet, but maybe some of the wide-angle ones turned out alright *crosses fingers*.

It has been my recent habit to post the best pictures from this blog on Red Bubble. Today I decided to do the opposite. This is one of my favorite photos, but it hasn't received many views on RB. I think the thumbnail is just too small to bring out the detail. This photo was taken on my recent journey to Fitzroy, Ontario when I had a few days off over the New Year. We had freezing rain all through Christmas, and the tree branches were covered with a coating of ice which made them look like they were made of glass. In this shot, the moonlight makes the frozen branches glisten. This was actually an accidental shot... My fingers were frozen and I was trying to adjust my settings when I accidentally tripped the shutter. I had been meaning to take a longer exposure as well as close off the eyepiece to prevent any light from entering through it. In the end, this 'mistake' turned out looking better than any of my planned shots. When I lengthened the exposure, the branches were so blown out with moonlight that the subtle gleam wasn't visible.

There is more freezing rain in the forecast for tomorrow, and I have Tuesday off from work... Maybe I'll get some more icy tree shots.

Here is another of my winter tree photos... This one taken with the wide angle. I was about as miserable and depressed as it's possible for a person to be when I went on my photo journey last week. As soon as I put on the wide angle, it was like snapping a light switch: instant happiness. I guess all of those sayings about viewing the world thorough a different lens or though rose-colored glasses have some basis in truth. Believe it or not, this was actually a short, squat tree in real life. The wide-angle stretches it out and distorts it like one of those funhouse mirrors.

This is another of my favorite photos from last weekend. I like the composition with the trees and the buildings, and the stark white of the undisturbed snow. A wide angle lens makes even the most mundane things look interesting.

This weekend I took a walk to the Experimental Farm. I wanted to go somewhere further afield... but the days are still too short to allow for that. It's true that there is always fodder for the one lens you leave behind. On my last trip to photograph winter trees, I missed the wide angle. I brought it this time and left my telephoto at home. Wouldn't you know it... The trees and fields were swarming with crows. Through my 50mm lens, they just looked like black specks... black specks that cackled and cawed, mocking me.

In spring, summer and fall, trees are all about the leaves. In winter, I like the shapes formed by the bare branches against the sky. A wide angle lens brings a whole new perspective to these shapes.

Here is the only "postable" photo I took with the 50mm lens before swapping over to the wide angle. To be honest, I think it's the least exciting. I'll post the wide angle shots in the coming days, since it will be a few eons before I have another day off.

This is my last icy tree photo from the Experimental Farm. It's also my favorite. I call it "Cold Comfort". I like the shapes made by the frosty branches and tree trunk against the sky.

I'm stuck in a deep and seemingly endless rut where my work schedule won't allow me to see sunlight or eat, much less spend time with my husband, cats or camera. I'm afraid there won't be any new photos until the weekend unless something unexpected happens... It's not unheard of, but I won't hold my breath.

Here's another icy tree photo from our cold and wet excursion to the Experimental Farm. There was moss growing on this tree. I was hoping that the greens and yellows would be more vivid, but as it stands the moss was barely visible in the photo. This one actually ended up looking better in monochrome.

Today is a special day. Not only is it New Year's Eve, it is also the 1 year anniversary of the day I bought my DSLR. One year and ~13700 shutter clicks later, I hope I'm a better photographer. If nothing else, it has been fun.

It snowed all day today... not really a blizzard, just fat flakes falling relentlessly. I had to wrap the camera in my toque to avoid getting it wet between shots. We walked to the Experimental Farm, where I took quite a few photos this fall. Different seasons bring different subject matter. In the fall, about 90% of my Experimental Farm photos were taken with the 50mm lens, and the other 10% split between the macro and the Lensbaby. Today I put the 50mm on the camera and brought the new 70-200mm zoom in case there were any birds to be photographed. As it turns out, I spent much of the day wishing for the wide angle and the macro. There was too much distracting background material in the fall to take wide angle shots... now the trees have lost their leaves and the corn fields have been replaced by a clean blanket of white snow. Everything is much more open. The trees are encrusted in ice and snow - perfect fodder for the macro lens. Nonetheless, the best lens is the one that you have with you and know how to use... and the 50 is a versatile little gem. Here is one of the icy trees I managed to photograph. I might return later on this week with a different selection of lenses, weather and life permitting.

Another day off, another photo journey. This time, we set out for Fitzroy, Ontario. We somehow managed to leave home even later than yesterday. We got lost on the way to Fitzroy, and got the car stuck soon after arriving at the Provincial Park. By the time we got the car unstuck, we had pretty much missed the sunset. There was a long trek down to the water, where we stood around and froze for a while before deciding there was really nothing interesting to photograph.

Cold and dejected, we started to trudge back to the car. The path was illuminated by the almost-full moon in a clear sky. My fingers felt like they were about to fall off, but I couldn't resist stopping for some long-exposure shots. This one was taken with my new lens.

This is an apt photo to be posting today, as there will be a blue moon tomorrow. Apparently, a blue moon occurs on New Year's Eve only every 19 years.

I finally have a few days off from work and was desperate to take a photo journey. I have seen quite a few patients from Cornwall, Ontario, and was curious about the place. Since it's situated right on the St. Lawrence River, I figured there would be something interesting to photograph there. Unfortunately, in typical Graem and Andrea style, we did not leave the house until after 1pm. Then, we had a bunch of drawn-out and mundane errands to run before hitting the road. The days are getting longer now, but not by that much. We raced toward Cornwall as the sun raced toward he horizon. We realized that we were destined to lose the race, so made a detour to Morrisburg. I tried looking up Morrisburg, Ontario on Google Maps, but alas it does not exist there. I was redirected to South Dundas, which is somewhat north of Morrisburg, and not on the St. Lawrence.

The temperature today was -20 degrees Celsius. It is probably the coldest day we have had so far this winter. For someone who grew up on the prairies, -20 is really not that cold. It sure seemed cold, though, with the wind coming right off of the water. It was not a good photography day for me. I was hoping to try out the new lens (a 70-200mm f2.8 zoom). I had it set on manual focus from the last time I had used it, and forgot to switch it back to auto. Most of my shots with it were blurry... which actually didn't matter since I couldn't compose a decent shot to save my life today. Partly it can be blamed on the cold, but partly my concentration was just all over the place.

Luckily the wide-angle rescued the day (yet again). As sunset turned into night, I brought out the tripod and took some long exposures. A couple were actually decent. One is posted here, and one is on Red Bubble.

It is supposed to be warmer for the rest of the week. I'm posting this at 5am and I haven't been to bed yet... but I hope to haul my carcass out early tomorrow and find somewhere interesting to go.

This photo was taken at a park near Dow's Lake in Ottawa in the first week of December. If you peer into the far right hand corner of the photo, you can see that the grass was not only visible, but still green! Unfortunately that has changed now... Everything is covered by a couple feet of snow which will probably stick around until at least April. At least we were lucky enough to stave it off for this long.

This was my best shot of that day (and really the only shot worth posting). I'm not happy with the exposure. For some reason my RAW shots always look properly exposed, but when I convert them to JPG, they are underexposed... and I can't fix it without blowing out the sky. I guess I'll have to get more adept at HDR technique.

Speaking of exposure, when my computer was out of commission, I used Graem's computer, and noticed that a lot of my photos look very oversaturated on his monitor (especially reds). I wonder if my monitor needs to be calibrated. I hope I'm not making a fool of myself by posting garishly oversaturated photos all over the internet. If anyone else finds my reds blown out and the photos oversaturated, please leave a comment!

In other news, I bought a new lens today! By the time I got home it was too dark to do much experimenting, but I hope to give it a thorough workout soon. I also have more indoor macro work planned with off-camera lighting. So maybe the dearth of new material won't last as long as I had originally anticipated.

This photo was taken a couple of weekends ago when I visited the Experimental Farm. It's a Red Bubble reject... 2 weeks on Red Bubble and it couldn't generate half the views of my second least-popular photo. It doesn't surprise me... It doesn't look like much in a thumbnail... and the photo itself probably isn't that technically great.

The only person to comment on the photo was perhaps the only person to 'get' it. They commented that it really looks more like a winter tree than a fall tree. That's exactly what I thought when I saw the tree in real life. It was a warm day when I took the photo... The temperature was above 20 degrees Celsius, and it was really more like summer... but the dark sky looks like it could be threatening snow, and the bare branch tips warn of colder, bleaker times to come... For me this tree epitomized fall... a season whose only significance is the transition between summer and winter. But as a photo... it's probably not much.

You have probably noticed that I haven't been writing as much about my photos lately. Part of the reason is that work is trying to kill me these days. I'm no stranger to that, though. The real reason is that my cat Jackie is in the hospital, very sick with renal failure. He's getting better, but the long term prognosis isn't good. The vet says 4-6 months. Every molecule in my body hopes for Jackie to do much better than that... to beat all the odds and recover completely... but it is what it is.

I hate myself quite a bit right now. I've known for a long time that something wasn't right with Jackie, but I didn't do anything about it. I was completely self-centred and obsessed with frivolous things like taking pictures and my exams while my little guy suffered alone.

I've always had an interest in photography, but it only became a serious obsession for me about a year and a half ago. It happened accidentally. I got a new point-and-shoot camera for my birthday. We were vacationing on Vancouver Island and Graem was angry with me one morning. He went off and did his own thing, and I was locked out of the place we were staying with not much to do. I had my little camera in my pocket and I went down to the beach... I took a couple of snapshots of the beach and the ocean... the usual kind of beach snapshot with the crooked horizon smack in the middle of the picture. Mostly I was just angry and bored. As I wandered down the beach taking photos, I started to see beauty everywhere around me... It was a sunny day and the clouds were reflected in the smooth wet sand. The light gleamed off the smooth, wet, black surfaces of rocks and bright yellow flowers poked out between the crevasses, surviving where no flower really should. The shallow tide pools were filled with uncountable treasures, and on the beach, crows swooped down to claim dropped potato chips... kids splashed in the shallows in their bathing suits, adults walked dogs along the beach. There were beautiful and amazing things everywhere around me,and I captured them all with my little camera. By the time Graem came down to find me on the beach that afternoon, I had been transformed into a photographer.

Since Jackie has been sick, I have completely lost interest in photography. Beauty brings with it a wistful sort of hurt. The beauty is gone for me now, and only the hurt is left. I hate a world that could do something like this to such an innocent, generous soul. Fall does nothing but remind me of inevitable decay. When I see the fall leaves, all I can think is that Jackie might never accompany me outside to photograph flowers again. I might never see his coat lightened by the summer sun.

I have a lot of photos stored up from the past few weeks. With work the way it is, I wouldn't have time to take new photos right now anyway... I post photos here and on Red Bubble in the same way I try to carry on with the other routines in life... I eat, drink, sleep and go to work with varying degrees of success. Whether I take any more new photos once these ones run out is something that remains to be seen.

I took this picture while I was photographing the yellow flowers I posted yesterday. I looked up and saw that the sun was illuminating the trees overhead... and the brightly colored leaves contrasted with the dark and ominous sky. It looks like there's a staircase made of leaves in the sky.

I have lots of time free for photography now that my exams are over (if still not as much time as I would like). Once getting over the initial hurdles of using new photo management software, things are running far more efficiently on my antique laptop. These factors combined have allowed me to get ahead of the game for once. I actually have lots of photos ready and waiting to be posted here and on Red Bubble. Today I used a random number generator to help me decide which photos to post.

Today I went to the same botanical garden that Graem and I visited our first week in Ottawa. This time I was properly armed with the macro lens and my Lensbaby. As I walked home, I experimented taking Lensbaby pictures of the fall trees. As always with the Lensbaby, most didn't turn out. It is tough to know exactly where the area of sharp focus is, especially when shooting something far away. Sometimes things look good in the viewfinder and the camera's LCD, only to be a blurry mess when I view them on the big screen at home. When a Lensbaby shot works, though, the results can be magic.

The light is not terrific in this photo, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. I actually took several shots trying to get the framing right. I was crouching at the side of the road, trying to time my shots between the passing cars. I must have looked like a lunatic!

I have a couple of days off from work, and I planned to go out and photograph the fall trees today. Once the leaves start changing color, it isn't long before they've all fallen, so I thought I should seize the opportunity. The days are getting shorter, and knowing my tendency to sleep in, I had my camera bag all packed and ready to go with a fresh battery and memory card so I could take advantage of the limited daylight. Mother Nature had other plans for me, though. The rain started falling last night, and came down all day today in sheets. It only let up for about 10 minutes just as it was starting to get dark and I ventured outside to take two crappy snapshots from my porch.

If I want to post a picture of fall leaves, I'll have to post one from last weekend. It isn't the best picture... The light was fading and I had a hard time bringing out the color of the leaves without completely blowing out the sky.

I really hope I get a chance to photograph the maples with their bright red leaves in good light. Unfortunately it's forecast to rain again tomorrow, and all through the weekend as well.