Images of Autumn - Foliage

As promised, here are more images from Friday's Fish Creek Park adventure with the Voigtlander Nokton lens. One more post of images to follow.















Happy Remembrance Day folks. Remember to give a moment's silence to honour those that fought for the way of life we enjoy now...

Images of Autumn

I went out for an adventure yesterday on my day off down to Fish Creek Park in SE Calgary. I spent about 2 hours getting whipped in the face by gusting winds, but barely got past the parking lot - I stumbled into a field, and hit the jackpot for photo details. Like I said in a previous post, I love autumn for all the colours and textures of the foliage. Leaves get crunchy, grasses get straw-like, and everything is ablaze in oranges, reds and golds. Here's the first of what will probably be 3 posts of photos. I found a few of these plants by the parking lot and loved their colour. I really like how these turned out - the Nokton f/1.4 has such an extremely shallow depth of field that all the background details are blurred out, giving these shots such a painterly look and feel. Click to enlarge, there are a lot of details not seen in the smaller versions.

Holga: RIP, Resurrection

Howdy folks! It's been a few days since I've written anything. Lots of stuff has happened, but either I've been busy or just didn't have the words to tell any kind of meaningful story. Apologies.

Anyways, I was in Ottawa last week, and while out on a photowalk, my beloved Holga slipped out of my hands and I watched in horror as it pounded into concrete with a devastating THUNK! When I picked it up to inspect the damage, I noted that the entire lens housing/ assembly no longer turned, and focus was now locked at 1m. Much sadness... I tried in vain to twist the lens back into form, but eventually came to accept that this $27 hunk of plastic goodness was finished as a camera. RIP. She had given me 2 solid years of use, and together we'd had many adventures together. But it was time to retire and replace her.

I bought a new white Holga 120N on Friday for $56, and played around with the lens housing to see how it worked. It turned in and out, and I realized that maybe my old one wasn't broken, but possibly just jammed. Sure enough, I took some scissors to the housing, and with sheer brute force, popped the lens assembly back out, and voila! Holga Resurrection! And then there were two...

Below are some Holgarama shots of the Center Street Bridge in Calgary - taken with the old Holga a few days prior to the accident. I haven't quite figured out how many turns of the winding knob it takes to do proper overlaps, but am working on it. Click to enlarge.








Ciao for now!
-G

Autumn

Fall is one of my favourite seasons - I love the rich vibrant colours of the foliage, and the return of cooler temperatures. But the sun sets earlier, and there are less hours of available light to go out and shoot. Get out and make the most of the daylight while you can.

Some new photos from last weekend. I spotted these textures while out visiting with Ray and Yasko on 17th Ave, and then out front of their friend's house when they invited us to dinner in Inglewood. This is why I ALWAYS carry my camera with me - you never know when you'll find something amazing to shoot.




















Have a great weekend!
-G

Hockey Fans: One Track Mind

Okay, now that the standoff has actually ended peacefully between the slightly crazed injured worker and his WCB hostages in Edmonton, I don't feel so bad about laughing at this comment posted to CBC this morning. When the story broke, one of the first comments I read was 'Oooooh, this dude is soooo gonna miss watching the Oilers win tomorrow.' hahaha... totally tasteless, but in retrospect, kinda funny.

Fanboys piss me off

Nikon is about to announce the D3s at all of their worldwide events planned for Oct. 14/09. Queue the Canon fanboys and the 'but it doesn't do 1080p' rhetoric. Of course, this is going to sound like sour grapes coming from a Nikon shooter, but I fucking hate tech fanboys. And more importantly, I fucking hate the douchebag commenters on Gizmodo. Some loser who's never shot a picture that anyone gave a shit about is going on and on and on about how Nikon shit the bed because the D3s doesn't shoot 1080p video... cause that's what a photographer dropping 8000 grand on a camera (body only) wants - to become a film maker. If you want to shoot 1080p for serious video work, go drop a few grand on a real HD camera. Don't buy a Porsche and complain that it doesn't haul your tent trailer very well... you fucking morons. Such is the power of the internets - it unfortunately gives voice to those that should never be heard...

Now, before everyone goes off the deep end on me, I'm definitely not a Canon hater. I think both Nikon and Canon have their strong points, and certainly shortcomings as well. I actually think Canon got everything right with the 5D Mk II. So much so, that if I wasn't already so invested into the Nikon system, I may have considered switching brands if and when I was ready to go full frame.

I guess my point is that, no matter what Company A does, a fanboy of Company B will forever bash bash bash, without ever stopping to think about the shit coming out of their mouths.

And with that, I'm off before I manage to drop any more F-bombs. Sorry about the language tonight.

-G

"So Good, Slurping is Allowed"

Some goodies I scored from the downtown Korean/ Japanese market in Calgary.


Because really, who doesn't like a little bit of crunk in their chocolate?


Slurp slurp slurp!!!