Frozen Lake Muskoka

Last year during the spring thaw my wife and I decided to stay at a bed and breakfast at Gravenhurst in the Muskokas.  It was still quite cool and there was a lot of snow still on the ground.  On a hike in a nearby provincial park we came across this canoe and paddles sitting on a rock next to the edge of a frozen lake.  It wasn’t hard to make a good composition and I like the contrast it represents – it is pretty hard to go paddling on a frozen lake!

10 Stops Bright

I shot this purple daisy in my parent’s garden in Australia.  In the summer time it is extremely bright there and can cause incredible contrast.  This makes it really difficult to do landscapes in broad daylight, but controlled contrast can also work very well.

With this photo I held the daisy up by hand in the sunlight and photographed it against the shady background.  I used spot metering to get a more accurate light reading on the daisy, but even still I think it is over exposed.  I think there could easily be over 10 stops difference between the daisy and the background (just the faintest hint of a background can be seen), and it makes the daisy really pop.

Red lens

A while back I was taking some Macro shots of some camera equipment and got this very cool red flare in this Nikon 55mm f1.2 lens.  Very unusual.  I’m pretty sure it’s caused by the bounce flash from the SB-800.

 All up though, its a good shot as the composition and writing work with the unusual flare.

Strange Orange Bug

I don’t know what this bug is, but he’s quite the strange orange bug.  I took both of these at minimum focus distance on a Nikon D50 with my Tamron 90mm f2.8 Macro at f2.8.  Even on a DX camera, the depth of field is still very shallow.  The trick is to make sure that the eyes are in focus, and all the rest will work out.

Focussed attention

 There’s nothing like a lovely lady to capture a man’s attention, and there’s nothing like an ultra fast lens to isolate an object and blur out unwanted background distractions.  Luckily these two philosophies marry successfully together in the following artwork, with one famous face making a special appearance.

Most of these photos were taken in the Distillery District in Toronto, though one (the poster) was taken in Stratford, Ontario.  On hand was my trusty Nikon D700 and the Nikon 50mm f1.2, set at f1.2.

Tiles

This shot is of our bathroom wall tiles in our apartment in Sydney.  Interestingly, the sun would shine in the window at a particular spot some mornings and make the colours in the tile really glisten.  Using my D100 with the Tamron 90mm Macro and then wound the contrast right up on photoshop to make the colours really pop.  It’s fun capturing things inside the house that make great shots.