Thursday, December 23, 2010

Night Lights (& Window Washings)

One of my favourite parts of Christmas is the Christmas tree. I love the lights, the decorations, and just having a living tree in my house. Decorating the tree is one of my favourite of the family traditions at my house. This year, I decided that I would spend a little bit of time photographing the tree, and once I saw what mis-focusing the lens did, I knew I was onto something.

The first image, made by focusing beyond the lights on the tree, is an example of a few pictures I made with this technique. The second was a bit harder. I took a Film SLR that i haven't had the pleasure of using yet, and opened up the entire back. After that, I opened the aperture of the camera, and set the shutter release to Bulb, so that it would remain open as long as my finger remained on the shutter release. A combination of the distortion of looking through two lenses and that the main focus was on the camera itself, made the lights in the background, a very dominant element, into a sort of secondary focus.

This shows the main difference between the two images; The first is pretty, and the second is saying something. It has a message and a purpose, as opposed to solely aesthetic qualities.

Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Monday, December 13, 2010

The Joy of Winter


I've been trying my best to capture the abject beauty of the winter landscape of my neighbourhood. As I'm now walking to school (a half hour each way) I',m spending more time outside and enjoying the great scenery. And while the snow and sleet are trying their best to do my camera damage, I'm still managing to achieve, with satisfactory results, the imagery that I'm attempting to photograph.
On another note, this will be my last post until the Christmas break has begun, as school is being unnecessarily brutal. So for now, I hope you enjoy. Feel free to send me a message at any point, it's not too late for prints in time for Christmas.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Winter








There has been more snow in my City of London these past few days, than there has since the 70's. We've had two Snow Days off from school in sequence. I have spent (this is an approximate) 7/8 hours shovelling, 2 hours tobogganing, and the rest of the three days staring in awe out the windows. When I see something extraordinary, my first instinct is to try to document it, and share it. So, naturally, I've had my camera on as much as I could without breaking it. Snow photography presents an interesting challenge for me, because to get accurate pictures of the snow, it's best to be out in the snow; which is deadly for most cameras. So, I've done my best shooting through a window, hiding my Rebel in my coat, shooting from the hip, covering my camera with a hat, or whatever is necessary.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Big City




This past weekend my family and I went to Toronto to go see a craft show called One Of A Kind. Although crafts aren't exactly my thing, there were several photography booths, and we did see a whole bunch of Toronto afterwards. We went to the Eaton Centre, which is just fantastically set up for Christmas. They had a massive Christmas tree set up in the middle of the mall, and were sending down bubbles that looked like actual snow. We then went to Ikea and wandered a bit, before heading home, having spent a complete day in Toronto. It's great that fasmily stuff like this, and solid photography can co-exist like this. It's very heartening.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Monday, November 29, 2010

No Big Deal- Just a Hawk

It's really not even all that exciting. I mean, I see wild hawks less than 10 feet away from me all the time. Oh, right, that was the Zoo.
I was astounded today to see an actual hawk on my route to and from school. At first it was up in a tree having an argument with about 5 crows, and then it was on someones lawn standing on a squirrel that it had claimed as it's own. I was able to get within 10 feet from it, and it was totally calm. I have no idea where it came from, or where it went (as it was gone when I came back 2 hours later, after class) but it was certainly a sight to behold. A beautiful animal, it's saddening to see it forced to enter cities to find food.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Production Value


Morally I had issues with this. This is the kind of thing I hate. I love seeing a photographers work, and hearing that there was no digital manipulation. Love it. Because it, to me, shows so much more skill. Photographers nowadays are replacing instinct and vision and foresight, with editing, and afterthought. This whole "Shoot 100, keep 1" Ideology is the bulk of what I am fighting against. It discredits photography as a skill as well as an art.


But I'm not condemning photoshop. It's useful and in a situation like this, commercially invaluable. The edited photo is exactly what I was tasked to make, and without removing the wires, the photo would have been unacceptable. Unfortunate, but realistic for sure. By the way, the edited photo is not quite the final copy. There is a bit left to do, but it's close.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Fork


These are some pictures I made at the forks of the Thames during the fall. I used my new photoshop technologies to tweak some colours a tad. Hope you enjoy,
Arch

Friday, November 19, 2010

Words Into Action


A recent project that I had in Graphics was what inspired this. We were supposed to find a global issue, and photographically convey turning words into action, as it related to the issue we chose. I chose homelessness, and made up this little scenario with a little help from my family and created this. Not my best work, but I feel like it conveys the correct message.

Arch

Saturday, November 13, 2010

I Have Photoshop Again


I'm no big fan of photoshop. By any means. But it seems impossible in this industry to avoid it. As photography evolves, developing tactics have become photoshop tactics. And it's impossible to evade forever. So I moved from one rudimentary (not to mention free) photoshop to a new, less rudimentary (but still free) photoshop. These are just a few extreme edits, to try and familiarize myself with this new software. The first is a photograph of my sisters dance recital. The second is the Bluewater Bridge in Sarnia. I started to notice, and am going to try to avoid, that with the new digital technology, I just tried to make them look like film. I guess I'm hooked. When I get my next roll back I'll be sure to scan some and get them up.
Archipelago Photography

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Roar!


Although I'm not always a huge fan of pet pictures, due to how much luck is involved in amateur animal photography, that doesn't mean I'm gonna ignore it when luck is in my favour. This is my dog Rio. We were just outside of Grand Bend, on the beach, at sundown, and the wind was absolutely fierce. He just happened to shake his head at the exact moment I fired the shutter. I caught him in full shake, with his entire mane flailing. A great photo, but a damn lucky photo.
Arch

Monday, October 25, 2010

I Am An Autumn-Lover









These are actually the results of my school Photography Club's latest assignment; To capture the gorgeous fall colours we're surrounded by. As it's getting later on in the month we are losing the fall colours, and so I'm glad I had some motivation to go photograph them. I got some shots I really enjoy and even worked on the biggest problem I had with photographing trees; Working in some solid composition.

Friday, October 22, 2010

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends


We had a portraitist come into Graphics today and do a complete portrait workshop with us. Learned some cool new stuff, and got some great photos. Here is a link to the photos .
Arch

Thursday, October 21, 2010

HDR and Such


HDR or High Dynamic Range, photography is a process
which uses 3 images, taken in the same exact position with three different, even exposures, then composed together. The point is to be avle to show the drastic lowlights and highlights of an image, instead of losing them. Here's an example: There is a beautiful painting, beside a stained glass window (on the inside of the building). You want to create a photograph which preserves the beauty of both. If you expose it to capture the window, the painting will be black. If you expose for the painting, the window will be blinding white. So, you create and HDR image which takes those two photos, and one in the middle, and creates a hybrid image that captures just what you wanted to see. These two images are two of my first attempts at HDR imaging (with free internet software mind you).

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Film

My Com. Tech. class at school assigned us a project last week. We were to come up with a word, that we could photograph, that had some linkage to the meaning of the word. So I went away form that with three ideas; This is number 1. Number two, you'll see later. Number 3 is still in the works. But, man will it be worth it.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Focus is for Chumps, and The Life




Ah, the Western Fair. It is undeniably one of my favourite places to photograph. the lights, the rides, the atmosphere; it's all perfectly conducive to great photography. These right here are just a few of the photos I took the other night. I thought I'd play with a few styles I'd tried out before, such as manually mis-focusing, and fogging the filter with my breath.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Self-Portrait

So, unbenownst to me, Playmobil made a wedding photographer figure. So when my mother bought it and didn't tell me, I was very excited. We are, more than usual, a family addicted to the Danish toy phenomenon. The one thing I was going for with this photo (beyond decent composure) was a really warm range of colour to accent the characters own colour range.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Breaking The Sky




The Grand Bend shoreline is, in my opinion, the most beautiful in Ontario. Labor day Weekend my family and I were in Grand Bend on vacation and the weather was one-of-a-kind. The wind was absolutely vicious one night and we decided to venture down to the beach. I barely was able to leave my camera alone because as the sun set, the waves were crashing, the wind was buffeting us all and the sky was growing more ominous by the minute. I firmly believe that photography is only man's attempt to mimic the human eye. And I was proven right the other night. A few of my pictures turned out very well, but nothing compared to actually being there. The sight was absolutely unique.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Guess Who's Back?




Yes, I'm back from my summer job at camp and am back to my blog. You can expect far more regular posts now. But for now I've got these. One nature shot and one purely satirical.

Monday, July 19, 2010

In a Haze


Archipelago Photography is now the official photographer for London's newest grunge band Haze. We had a great shoot last night and I'm expecting another one tonight.

Another Week of Photos!











So I went back to camp for a week. I'm now home for two then back for four. Full summer to say the least. While I was at camp I was working hard so I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, therefor less photos to blog. I do however have a few for you. Enjoy

Friday, July 9, 2010

Focus

The first thing I think of when I look at this photograph, is a candle. Because, to me, that's what it looks like. It could look like any number of things to various people. and thats why I like it. In reality, it is a photo of fireworks. I was at a fireworks show, and decided to manually focus my camera as shallow as it could and make the photo. I really enjoy the interpretive quality of this photo, overall.
Archipelago Photography: Islands of thought and image, connected with a name.