Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

Exactly How I Had Pictured It!

Monday, March 19th, 2012
Fishing Boats

Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada

 

The London Camera Club is pleased to have Garry present his seminar “Exactly How I Had Pictured It!” on Saturday April 28th. As a bonus event Garry will lead a casual “Photo Walk”  in the London area on the afternoon of Friday April 27th.

Garry Black is one of Canada’s top selling stock photographers and is widely published. Noted as one of CAPA’s distinguished professionals, this Ottawa photographer leads workshops to destinations around the world as well as in Impressionistic, Landscape, Travel and Fashion Model Shoots.

“Just before you release the shutter what do you see through the viewfinder on your camera (or the LCD screen)?  Are you capturing the feeling, mood, interaction, experience that has occurred between yourself and the subject/scene? Creative photography is about using your vision, the elements of visual design and all of the photographic tools at your disposal to create the image that you see in your mind.

Everyone’s vision is different but there many techniques and visual principals that are common in creating images that help you capture “Exactly How I Had Pictured It!”  In this workshop we will cover the essentials that will help you to create the image that you see. We will discuss composition, visual design, light, angle, lens, perspective and subject matter. As well as Photoshop techniques that will help to make your photograph!”

 

Limited number of Tickets now available:

Friday afternoon April 27th  “Photo Walk with Garry Black” and  Saturday April 28th Seminar 9:00a to 4:00p $75.00 – Saturday Seminar only $65.00

 

Friday location – TBA

Venue Saturday:

Free Methodist Church

402 Commissioners Road West

London On

 

For ticket purchases and payment options please email with subject “tickets” to email:  londonCCImages@gmail.com

 

 

 

Pot of Flowers

Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Santorini - Greece

Greece Photography Workshops

 

I’ve heard that there is a the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. In Santorini there is a pot of flowers at the top of the stairs!

 

 

Winter Wallup

Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Winter Wallup

Canon 5D MKII - Sigma 24-70 F2.8 IF @58mm F9.0 1/100

 

On the news they were calling yesterday’s snow storm “Winter Wallup”. I might have called it Winter Wonderland! This is a Lilac bush in my backyard. The shutter speed was 1/100 sec which was slow enough to capture the streaks of the falling snow.

Ghosts of Elections Past

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Politician from the Past

 

Along a wall in one of the many corridors of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa is a row of portraits of former Canadian politicians. As I walked by this portrait of a politician from the 1800’s the refection of a window from the opposite side of the corridor appeared on the picture frame glass. It immediately caught my attention and I started to compose the photo using the reflection to add some interest and depth into the picture. I decided to focus on the reflection of the window rather than the actual painting, which is what I was pointing the camera towards. The result is a ghostly image of a politician in the corridors of Parliament.

Photo Trip

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Vegas Hotel

 

Going to Death Valley and Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. Wish I could tell you about it. But you know “What happens in Vegas……”

Do You Remember?

Monday, January 9th, 2012

 

Figure Skaters

6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6. 6.0

 

I was going through some of my old images, for a presentation and also a photo workshop that I will be conducing for the London Camera Club in late April. When I came across this image. The year was 1984, I shot this on Ektachrome 400 pushed to 1600, and back then there was no such thing as an autofocus camera. They received perfect 6.0’s – do you remember who they are??

 

 

New Blog Posts

Sunday, January 8th, 2012

Studio Close-up Abstract

I now have 2001 “Friends” on Facebook, there are also 435 people who LIKE my Facebook Photography page. I also have a Google + page which has 728 people who have added me to their circles. I am continually posting photos and comments to these sites. But there are also a lot of people who don’t even have one those accounts or don’t use them very often. If you are one of those people, I have been neglecting you by not posting photos and comments here on my own blog.

The GOOD NEWS is, that as of today that is going to change. You will notice that there will be many more photos and posts here.

Parliament Hill Photo Shoot

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
Christmas Lights Photo Shoot Workshop - Ottawa

Canon 5D MKII - Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 IF

 

This past Saturday, on what had to be the coldest day/evening of the year, but also with one of the best skies (for a twilight photo shoot) was our annual “Christmas Light at Night Photo Shoot ” on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  After the freezing shoot, we headed off to D’Arcy McGee’s where we thawed out!

Best wishes to you and your family for the Christmas season!

 

Sigma Canada Contest

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

Sigma Canada has a contest going on right now, with a prize package worth $1000. To enter just join the Sigma Canada website (http://www.sigmacanada.ca/mailing-list/) or post a photo(s) to the Sigma User Gallery (http://www.sigmacanada.ca/sigma-user-gallery/) . The contest runs until December 31, 2011 –  Only in CANADA!

SIGMA Pro Photographer

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I am really happy to announce that I have been selected as a Sigma Pro Photographer. This gives me access to their lenses (which I am really looking forward to using) and in return, I will give them some of the images that I create using those lenses. I may also be conducting several seminars and presentations for them as well.

In future posts I will be commenting and also reviewing each of the lenses that I will be using and giving you my honest opinion about them. BTW – This is something that I didn’t have to ask Sigma for, they made it quite clear that’s what they wanted as well. I was impressed by that!  Now, I am not a pixel peeping photographer (not that there is anything wrong about being a photo gear geek), so my reviews won’t be technical analysis  about the lens’ sweet spot or centre to edge sharpness, or what focal lengths are sharper. While I do like some things in life that are soft and fuzzy, camera lenses aren’t one of them. After 30 years as a professional photographer and photography instructor I can quickly judge the optical quality of a lens without having to do side by side comparative tests.

Over the years I have used both Nikon lenses/cameras and more recently (the past 7 years – when I switched to shooting digital) to Canon lenses/cameras. Based on my experiences with that equipment I am interested to see how the Sigma lenses stack up and will compare in optics, construction, handling and price.

 

Earlier this week I had a photo shoot using a Sigma 70-200 F2.8 EX lens and let me tell you I am loving what is doing to the backgrounds with amazing bokeh. I don’t know the technical reason why, but it is better than what my Canon 70-200 F2.8 produces. It might have something to do with the shape and number of lens diaphragm  blades and also it has a closer minimum focusing distance.

These are a few of the images from that shoot. I have already posted them on my Facebook page and several people commented about the backgrounds.

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG

 

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG

 

 

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG

SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG