204.365 Heading Out On Vacation.

Friday July 23 2010.

I'm hanging up my hard hat for a couple of weeks. I'm leaving on a much needed vacation. I will continue my photo a day but will have to show them off in a mosaic.

See you later friends!!

Chris.

203.365 Cooling Breeze.

Thursday July 22 2010.

I had plans of getting some fantastic lightning shots tonight but it just didn't work out. Sure the lighting was amazing last night but I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry folks.

So, It was very hot in the house when I got home from work and I turned on the ceiling fan. Ah, such a cool breeze. There you have it, a shot of the fan. Not the best but I didn't miss the day. :)

Chris.

202.365 Rusted From The Rain.

Wednesday July 21 2010.

Went on a much shorter walk today. But I did find this great peeling paint with some bare metal and rust. I like now the paint is pulling back revealing the bare metal that has yet to rust.

The title is from a Billy Talent song I was listening to at the time. Let's see if any of my Flickr friends pick up on that. I can think of one that may.

Chris.

201.365 Thistle Bloom And Family.

Tuesday July 20 2010.

I went on a photowalk today at lunch time. Just me, I needed to get out. I found many great things to photograph and discovered that I'm still a huge attraction for the mosquitos! LOL.

This is a thistle bloom and it's family. It just jumped out at me as I walked by.

Chris.

200.365 Rainier Cherries.

Monday July 19 2010.

One of the best things about summer in North America is the seasonal fruit. Peaches, nectarines, plums etc. Sure you can get them in the winter months from overseas but they are never the same.

My favorite has to be Rainier Cherries. They are so sweet that they rival candy with their sweetness. Yum.

Chris.

199.365 Snowman In July.

Sunday July 18 2010.

I pulled this guy out from the deep freeze for a mid summer shot. I made him back on May 30 during a freak snow storm.  I put him in a bag and into the freezer for a day in July when it was nice and hot and sunny. Like today.

Chris.

198.365 Bike Carrier

Saturday July 17 2010.

It's become very important that we take mine and the boy's bike on vacation to the lake with us. He insisted.

So, I bought a bike carrier for the truck that would fit in the hitch receiver. His bike is small and I had to modify the carrier a bit to get his bike on it but it's there. This should be a great vacation this year. Only one more week to go!

PS. I know how dirty my truck is in this photo too.

Chris.

HDR Makeover Just For Fun.

I've been playing around quite a bit with Photomatix lately and must say I'm getting hooked on HDRs. It's so easy to do with Photomatix.

I took this photo back in the spring when the snow was almost gone. I was really struck by the reflection of the crane in the water.

But today I was wondering what it would look like as a surreal HDR.

What do you think? I liked it so much, I printed it for my office wall! I'm quickly becoming hooked on HDRs that much is true. I'm looking forward to deliberately looking for situations that would be ideal for an HDR be it surreal or a little more realistic looking. It's going to make my holidays much more interesting this year from a photography point of view.

Chris.

197.365 Welding Rods And Rust

Friday July 16 2010.

I got stuck in one of the quonsets at work during a brief but very hard rain shower. One of many already this morning.

Having my camera in hand as usual, I decided to make the best of it and take some photos of the various items there.

Here we have a can of welding rods left open. They are starting to rust and will soon be garbage. Made for a neat shot though.

Chris.

196.365 Fox Tail.

Thursday July 15 2010.

The closer my vacation gets, the more I need to go for walks to keep myself motivated at work. LOL. On one such walk today I came across a whole pile of fox tails. These plants are great. You can barely see the purple on the tips of one but put a bunch in one spot and it really jumps out. Or put it up against a black background and POP, there it is.

Chris.

195.365 Cat Under The Big Sky HDR

Wednesday July 14 2010.

You can thank Bruce for getting me started on this. :)

Chris.

To HDR Or Not To HDR? That Is The Question.

I've been noticing a huge increase in the number of HDR images showing up lately. Some are very surreal and some are much more natural looking. I've been thinking about trying it and have been convinced that I need to by my Flickr friend The Bruce. Bruce has been dabbling in the HDR world lately and I've really liked the images he has produced. So I thought I'd give it a go. Why not.

So, I downloaded a trial of Photomatix and started to experiment. I used a single photo and outputted a normal exposure, -2 and +2 to simulate the bracketing. Hard to bracket when the wind is blowing so hard.

I took this photo of my kids on Canada Day and I like it but it's missing so much of the contrast that was there for my eyes to see. I'd like you to see more of what I saw.

The first one I completed was this one but the white flags went to gray. I love all the detail in the clouds, leaves, and the kids clothing but the flags really turned me off.

I opened it up in Lightroom and used the adjustment brush to increase the exposure on the white areas being very careful to use the auto mask feature and not bleed into the surrounding areas too much.

This one I really like. Look at the detail in their clothes. All that was lost in the original even though I used my flash. The range just was not there.

I think you can expect to see more HDR work in my Flickr stream from now on. I really like how this turned out.

Chris.

194.365 Local Flooding.

Tuesday July 13 2010.

So we had lots of rain in the last 24 hours. Lots. 2 inches or so. That made for some neat flood shots!

Chris.

193.365 Storms All Around.

Monday July 12 2010.

This is a photo of my monitor. As you can see by the radar, we have some very active weather surrounding Edmonton right now. I hope it holds off long enough for me to get home and put my camera on my tripod for some lightening shots!

Chris.

The Killdeer And It's Crazy Antics.

I love this bird. The Killdeer. It's hilarious. When you get too close to it's nest it will run away and act like it has a broken wing to try to draw you away from the nest.

I have a photos of it and it's nest here. But this past weekend I grabbed a quick and dirty video of it so you can see and hear it in action.

I have to apologize for the poor video quality. I did this hand held and was quite zoomed in but hey, I'm a photographer not a videographer. Enjoy.



Chris.

192.365 Monumental Event.

Sunday July 11 2010.

The kids and I had a monumental event at the lake today. We floated out to the raft on the lake. My kids are not afraid of water, quite the opposite, but they are a bit nervous about the whole swimming where you can't touch the bottom.

First my daughter was good to go and we went out with my brother in law. Then a voice from the beach called to tell me my son wanted to come out too. I went back and got him. He was a bit nervous but we made it out. Once he was on the raft he was fine.

Now that we have made such a huge step, we will go out there every chance we get.

Thanks to my wife for taking the shots. Not too bad for someone who never used my 50D.

Chris.

191.365 Osprey.

Saturday July 10 2010.

My son and I went for a quad ride to see what was up around the lake and I spotted our local Osprey. This bird doesn't show itself too often so I was inclined to hang around for a while to see what it would do.

It went fishing. It hung in the air like the biggest hummingbird you ever saw swooping occasionally at the water below until it finally found it's prey. A small, maybe 8 inch long, northern pike. It happened so fast that I missed the dive completely. I was too busy watching this amazing bird.

This Osprey was hovering over the lake just waiting for a fish to get too close to the surface.

With fish in talon, this Osprey will eat good today.

Finally resting on a branch, this Osprey can enjoy his lunch.

Chris.

190.365 Mid Morning Thunder Storm

Friday July 9 2010.

I was watching this storm coming towards my office this morning and was about to head up to the roof for some shots of it when a huge bolt of lightning shot out. I changed my mind.

Instead I opted for some out the window shots where I am safer from lightning strikes! Pleas excuse the reflections on the window glass.

I put my circular polarizer on and tuned in some extra darkness so I could drop my shutter speed down. As it is even with f/22 I was only able to get it down to 1/10 of a second. I popped off 183 photos in total and only got 3 with lightning. Pretty good for only 1/10 of a second exposures. The best part of July is the thunder storms. I hope I can get far enough away from some this summer to get some great lightning shots.

Here are the other two I managed to get.

Chris.

189.365 Key Lime Tea Biscuts.

Thursday July 8 2010.

I had plans of heading out into the yard today here at work to take some really cool industrial shots and use one of them for my photo of the day.

I decided against it. It's 26 degrees out and very humid for Edmonton. We have to wear long sleeves and steel toe boot and hard hats. It's hard to photograph with sweat in my eyes so today you get my snack.

Key lime cookies. Yum. Of course they are on my fridge panel for a nice reflection.

Chris.

188.365 A Cold One.

Wednesday July 7 2010.

Enjoying a cold Coke Zero while my wife ran into McDonalds to steal some straws for the kids drinks.

Chris.

Made A Rookie Mistake....But CS5 Saved It!

Sunday night we had some awesome storm clouds rolling over the city. Behind one was a great rainbow and I just had to capture it. I grabbed my camera and headed up to the second floor to take a shot from a higher vantage point. I took it from the bathroom which had the best view but I made a rookie mistake. I didn't turn of the lights in the bathroom!

Look at the photo below and you will see the lights on the left side about 1/3 of the way from the top.

I was disappointed to say the least. But then I remembered that CS5 has content aware fill! So, I downloaded the demo and set to it.

Below is the resulting photo which I tweaked a bit more. I cooled the light a bit and adjusted the curves a bit for a bit more of a dramatic look.

I am quite happy with the resulting photo. This was just a quick and dirty fix too. Nothing fancy or difficult. I may just have to save all my pennies and purchase CS5.

Chris.

187.365 Pineapple and Cherries.

Tuesday July 6 2010.

Again with some cherries but with pineapple this time. Yum.

Chris.

186.365 Cherry.

Monday July 5 2010.

Dark cherries are very hard to photograph on the black fridge panel!

Chris.

185.365 Killdeer

Sunday July 4 2010.

This Killdeer was not impressed as I approached it's nest. It's mate was making all kinds of noise trying to draw me away. When I approached too close, this one fled the nest and acted injured trying to draw me from the nest. Of course I just wanted a photo of the eggs then I would leave.

Here is a close up of the nest.

Chris.

184.365 Purple.

Saturday July 3 2010.

Spotted this great flower on a nature walk with the kids. We go on a lot of nature walks at the lake.

Chris.

183.365 Big Joke.

Friday July 2 2010.

So, yesterday the office was closed for Canada Day. Several people took today off as well as a vacation day and the fabrication shop was closed. I was under the impression that several people were working today to catch up on some work while no new stuff was coming in.

Or so they told me.

I now believe it was a conspiracy to see if I would actually come in today. I could have taken a day vacation and gone to the lake for 4 days. But, having some work to do and not worried about being lonely today I decided to come in.

You can see by this photo I took at 8:10 am that I am right. I am the only one here. Haha very funny people. Jokes on them though. I'm going to do something to each of their offices before I leave.

Bwuahhahahahahahahaha!

Revenge is sweet.

Chris.

182.365 Happy Birthday Canada

Thursday July 1 2010.

The kids and I just wanted to say "Happy Birthday Canada". We love you. :) Have a great day.

Chris.