April Showers; Spring Flowers.

Damn...Missed an entry...or two. So...







There we go...I made up with three photos today for today, yesterday and the day before. ~evil grin~ Yes, I know I'm cheating.

Stew

Dinner tonight. My wife just absolutely makes awesome stew. Yes, I'm a lucky man.

Spring Daffodil

It's nice to see daffodils. A sign of spring after a long, cold winter.

Dim Ideas...

I'm finding that I'm not having as many ideas as I thought I would since my illness. Maybe I'll manage to figure out some more, but I'll see what happens.

Rice...Washing

A staple of our family (Japanese-Caucasian). We seem to eat rice quite a considerable bit.

$111,944.00

The money I would have spent pumping 5,000 frames through my D50 if I had had to pump the same number of frames through a 35mm film camera.



And I still would have been at Stage 1 in my photography skill level. Sort of makes me wonder what would have happened if the digital photography revolution hadn't occured.

Rainy Day Thru the Window

This is a shot of the rain on the window of our front screen door. Seems to rain quite a bit up here. Might be advisable for me to get a rainproof bag for my D300s.

My First Nikon

This shot is with the L11. This digital camera we bought in 2005 reawakened my desire to shoot photography. This turned into a desire to get a DSLR which culminated my D50 which i bought in 2006, and then finally in 2010 the D300s.

The image is dark because this Coolpix E2200 finally gave up the ghost in December of 2007.

Rainy Day - Macro.

There are some days that I just don't want to get out of the house. This is one of them.



Here's my watch instead. A barely acceptable macro shot with a Nikon L11 and no ringflash. Oh well...

Hey, Someone Foamed The Fountain!!!

Someone's rather destructive method of playing a ill-timed April Fool's Day prank. This makes more work cleaning up for the Parks Staff.

Note: I have been sick with a lung infection for well-over 3 months and got smacked with a sinus infection on top of that March 2nd and have been laid up for damned near close to a month. So in that vein I am going to start over my 365 blog and choose April 1st, 2011 as my re-started date.

Been sick for the past few weeks. Hence no update.

Wasted a bunch of money on web-design texts. Can't figure out VBScript for the life of me. And JavaScript and CSS drive me completely loopy. Don't know why the hell I got into that back in 2006, but I guess it must have been a brain fart.

Been sick for the past week and a half and haven't had much energy to do much of anything with regards to the 365. So hopefully now that I'm feeling much better now, I'll get back into the swing of things. Start looking for regular updates starting tomorrow.

Feeling sick as a dog...

So I didn't update yesterday though I did take a pic.

Yesterday's Pic


My temp (at one point) was 100.2 (low grade fever). So I took a pic of the thermometer just to get a pic for that day.

Today's Pic:

Feed my Nikon Addiction, Seymour!!! Or is it SEE-MORE... :P

My wife's and my Nikon gear. And more to come...down the road. Yeah...not the most artistic shot. Oh, well...feeling under the weather today. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Aged Photo Effect - 88th Avenue Barn.

Walked down to 88th Avenue today and shot the barn I'd been meaning to. The snow was the catalyst for doing it today.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/70-200mm f/2.8 G ED
Shutterspeed: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 80mm
Metering: Center Weighted Average

PP: Post processed the living bleep out of it to the point where PSE8 said "WTH...let's lose the camera data."

Snowfall...

I thought spring was around the corner.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8

Stop Building

So many people in Surrey and the entire Lower Mainland are wondering if the current trend of building new homes is going to drive housing prices through the roof. Well...it's happening according to the REBGV.

Vancouver Sun: Metro Vancouver Housing Market Balanced - January demand rising

Which means that people like us who are lower-end income aren't going to be able to own a home in our lifetime. No matter. I've never been one for being saddled with a mortgage or having to take care of home repairs when it cuts into photography shooting time. Maybe that's a hedonistic way of looking at things, however, I like the idea of being able to rent a place...and only have to worry about keeping it tidy for landlord inspections. Am I unhappy with the prospect of a life without a home to call my own? No. Given the choice between owning my own home and owning $30,000 - $50,000 (the average cost of a 10% downpayment on a $300,000-$500,000 home nowadays) worth of lenses that won't depreciate in value like a home could potentially do in a volatile market such as Vancouver, I'd take the lenses any day of the week.

Sun Through Clouds

Just a sunrise through thick clouds spotted this morning as I took my kids to school in the AM.

What Is That Thing???

Macro Landscape - Ice Puddle.

On my way home from dropping off the "not sick" rug-rat to school, I came across this rather interesting puddle with a bunch of asphalt stuck in it. Decided to do a macro-landscape of it.

Macro-Landscape (Driveway)

A Macro-Landscape of our home's driveway.

Koi Flag Pattern

My Koi Flag which I have had since I was a young child.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 400
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 20, 2011

PP: PSE8
Brightness: +50
Saturation: +27
Exposure: +0.95
Vibrance: +17
Contrast: +32

Flower Engraved in Wood

The grain of the wood and the engraved flower in the rocking chair that my wife bought from London Drugs gave me some inspiration today in doing a close-in shot.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/70-300mm f/4-5.6 G
Focal Length: 250mm
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Flash: Fired
Date Photo Taken: February 19, 2011
PP: RAW (NEF) adjustments
Saturation +60
Exposure +21
Blacks +25

Abandoned

On my route back home from dropping off the kids, I noticed this rather forlorn grocery cart just left in the alley.

Equipment: Nikon Coolpix L11
Shutter Speed: 1/300th of a second.
Aperture: f/5.2
Focal Length: 18.2mm (compact)
Flash: Fired
Date Taken: February 18, 2011
PP: Urban B&W w/warming filter PSE8

Firefighter Statue Portrait - B&W

This shot was of a firefighter statue located in Holland Park. I converted it to a black & white shot. The statue was placed and commissioned by the City of Surrey and Mayor Dianne Watts in order to commemorate the service of all firefighters in service.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/70-300mm f/4-5.6 G
Focal Length: 300mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 17, 2011

PP: Conversion to B&W (Newspaper-style)

Right Angle Turn

After dropping off the kids to school, I was pondering, on my walk back home, just what sort of photo I could take. Well...considering metaphorically speaking, you can say that life is full of twists and turns. I don't know how many of us remember our plans that the we had in high-school, and how many of them came to fruition. Life is full of right angle turns...and this picture plainly symbolizes them. There's a clear chalk outlight indicating what they thought they were going to paint and the set road marker is completely different from what was planned. Sort of a metaphor for life, ain't it?

Equipment: Nikon Coolpix L11 (the best camera for the shot isn't the most expensive camera, it's the one you have on you at the time)

Stormi Smile

This is today's photo because if there is anything that cheers me up in the morning, it's seeing my baby girl smile. This is a portrait shot that I took this morning. I love my baby girl.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 15, 2011

Bearing My Heart

This was done for Valentine's Day. Simple, straight-forward and effective.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 14, 2011
Post-Processing:
Saturation: +21

The Leash

What prompted me to shoot this was that it feels like the past few days with this project, I'm tied more to the laptop than I was in the past. But it's worth it because it makes me think of what else to take pictures of.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 13, 2011
Post-Processing:
Saturation: +21
Black: +11

Pink

Since it rains a lot in Vancouver, I figured I'd take an abstract of the rain falling and what better than to do it on a surface.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/50mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/50th sec
Exposure: Aperture Priority (A)
ISO: 800
Metering: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 12, 2011

Wet Synchronicity

I have no idea why I took this photo other than the fact that I wanted to show the parallel lines of both the water on the road as well as the painted lines.

Equipment: Nikon D300s/70-300mm f/4-5.6G
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 240mm
Metering Mode: Center Weighted Average
Date Photo Taken: February 11, 2011