Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

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Friday, February 20th, 2009

Snow Drifts 

For the past 3 months we’ve had nothing but snow and bitterly cold weather, I’ve had enough of this winter! I’m also getting a little blurry eyed from sitting in front of the computer monitor post-processing images. I have to get out with my camera and do some shooting. OK, I’ve been out shooting in this sub freezing weather with my frost bitten fingers, but in all honestly, I really don’t like cold weather. Is that unpatriotic for a Canadian to say? So for some serious photography, we’re off on another trip, this time to Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. It’s a short trip, only a week away from Ottawa’s winter. But what great therapy it will be.

Summer’s Over

Monday, October 13th, 2008

My sincere apologies to those readers who haven’t found anything posted here for the last 3 months! It’s not that I’ve been off to some remote world destination for an extended stay, in fact quite the opposite. After returning from France in June we had decided to stay in Ottawa for the summer, something that we had not done for the last 13 years. We had some house renovations and upkeep maintenance to do, I had a large backlog of images to edit and post-processing and finally I also thought this would give me the opportunity to get out and shoot around the Ottawa area during the summer.

Well now that summer is over, what did I accomplish? All of our home projects are finished, that was big and expensive. It ended up that I hardly did in photography in Ottawa, the weather here was horrible. So with the cameras sitting on the shelves most of the summer we decided that we just had to get away. We had a couple options, either taking the 5th wheel RV out on a road trip or flying away somewhere. A decision that I’m sure anybody would love the opportunity to have to make. We ended up choosing on returning to Europe and on this trip to explore Southern Germany – Bavaria, Romantic Road and the Rhine and Mosel Valleys. We left in mid Sept and returned back home last week. It was another great trip, and now I have lots of material to process from this trip. This only adds to the mountain of other work that I still have to edit and process. I’ve come to the realization that I will always have a backlog of images, but I no longer feel guilty about it. The reason that I got into photography many years ago, was that special feeling you get when you look through the viewfinder and everything just comes together and you know you’ve got the image as you release the shutter. For me that’s what photography is all about!

On the subject of editing and processing of images, this is probably what I spent the majority of my time working on this summer. I finished all the images from our 2 trips to New York City last year (spring and Christmas) as well as the images from a fall trip to Las Vegas. I’ve now started on the photos from Paris and France, but I still have all of the images from last summer’s road trip to Colorado and Utah as well as several thousand images from the road trip the summer before (2006) to New England.

I now have over 6000 images on Masterfile’s web site, I’m ranked as the third highest artist with the most number of images out of more than 300 contributing photographers.

Exploring France

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

A few years ago I spent a week photographing all the major sites in Paris and until my recent trip, that had been the extent of my travels in France. On this recent trip we also spent a week in Paris, but then we rented a car and started exploring. Valerie had spent months researching, the 3 areas that we had decided to explore were Normandy, Brittany and the Loire Valley. Travel in Europe is completely different than in North America, or for that matter most of the world. In Europe you don’t have to travel far before you’re in the next town/city/country or dramatically different looking scenery.  Which for serious photography means that you have to slow down and see what’s there and not race through it like you were on bus tour.

Despite our slowed down pace there were many towns and areas that we didn’t get to see, even though it was a small region of France that we were exploring. But what we did see and experience was marvelous, not to mention the food and the wine!

It will be a while before I start processing the files from this trip, currently I’m working on the images from New York City at Christmas. As well I’m working on the not so exciting job of replacing the fence in the backyard.

Two Months Later

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

I haven’t posted anything here for the last two months. If you’re a frequent visitor to the site you may have thought, what have I been up to? I’ve been spending most of my time processing RAW images and also digital post-processing with Photoshop. I finally installed Photoshop CS3, I had been procrastinating installing it as I really didn’t want to take the time to learn how to use all of the new features. For me  it’s about creating images, not on how I did it or with which equipment and software was used.  While the equipment and software is important, lately I find that there is an infatuation with the technology of photography rather than the art of photography. Technology and art go hand in hand in creating a photograph, but face it all the technology can’t change a boring and bad photo, in the end that’s all it will be.

This winter we’ve almost broke the yearly record for the most amount of snow, so I’ve spent many hours shovelling, well actually I have a snow blower but it still takes a long time. Val has been planning our next trip, France in May and June, which will be here before I know it.

I’ve received many e-mail requests about stock photography and which agencies to submit to and where to find them.  Well, Rob Haggart the former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside magazine, has created a very interesting list of stock agencies. This is from a photo buyers point of view, so far there are 90 comments, many adding additional agencies to the list. Here’s the link http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/02/27/stock-photo-agencies/

Christmas in NYC

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

It wasn’t a white Christmas in New York City this year, in fact on average there’s only a 14% chance that it will be. But even without snow we had a great time.  One of the events that we attended was the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. It’s probably the only show in NYC that you’re allowed to photograph.

Rockefeller Center Rink and Christmas Tree. On Christmas Eve this place was packed with as many people as there are in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Winter is Here

Saturday, December 1st, 2007

Dec 1, 2007

Well, I don’t need to look at the calendar to know that December and winter have arrived in Ottawa. We’ve already had several snowfalls this year. Including this one that I photographed yesterday on Petrie Island, near my home. The immediate forecast is for more snow and the long term forecast is for a colder than normal winter. This year for Christmas, Val and I will be travelling to New York City. I’ve always wanted to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza, the window displays along 5th Ave and Macy’s and of course a visit to B&H Photo.