One of the things I decided to do this year is to step back into the archives to review, cleanup, and reorganize my photo libraries. In addition to that, I'm going to start collecting and putting together a better set of photos that I can call a portfolio and eventually add to a print run or several. To that end, over the next little while, I'm going to try posting these on a semi-regular basis here on the blog. I'm going to do away with the "Friday's Photo" category and just try to post whenever I can – at least once a week, but possibly more.
For this first post, we go back a couple of years ago, when I went on one of my first photo walks during a warm day in the middle of winter. At that point, I was just getting started in photography armed with a Canon Rebel XTi (aka 400D) and its kit lenses. I probably took several dozen shots that day, but I decided to only pick out a few of my better ones.
One of These Things is Not Like the Others
Forgotten Toque
Pine Cones
Frozen Leaf
Now that the holidays have passed, it's time to look ahead to 2012 and see what's in store for us around here! I'm not going to go into any new years resolutions or anything like that, but if you must know, 1920×1200. *ba-dum-tsshhh* *tumbleweeds*
One of the things I've decided to join this year is the 2012 Project 52 happening over on Google+. This is a group of 450+ photographers of all levels from around the world committing to taking and posting at least one photo a week based on a weekly theme. It sounded like a fun challenge, and certainly a lot more doable than a 366 Project, so I thought I would give it a try. It also gives me a good excuse to get out and shoot a lot more. In addition to this, I'll be continuing with our weekly post from our own archives, so hopefully I'll be able to effectively pull off a Project 104. *fingers crossed*
So to kick of 2012, here's my first shot for the Google+ Project 52. The first theme last week was "New Years Eve/Day". I made a post-new-years dinner yesterday which was a bacon-wrapped roast turkey (along with a bunch of sides, but the turkey was the star). It actually turned out really well and was a great hit with the family!
Turbacon IMG_3995
Turbacon IMG_4011
Happy New Year!
Since today is the last Friday of 2011, for this week's photos, I thought I would jump on the trend I've noticed over on Google+ where many photographers have been going back into their 2011 archives and picking out their best photos from this past year. (Check out the hashtags #TopPhotos2011 and #bestphotos2011 to see some great examples)
Now, I've limited the choices to my non-sports photos to keep the selection small and relatively manageable (I might review my sports photos in a future post). Even then, it was still tough to trim it down to only 11. Anyway, in no particular order, here are my favourite photos from 2011.. Enjoy!
(1) We begin with this view of the Rocky Mountains silhouetted against a sunset, which kicked off my efforts to do a weekly photo blog post.
Mountain Sunset IMG_5297
(2) Next is this shot of my two-year-old chasing after a soccer ball on the field where my son was getting ready for a game:
First to the Ball IMG_0864
(3) This one is from a sunrise during a chinook in Calgary where we often get some great photogenic clouds:
Cotton Candy Sky IMG_9265
(4) I was playing around with depth of field when I took this shot on a well-maintained outdoor soccer pitch:
Boundary IMG_4342
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I wasn't really planning on being up early enough to capture today's lunar eclipse. It just so happened that my daughter dragged me out of bed to take her to her 6am swim practice. On a Saturday. Ugh. Anyway, I was surprised I was awake enough to remember that the lunar eclipse was today and fortunate enough that my driving her to the pool would get me back to the deep SE of Calgary sometime before 7. I decided on a whim to grab my camera and put it in the car.
When I got back to my part of the city, I headed for the biking/walking trails that are nearby as I've taken many photos from there facing west. Lesson number one for night photography – bring a flashlight. I had a heckuva time finding the actual pathways since they've been covered in snow. After stumbling around a bit, I did eventually find the paths and settled in to take some shots. Lesson number two – bring a tripod. I ended up taking around a 100 or so shots, all the while experimenting with the camera settings to see what would work. I went through and processed the photos this afternoon and I've found that the vast majority of what I shot has noticeable blur and aren't really useable. Here are the two that I found to be among the better ones from this morning.
Lunar Eclipse IMG_3864
Lunar Eclipse IMG_3904
The fine folks over at Real World Hero have begun their 3rd annual donation campaign! This is a charity drive by players of the MMORPG City of Heroes.
They have put together a number of events to help benefit four charities – Child's Play, Donate Games, Operation Gratitude, and Heifer International.
As a part of this, they're also running an auction until this Friday night with a variety of items, including City of Heroes merchandise, comic books, comic art, and a number of hand-crafted items.
After having been a bidder on a number of items last year (and even winning one), I thought I would donate one of my prints on canvas to their cause. Check out their auction page to see what's available and place your bids!
