Flickr again!

Hey all. While I didn’t think I would be posting new pictures to Flickr (or writing in WordPress for that matter) while my inlaws are in town, it seems that it is a far safer thing to do when compared to being engaged in conversation with them.

Oh well.

Over the past few days I’ve been looking over pictures from other folks (hi Tam and Bri-n!) and I’ve come to two inescapable conclusions: (1) I suck, and (2) that’s okay

It’s okay because I now fully and truly realize that I simply enjoy taking pictures. Maybe I’ll get lucky and take one that is really great, but for the most part I simply enjoy the process of taking pictures. And I’m going to continue in this fashion and then share them with the world for what it is worth.

Now doesn’t that make you happy?

Gone, but not forgotten….

I’ll be taking a few days off from both blogging and photography.  Inlaws in town.  Pins and needles time.  Joy.

Flickr, bitch!

Need I type more?

Does that camera come with a flame thrower attachment?

You may recall I had some words to say (or is that type?) the other day about finally having some success at photographing the couple of blue jays that have been hanging about our back garden?

No?  You don’t?  Really?  Well refresh yourself here, okay?

Well this a.m. I’m walking through the kitchen, past the table, and I happen to steal a glance out the windows towards the back deck and what do my eyes see?  Blue jay.  No.  Not blue jay, but blue jayS.  Not one.  Not two.  Not even three, but four gorgeous blue jays.  I freeze.

“Where the shit is my god-damn camera bag?” I think, while cocking my head to one side as if it will help conjure-up the location of my camera bag.  Too late though.  The blue jays had spied me and as if on cue with the cocking of my head they took off into the trees and then off into the morning sky.

I don’t get it.  I didn’t think blue jays were this skittish.  I thought they were pretty calm for birds.  It’s rather clear I’m going to have to construct a blue jay blind and park my fat ass (’arse’ for you folks across the pond) in it for twenty-four straight hours if I hope to have any chance in hell of getting some decent snaps of these beautiful birds.

I’m more certain than ever that Mother Nature has had a long talk with these blue jays and they are both hell-bent on just pissing me the fuck off!

94 days later….

When my Canon 70-20mm f/4L USM IS lens arrived back in January of this year I was totally down with it.  Gorgeous lens.  Big lens.  Heavy, but not too heavy lens.  But it was missing something.  Something I had seen with other larger Canon lenses; a tripod mount ring.

I wasn’t certain what was the purpose for a tripod mount ring so I did a bit of reading and quickly realized that: (1) a tripod mounting ring makes good sense for a longer and heavier lens, and (2) the Canon 70-200mm f/4L USM IS lens doesn’t come with one.

Not certain if this was important I found some online reviews of the Canon 70-200mm f/4L USM IS lens (I just like typing “Canon 70-200mm f/4L USM IS, so please for give me) and each mentioned that no tripod mount ring was included and that in the opinion of the reviewer the lens should come with one as it was just long and just heavy enough to warrant a tripod mount ring.

Being the dutiful consumer I rushed to the online Canon e-store and searched for the appropriate Canon tripod mount ring as apparently there are more than one style from which to choose.  I found the correct model and then turned to an online vendor whose price structure is very favourable for the dSLR consumer (you may find them here).  I located said item and on 30 January, 2008 I placed my order for the Canon Tripod Mount Ring, style AII (B).

It arrived by post today.

That’s 94 days later.

Now, before you get all up in my grill and tell me what a crappy company is here, keep in mind that it was on back order from the manufacturer.  About two weeks ago, tiring of the long wait, I contacted the Canon e-store by telephone and explained that I had ordered the Canon Tripod Mount Ring, style AII (B), from an authorized vendor and that they had been unable to deliver said part as it has been on back order for all these weeks.  “What gives?” I queried.

The customer service person placed me on hold and upon returning informed me that the Canon Tripod Mount Ring, style AII (B), was on back order for Canon as well because it was a brand new part and was a ‘bit behind’ in the manufacturing process.  However, Canon anticipated delivery would be made within four weeks to Canon and then they would, in turn, deliver to all the various vendors who had the item on back order (hopefully including mine).

And thus ended the saga of Mark’s ordering of the Canon Tripod Mount Ring, style AII (B), which SHOULD have been included with the Canon 70-200mm f/4L USM IS lens in the first place.

Clearly it’s time to order more shit.

Getting my freak on……

This morning required that I awake rather earlier than is usual for myself as I was tasked with depositing my lovely wife at the airport by 0645 EDT for her flight to Salt Lake City, Utah (and I’m SO jealous that I don’t get to go - just think of the pictures I could have taken!)

As it is Thursday morning, and because I hadn’t done this last night, I also needed to get out the garbage and recycling for collection.  While moving said items to the curb I noted the rather pleasant look of the morning sky; a sky I typically don’t see as I’m not up for another hour or so.  And this got me to thinking about the many lovely images I have seen online of early morning skies taken by friend and stranger alike.

So before walking out the door to the car I grabbed my camera bag and thought “I’m going to get some great early morning pictures.  Pink clouds.  Dew-covered things.  Early birds out getting the worms.” This was going to rock.  Totally rock.

However, this was not to be the case.  And this is, once again, where the issue of timing comes into play.  Just because I was up and ready to snap pictures doesn’t mean that Mother Nature was going to provide the requisite gorgeous scenery that I had in mind.  Truth be told, by the time I had finished dropping off the wife and then daughter, the sun had risen high enough in the sky that the soft pinks and reds that dominate both sunrise and sunset had diminished to nothingness.  And as I drove about my more favourite outdoor photography haunt I found nothing to photograph.

Some birds were out as I could hear them, but I couldn’t see them.  The squirrels scurried away at the site of me.  And with the gentle cloud cover none of the more interesting colours of the spring blooms popped, lending to low contrast settings that don’t make for the best images (pictures, photographs, whatever).

How dare Mother Nature not accommodate me when I’m ready for her to give me all she’s got.

Bitch.

Holy white-balance setting, Batman!

You, my dearest readers (and oh how I appreciate you!), may recall my rather unflattering commentary regarding our tulips and how uncooperative they were this weekend past?  Yes?  Good.  However, I had not yet commented upon the fact that I have also been feeling a certain amount of animosity towards the blue jays that have been alighting upon our back garden decking for the past two or three weeks.

Not because they were alighting upon the decking and partaking of the bird food placed there for all to enjoy (all birds that is), but because they took off every single damned time I came anywhere near the window with camera in hand!  And as they are one of my more favourite birds it was really quite annoying.

But today I can report that I have finally, no, FINALLY, managed to grab a few images of these blue jays, who love to hang around the back garden deck.  I did not manage to get more than a few, but the mere fact I managed to capture a handful of images at all has left me feeling quite satisfied, almost smug.

It is with every intention I can muster that I will venture to the basement PC and get some 200-plus images off my 4GB media card and see if anything is worthy of posting to the Internet.  And I’m feeling so content I may even post them to my as-yet-utilized Flickr account.

I know you are very excited.

Flickr, art, my own pictures, your pictures, and coincidences

(fair warning: this may be a long post but as everything I say is important so you should keep reading)

This morning I was, as usual, doing some of my best thinking, while taking a shower. My shower is where, for whatever reason, I relax and my mind tends to wander and I seem to think more clearly. This mornings topic wound up being about photography.

My photography.

My photography and what I am thinking about it, where I want it to go and what I want it to mean to me. In brief, or as brief as I can be, this is the conclusion to which I came: I am going to take pictures of whatever I want and do with them whatever I want.

I have experienced a variety of feelings over the past few months about what I have been doing and where I want to go, and I seem to have lost sight of my original reasoning for purchasing a dSLR (my lovely, lovely Canon 40D): because my point-n-shoot digital cameras didn’t satisfy my desire for quality images AND because they took way too long to actually ’snap’ a picture. Too many high contrast photos had that purple fringing issue and you wouldn’t believe how many photos I took that didn’t come out because the subject matter (almost always one of the cats or dogs) moved during the actual capture process. Those digi point-n-shoots are just way too slow at snapping an image, especially without use of the flash. I really never thought much about post-processing of images (other than maybe crop & zoom) and while I knew I wanted to explore photography as an art form I wasn’t buying the camera for that purpose. I derive an awful lot of pleasure from simply taking pictures. Pictures of anything and/or anyone. As a matter-of-fact I think it is the actual process of picture taking that I enjoy more than anything else. Recording images of the more furry members of my family makes me very happy. Getting in the car and traveling to one of my more favourite parks to walk about and snap images brings me great pleasure. Trying to capture a decent picture of a winter cardinal, while elusive, is a great way to spend a morning. Just handling the equipment, the weight in my hands, the strap around my neck, the physical sensation of raising the camera to my eye….all work to create a sense of well-being within me.

Now, I think this train of thought was brought on, in no small part, by a blog posting I read yesterday. You can find it here. The posting discusses some particular techniques to use in Photoshop to create an effect that the writer believes turns an ordinary photo into something extraordinary. And it is a great effect. But here is what I thought was most interesting about his entry: when he shot the original image he already had in his mind what he wanted to do to it. I had a hard time wrapping my head around this idea. He scoped out a location, determined what he would do to an image in post-processing (to obtain his final result) and then shot images to take back home with which to work.

What?

I don’t think like that. I still have a hard time wrapping my wee little brain around this sort of work. Maybe it’s because I see post-processing software as a place to ‘fix’ things or to accentuate something or de-accentuate something. I don’t know. And while I KNOW that image editing software can let me do so many things, I, to be frank, never really think of it in that manner for myself. I take an image to capture a moment. To make a record of a moment in time. For me, it’s more a matter of accurately recording the moment than altering it to convey something more……(maybe this explains why I never liked the work of Impressionist painters until much more recently in my life)

So, I exited the shower feeling….well….feeling better about myself and my photo-taking experiences thus far. I had been comparing them to others (which is patently dumb) and to expectations I had created in my head based upon ideas that had crept into my brain, but which I hadn’t thoroughly vetted in any meaningful way. And suddenly I felt the urge to upload photos to Flickr and join the image-hosting world regardless of the fact that my photos are completely average by any measure. And that is just fine by me.

Now let us jump to this afternoon where I’m using the tag surfer option here in WordPress.com and I wind up over on Blogger (somehow - it just happens you know) and I came across this posting from Tim Connor, who is discussing an article he read by a New York Times Magazine writer named Virginia Heffernan, whose article can be found here. And between them both are interesting discussions of Flickr and what is a “Flickr” photograph. It seems they both generally agree, but with some divergence, that there is a certain type of image for which Flickr is famous: heavily processed with image editing software. Which, of course, brings us full circle; back to my shower and thinking about what I want from my photographic endeavors, and thinking about the posting about how to create a particular look with Photoshop, etc.  Clearly my aesthetic is not their aesthetic and for probably the first time since I began this process in December 2007 I’m okay with the idea that I’m not doing things like other folks.  I don’t have to be anything.  My pictures don’t have to be anything more than pictures.  My subject matter can be what makes me happy and all other considerations be damned.

Besides…..I guess this means I’m pretty avant-garde because my images certainly do not fit within the so-called Flickr aesthetic. Damn if I’m not super-fucking cool.

Timing is everything……wish I had it

Photography related web sites can offer a butt-load of useful information for the novice such as myself.  Composition.  Colour management.  Software tips and tricks.  You know what I mean.  But holy f-stop Batman, what about timing?

No.  I don’t mean shutter speed.

No.  I don’t mean shooting at dawn or sunset because the colours are so much more this and so much more that.

I mean having the right timing to take some pictures of the god-damn tulips while they were open and gorgeous instead of waiting till I get back from shopping, when they have closed up for the day because the clouds came out and the temperature dropped.

Ungrateful fucking flowers!

Pain, suffering and steroids

While I have posted some new photos (see them here, here and here) I haven’t exactly been tearing it up photography-wise for the past two weeks.  Truth be told I have been in no small amount of discomfort and pain for the past two weeks.  I won’t bother with the details, but let’s just say that walking has become difficult, painful and unpleasant.  I did make a trip to my doctor and he did his voodoo, but things aren’t a whole lot better.

To make matters worse one of the prescriptions was a short blast of steroids (to help reduce inflammation).  While I have taken prescription steroids a few times over the years I have never experienced such a reaction as I have this time.  Mood swings.  Constantly angry and nervous.  I feel like a bomb ready to go off at any moment.  Between my bum leg, sore back and these feelings of death and destruction you can imagine I haven’t felt particularly compelled to be expressive through photography.  Shit….I’m concerned I’d throw my lovely, lovely Canon 40D across the room in a fit of rage.

However, there has been an upside to this situation.  It has given me time to pause and consider (well, reconsider actually) where I want to go with this whole photography thing.  I have found myself caught up in competing desires and interests and I think I need to sit back, relax and just take pictures of those things I wish to take pictures of.  No more pressures.  No more need to feel like I’m doing something.  I’ll take out the camera and snap pictures when it suits me.  This is all I really ever wanted anyway, but I pushed myself into making it into something more.  I think I felt the need to pump-up my expectations because I was spending so much cash on this camera kit.  When you’ve been unemployed as long as I the extravagance of buying a dSLR almost screams “Now do something special with it, you twit!”

Oddly enough I have always enjoyed just snapping pics with the digital point-n-shoots because I was doing exactly what I wanted; snapping pics of things that make me happy.  If I’m not happy then what is the point of taking pictures in the first place?

And on an aside, I took advantage of the High Dynamic Range functionality built into Capture One to fix-up some of the pictures of the birds.  It’s a very handy feature and I’m glad I found it.  I recall that the Nikon D300 came with this feature built-in to the camera, but considering the software was free and the D300 was markedly more expensive I think I got the better deal.  Although I still love that D300….