November Challenge #1

First up in my personal challenge to take 4 pictures outside during the month of November, is a photo taken on a sunday afternoon walk in the Gatineau Park with my family. Our kids love going for walks in the forest, and Mattias, like so many children, loves to find 'treasures'. If he were being all 'artsy' and grown-up, he'd call them 'found objects'. Instead, these are simply 'treasures'.

Matt's a pirate of course, and pirates have treasures. Matt's also a child, and it is really true that the eyes of a child see the world so completely differently, so innocently, so curiously...than we do as adults. Mattias found these items - a rock and a leaf - while walking in the forest - the enchanted garden of his youth.

November Challenge

November is not typically a month that folks get excited about: winter's setting in, Fall's symphony of colour has past, most of the leaves have fallen and the emerging dominant colour, in much of Canada anyway, is drab brown. Given this relatively hostile environment for inspiration, I have decided to set myself a challenge in order to get myself shooting, and to get myself outside. Here's my project:

During the month of November I will shoot at least four photos outside that I am happy with enough to post on this blog. Notionally this means that at least once a week during the month of November I must shoot outside and shoot enough to have a 'keeper'. Beyond that I have no rules. They can be landscape, environmental portraits..you name it. The goal is to shoot. And raise the bar. And get outside.

Photo Restoration

The photo above is of my grandparents, John and Lily Johnson, taken on their wedding day in the early part of the 20th century in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. My father scanned this in with a cheap desktop scanner and sent it to me, so I thought I'd give it a quick run to see what I could do quickly. In the space of about two hours I fixed up most of the obvious scratches, stains etc, and fixed the colour balance to bring the wedding dress back to white. I did a number of other fixes, including adjustments to the density, tonality and contrast, as well as some noise reduction (the scan is full of colour splotches for some reason). I'm relatively pleased with the result which I think should make a decent print - and a much much better print than the original. I don't actually know the size of the original, but the scanned file was 4x6. The final below, with added canvas and framing, will print at 8x10.

Newborn 2

I think it was some recent events in my larger family (health scares, relationship virages) that led me back to older photos of my children. When the status quo is threatened we cling to what we have? I know as a parent I often find refuge inside the family - in the incredibly unconditional love of my children.

This photo was also taken when my daughter had just been born and was being introduced to her 'big' brother.

Newborn

I've recently been looking at some older photos and applying new techniques to them. In this one, I've taken a photo of my daughter as a newborn, shot during the day, and reinterpreted it to give it a nighttime feel. Feeling that it was a bit cold though, I brushed on some warmth to the cheeks/face area of mother and daughter.

Matt's Haircut 2

So I thought I would post another photo from the 'haircut' session that I started this blog off with back on May 17 (http://objectifimagestudios.blogspot.com/2007/05/matts-haircut.html ) Unlike that image, this is more of a "straight" shot without any special treatment.

What a perfect child! (oops, did I say that?) I guess I'm allowed to be a proud daddy!

Humam & Mitzi

In September my wife and I had the pleasure of being invited to a friends' wedding in Manhattan. Four days off! We left the kids at home and jetted off to New York. We always enjoy Manhattan, and this time was no exception. With a few other Canadian friends we had a grand ole time at a fabulous wedding and played our part in making sure Humam and Mitzi were properly wedded and feted! Some shopping and sightseeing later and we were back in Ottawa.

While a bit of a whirlwind, we really enjoyed our time, and I managed to take quite a few photos at the wedding. This is a shot taken during the couple's first dance. I had decided to go light on equipment, so wasn't kitted out with much. But I chose a fast lens and a flash. I also took the Central Park pano posted earlier at this event - just at the moment when we all went up to the penthouse reception (planned by Mitzi so we would all catch the sunset over Central Park!) See: http://objectifimagestudios.blogspot.com/2007/09/central-park-sunset-pano.html