Sorry I have not been updating my site.  I have not given up on it, I just have other priorities right now.  The #1 reason is found at this site, and the #2 reason is the wrapping up of my Phd.  Hopefully once my Phd is done I can spend a little more time on photography (mostly of reason #1) and on this site.   Thanks for your patience.

For anyone who stops by, The lack of posts lately comes from preparations for my wedding this weekend.  We are off to Vegas for a few days afterwards and I hope to have my camera out there, at least for a little bit.  Hopefully I can get some good shots.

There seems to be a lot of traffic coming for CUC 2010 photos.  I have tonnes of pictures from 3 of Stella’s games (including the finals) but I am at a conference in Montreal until tomorrow night and haven’t had time to edit and post them.  I will work on that as soon as I can.  Check the ultimate page for pictures.

I’m at the Canadian Ultimate Championship (CUC 2010) in Sherbrooke, QC.  I’m taking Stella photos when I can (I’m observing, similar to reffing, a lot of games).  I will try to get pictures posted after the tourney.  Check the main page for pictures.

I thought that my trusty Canon PowerShot A620 point and shoot had been lost for good but yesterday I found it!  It was one of those seasonal things.  I guess the last time I had it was in the fall when we were golfing in Toronto.  I was getting ready to go golfing yesterday and was cleaning last year’s junk out of my bag and there it was!  I looked everywhere for it.  Except there.

Now I have my blurry Tragically Hip pictures!

This camera has been through a lot with me.  It’s been on many camping trips, cottage trips, adventures with friends throughout university (well maybe since third or fourth year, but that was still a long time ago), ski trips, vacations (Florida, Lunenburg, Cagary, BC), hiked the West Coast Trail and of course my four months on exchange in Innsbruck, Austria. It even went para sailing once.

I haven’t always treated it well and I am really surprised that it still works.  The casing is quite worn and cracked and the zoom ring doesn’t always snap back like it is supposed to, but it still takes decent 7.1 mega pixel pictures (a lot in its day!).  I did drop it down a mountain once in Innsbruck (it missed so many rocks and landed in a pile of snow).  It has gone canoing and kayaking in simple ziplock bags.  I have just generally abused it, but it still works.

I’m glad to have it back.  Its disappearance was quite a mystery.

Now that I have moved on from the photo a day thing, I need to come up with something else, maybe a little more structured, that will help me improve and keep me posting here.

When I first got my camera I also picked up a few books on the basics of photography and read through them fairly quickly.  I learned a lot about the overall concept of photography but failed to retain a lot of the finer details covered in the books.

The idea I am working with now is to revisit these books and work through them a little more intensely and try to develop some ‘assignments’ for the major concepts covered.  I will work on these homework type assignments for an undetermined period of time, and then I will add another.  The assignments will not ‘end’, in that even though I have started focusing on a new concept, that doesn’t mean I have to ignore the previous ones.  And I of course might do something completely off assignment if the opportunity arises.

We’ll see how this goes.  Over the next few days I will try to come up with my first assignment and maybe the weather will stay as amazing as it has been lately and I will be able to get out of the house and take some pictures.  It has been amazingly nice out during the week, but as soon as the weekend rolls around, not so nice.  grrr.

Alright, I’m going to go ahead and do it.  I have made a resolution to try and take at least one picture a day.  The chances of me doing that are fairly slim, but I am going to give it a shot and post the results here.

I should try and set some ground rules right now.

• Pictures must be taken between 12:00:00 am and 11:59:59 pm of the local timezone(s) that I happen to be in that day.  If I cross timezones, all the power to me.  I can be flexible, it’s my challenge.
• Photos can be taken using any camera.  I’m sure most will be taken with my new DSLR, but I can use any point and shoot, a cell phone camera, a web cam, whatever I want as long as I am the person taking the picture and I can somehow obtain the resulting photograph.
• I can take pictures of whatever I want.  I will try not to be too repetitive and boring, but it may happen from time to time.
• The pictures don’t need to be good.  Of course I will try to make them good and try to pick the best picture of the day, but that doesn’t mean it will be good.
• I may not be able to post every day.  I will try to, but I may not have internet access, be too busy or something like that.  I will post when I can.
• I may or may not post process the pictures.  It depends on my mood.

Hopefully it works out.  I will post something later.  Today’s picture isn’t all that interesting, but it’s a start.

I have recently been debating whether or not to make a somewhat cheesy new year’s resolution.  It seems that in the photography world it has almost become cliche to start a 365 project (a photo a day for one year).  I have never really been one for setting resolutions, especially one like this that is really overdone (to start one) and seemingly rarely finished.

“On the other hand…” (I recently saw Fiddler on the Roof in Toronto, for those that get the reference)

Such a project is a great opportunity for me to improve my skills both technically and creatively as well as forcing me to actually get my (a) camera out and photograph something every day.  It would also be a reason to update this page on a more regular basis, even if Jessie does make fun of me for it.

Well, the new year starts tomorrow.  Check back to find out what I decide.  My guess is I will start it and never actually finish.  If anyone actually looks at this page you can take a guess at how long I will go.

Welcome.

I have always been a fan of taking pictures but have very little experience beyond the basic point and shoot cameras.  When I was a teenager I did play around with some film SLRs, but really didn’t know what I was doing.

Within the next few days I am planning on purchasing a decent digital SLR and putting in some effort to become a decent photographer.  There are several websites out there that intend to teach people like me how to become better photographers and I plan on using those, books and possible some lessons (not sure about that yet) to better my photography skills.

This website/blog is intended to track my progress.  As I learn new techniques and produce post-worthy photographs I will post and discuss them here.  I’m not sure who my audience will be, but we’ll see how it grows.

I will work with different photographic techniques, mostly in my areas of interest (travel, landscape, sports and general ‘life’ stuff).  I will also try to learn some post processing techniques (HDR, Photoshop manipulation, etc.) and will show and discuss the results.  As time progresses I may move out of my comfort areas and work with people to do portraits our more editorial work, and as I become more knowledgable I may discuss equipment in a somewhat intelligent way.  I also have some interest in seeing what I can do to bring in some money from my work, but that is in the distant future at the moment.  We’ll see where it goes.