Vineyards in Winter - Niagara

Another shot today from my winter shoot in wine country, near Niagara on the Lake, Ontario. Beautiful country, though winter brings a certain austere beauty which is much different than summer.

Winter Vineyards

In December I was on a business trip to the Niagara on the Lake region, and at the end of my week took a drive down the vineyard scenic drive down to Niagara Falls. Although it was December and cold, with a fair bit of snow on the ground, I found the regular lines of the vineyards to be visually quite compelling. This shot was taken of a field of vines that had long since been harvested and were just waiting winter out.

Simple Portrait

This photo was taken with a two light setup, off camera SBs. It was a wee bit difficult to control the light since the 22s could not be powered down. But all things considered I like it.

Aylmer 2007

Another view of a snowbound field in the fog.

Hot Mamas!

a video created from photos from the 30th birthday party of 'quatre filles'

This video was created using Animoto (http://animoto.com/)...the coolest little widget thingy on the internet (almost). It automatically produces professional looking, hip vids using your photos. The photos used here were all taken at the 30th bday bash of the four women pictured, in the late summer of 2007 in Montreal. I later produced a photo book using these same images.

And did I mention Sarah and Trevor got engaged that evening, making it an even bigger celebration? Congrats guys!

So anyway, it's all in fun. Check out animoto...and start having fun. The full length vids like this cost $3, but shorts are free.

Did I say 'crank the volume!'?

Fenced In

With this image I have chosen a high-contrast daggeurreotype treatment. As I worked on it this seemed to fit, just reducing the image to black and white lines. When you increase the contrast like this, the fog just melts away - which can be good and bad. You lose the atmospherics of the fog, but you gain the high contrast image. And because of the fog the original image has very little information in it other than the tree, which makes for a clean end result.

Trees in Fog

...continuing the theme, this time with a cold-toned photo for a different perspective. I tend to favour warm toned images but it is fog after all...this is quite appropriate as a reflection of the mood...

Ice Fog, Aylmer

A final image for today.

Alone, Parc Champlain

This little tree caught my eye - it was so perfectly shaped with lots of fine branches, yet completely naked. I quite like this image.

Cedar in Fog

This interesting tree - I believe it to be a cedar, though it may be a white pine - looked really neat in the fog. It has lots of character and shape, though the tree to the right makes the image a wee too busy I think. I considered photoshopping it out, but decided that A) that would be waay too much trouble for a web image, and B) I wasn't sure I wanted to alter the reality that much.

Abandoned Bleachers, Parc Champlain

Continuing with my ice fog theme, I worked up a few more photos this evening. All taken yesterday during the fog (which continues today). This is a shot of a set of bleachers by the Parc Champlain soccer pitch, completely snowed in. A rather wistful take on 'waiting for summer'...

Three Trees in Fog

And here is another - three trees in fog, Aylmer, Quebec.

Ice Fog

Today it really began to get warm in the National Capital Region, and we had ice fog all over the place, making it hard to see and drive. Being my last day of holiday before going back to work, I was out driving and just had to run home and get my camera and shoot. I was particularly intrigued by the trees emerging from the fog on the golf course near my house here in Aylmer. Herewith a couple ice fog pictures taken today.

Photo Restoration: old slides

And now for something completely different: a photo restoration of an old colour slide file from my youth. The boys in the photo are myself and my best friend Tim. I presume the photo was taken by my father.

In fact the slide - now almost 40 years old, is in remarkable shape. The scan itself was done by a cheapy machine, so better results could be obtained with a higher quality machine. But nonetheless the actual slide was pretty good. I didn't even touch anything up. I just boosted the fading colours and increased contrast a bit, added a vignette and a frame and presto...

Not a Wedding Portrait!

Moving on with my grunging technique, here is another grunge technique - this time on people, which isn't necessarily the best subject for this technique. Anyway, this was not taken as a bracketed HDR shot, instead I had a raw file which I reprocessed about four different ways for different looks and then blended them together, made a few adjustments in photoshop and voila.

November Challenge #3

I know it is January already (Happy New Year!)..but the reason I'm posting a November photo is I just never got around to processing and completing my November challenge. I shot the photos - I just didn't finish the post processing.

I've been experimenting with an HDR grunge technique and this photo is an example. Processed twice through Photomatix, I blended two different versions of the image together and then made a number of other changes - too many to remember frankly. Not sure I'm yet completely happy with it, but...you can't fart around forever.

So here it is - Oil Tank #2 from Gatineau Park, November 2007.