Photoshop...again.

Some of you may remember me saying some time ago, that I had just finally gotten photoshop. Well, I may have lied a little. I was using (from then until a few days ago) a free software, that was really very basic and rudimentary. A few days ago I found, on sale, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. Frickin sweet, right? So, I picked it up, and I've been fooling around, trying to get the hang of it for a while, and I've found some cool tricks. Still, a heck of a lot of work left to do, but a good start nonetheless. The first image, Workshop, Is one I made nearly a perfect year ago, at my sisters college in Oakville. I used some filters and played with the levels a bit. The second image, Kicks, I made some time ago (possibly last summer?) and I mostly just played around with levels and shadows/highlights, etc. This very well could be a great leap in the finality of my images.
Archipelago Photography: islands of thought and image, connected by a name.

Eye Wonder....

This weekend was one of the biggest weekends in my conscious memory. Big in terms of number of people, in terms of affect on my life, in terms of personal growth. It was big. It was Youth Forum 2011 (The London Conference of The United Church of Canada's biggest annual youth gathering).
And it was a blast! It was a fantastic weekend (probably due to such a cool planning team) and we had 168 people camping, worshipping, singing, clapping, thinking, dreaming, laughing, crying, playing, hiking, and having a great time. This event never fails to astound me. Every year it just seems like more. This place has given some of the best friends of my entire life and some of the coolest experiences of my life. If you are comfortable with having a little bit of faith discussion, making immense amounts of new friends, and changing your life, talk to me, next year is only 359 days away!
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen.

Where Did Half of My Friends Go?

My niece Kendra was cross-eyed. Was cross-eyed. she recently had surgery to have it repaired, and the surgery was a fantastic success. The pictures here are a before and after of sorts. The before being made in November (Back-lit by the sun through stained glass, I might add) and the after was made about a week ago. Aside from a little bit of blood in the edges of her eyes (that will go away eventually) when seeing her now, you wouldn't even think of her being cross-eyed. The strangest thing is how utterly different she looks. She follows your movement, looks you right in the eye, and she looks like a brand new girl. It's a drastic, fantastic, change.
Archipelago Photography: islands of thought and image, connected with a name

The Inside Ride

The other day my school, SCI, was home to a wonderful event. A Cancer fund-raiser called The Inside Ride. The event involves teams of 6 to each get pledges, and then each person rides a stationary bike at the actual event for 10 minutes. There are prizes for most distance biked, best costumes and best spirit.
The event was insane! It was like a massive dance party/super-charged bike contest. The energy level was immense and (surprisingly, I know) I was tasked with photographing the event. The photos turned out well, I think, but it was quite a trick balancing levels for photos with and without a flash. Some photos worked better with a little action blur, so that meant no flash, but some dance moves only turned out well with a flash, so I was forced to go back and forth, changing settings as I went. A trick, to be sure, but well worth it.
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen

Little Digits

This weeks post is about my nieces digits. Yep, her fingers and toes. When it comes to babies/toddlers, tons of people love the finger/toe pictures. I think it's because it shows how fragile and tiny they are. As with all photography, baby digit photography has a few tricks to it. First, detail is everything. If you can't see the fingerprints,/toe-prints, or if it's a little blurry then the photo loses nearly all of its worth. So, clarity is very important. A little trick with the hands and feet, is to wait until the baby is asleep. My niece was having her nap when I took the toe picture. And trust me, it makes it a lot easier.
Archipelago Photography: islands of thought and image, connected with a name.

Stained Glass

I myself, am a pretty religious guy. I attend, and love attending, Wesley-Knox United Church in Old South. As I want to keep this blog as universal as I can, I've kinda kept that on the down-low, but it's certainly not something I'm ashamed of. I'm very proud actually.
The major reason this is even coming up on Archipelago, is because of these photos. I've spent quite a few hours photographing the sanctuary of WKUC. The stained glass is absolutely beautiful at sunrise and sunset. So Friday I spent some time in there at both sunrise and sunset, photographing the two opposite sides of the sanctuary. These are a few of the photos I made that day, and you can be sure that you will be seeing more shortly.
Archipelago Photography: insulae de cogitum lumenque, maritus cum nomen.

Get Thee To A Nunnery!

So, I know this is a little odd, but the title of this post, and the individual pictures, all have nothing to do with each other. I'm not gonna just make something up (like I often do) I was just looking through my pictures and enjoyed these two. The first photo, Water Twice Daily, I made about a year ago and is one of the photo styles I'm most proud of. It's a fake flower sunk in a fish bowl. The bowl even has flat sides so there is minimal light warping. The second photo, The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe, And The Lion, was made just a few days ago, when my cat Charlie, interfered with my attempts at making my 100th blog post photo. The title is my absolute favourite line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and I think I've said it to my sister about ten times in the past 2 days.
Archipelago Photography: islands of thought and image, connected with a name