the.blog @scwleung

At long last, the final installment of my flower photos for the week. Sick of them yet? Probably are. Don’t worry, there will be a bunch of new stuff for you to peruse next week. I guarantee it! [This is not a real guarantee.]

I guess of all the cool and neat things I got out of that Sunday intro session was the concept of Shallow Depth of Field [aka Bokeh]. I’m not sure I’m in any capacity to explain this concept to you [it's 3:40 in the morning, and I'm not great at explaining these technical things], so I’ll let Wikipedia explain it for me. [Ok, if you're lazy like me, you probably wouldn't click through. Bokeh means pretty blurriness in the background ] Combined with all the other things I learned that day [backgrounding, exposure, lighting, manual focusing, and so many others], this photo here exhibits all of that to the best of my abilities. Yes. This was my favourite shot from the entire day of shooting, and I hope you feel the same too.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I will probably be taking more classes from David Allen. Not until the spring, unfortunately, but that’s the way the flowers bloom, I guess. And yea, I’ll probably be checking out his site pretty often. It’s a good source of pretty pictures.

Until next week!

One thing about flower photography that I found interesting is how awkward you need to contort your body sometimes to get a decent shot. You have no idea the weird positions I often found myself trying to get a decent shot with good lighting from a nice angle. Take this photo for example. I had to do a side lunge with my arms up, head and torso tilted slightly, and holding it there while I got the sun to hit the petals just so. Trust me, my thighs burned for a few days after this shoot. It was good times though, and if I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have these lovely flower photos to show you.

A big thanks to David Allen once again. None of the photos would’ve turned out this good otherwise. Check him out at highparkphotos.ca.

Now, one of the few things that I got out of the intro session is that the background is just as important as the foreground. In fact, that’s pretty much the only thing David Allen kept telling me, and you know what, it stuck. Go figure. While this photo here doesn’t necessarily showcase the best background imaginable, I feel it does support and contrast the foreground very nicely. That’s what makes this one a favourite of mine.

So here in Toronto, it seems the case that it is only sunny on the weekends, and seeing as how I took these pictures on a Sunday afternoon [a gorgeous Sunday afternoon], my photos came out gorgeously sunnified. It’s a good thing, really, and I used it for some really cool shots for some of the photos later this week. For now, though, a relatively generic shot of a relatively generic yellow flower. And no, I have no clue what this flower is. Like I said yesterday, I’m no botanist.

Once again, just wanted to link back to David Allen at highparkphotos.ca for his great insights into these shots. He’s really a good teacher, you know.

As promised at the end of last week, I have flower pictures. 5 of them, to be exact, and I’ll be spending this week showcasing each of them to you in relatively unpainful detail. I was at Allan Indoor Gardens [it's just past Jarvis on Carlton here in Toronto] for an intro course with David Allen. You can find him and his work at http://www.highparkphotos.ca. He’s a funny and insightful fellow, and I encourage you to go to one of his workshops when available.

This first flower is, unfortunately, my least favourite of the 5, which isn’t to say I don’t like it. In fact, I like it quite a bit. If I were more of a botanist or a flower-buff [oxymoronic?], I’d be able to tell you what it is. But alas, I’m more of a computer-scientist-geneticist-business-marketing-overall-geek, and that precludes me from telling you what this flower is. Isn’t it pretty though?

How does one effectively start a petition?

One of the final musical acts at Toronto Wintercity was The Stills. I think they’re pretty popular; they certainly drew a good crowd that night. I’m not convinced I like their music [ I mean, I did stand in the middle of cold for an hour listening to it], but they were good technically and artistically. It was quite fun playing around with my camera in a concert setting though…as you can tell, I don’t really take pictures of people, and this was a very nice change. I started with my starter glass, but eventually upped to my faster, 50mm prime, only to realize I have to be much much closer to get some decent shots. You’ll have to excuse my poor photography skills in some of the other pictures in this set. They really could have turned out much nicer if I actually brought my telephoto stuff with me. In fact, most of my photos from that weekend could have benefited from a telephoto lens. I really should start carrying it with me more often…

In any case, this was a pretty good week for pretty pictures . Next week, I hope to bring you some photos from my trip to the Allan Indoor Gardens. I’ll be going with a group, so I’ll definitely be getting some good coaching and learning out of it. Until then!

And by fishy, I don’t mean something that is most likely to swindle you. I literally mean fish, as in the slippery animals that move around in large bodies of unpolluted waters [sorry, Lake Ontario]. These performers were quite fishy…dressed in mermaid costumes, floated lifelike in the air [they had these interesting little body stilts they used to mimic movement in water], and even had their own giant fish and sea anemone floats! Astounding and impressive sights! Too bad I only caught the last half of it, and it would’ve been great to actually understand what they were doing, but you really can’t ask for it all. I don’t remember the name of this group, but they are French/Quebecois, and it’d be great if someone out there can remind me.

On the south end of Toronto Island, there is a pier. Beside the pier, there are some rocks strategically placed to act as breakwaters against the roaring waves of Lake Ontario. You ask…roaring waves of Lake Ontario? Surely not! I assure you there are, and they are quite the roar!

There’s just something about undulating waves that keeps me mesmerized and entranced at a giant body of water. It really is like nothing else in the world. I must have spent 20 minutes or so standing in the wind on the aforementioned pier just taking pictures of water…and rocks…and the rhythmic and exotic slamming of said water on rock. I can’t say that this is my favourite shot of the bunch, but I do like it quite a bit. Would love to hear your thoughts on this set of shots. I tried a number of different settings and angles, and would love comments!

I’ll be honest. I’ve never understood avian photography, and I probably never will! This isn’t to say I don’t appreciate pictures of birds or even taking pictures of birds, I just can’t seem to get a grasp of why someone would sit and wait in the bushes for birds to do something for you. As Penny Arcade elequently stated, Birds are Weird, and I’m sticking to that.

That said, though, I will take pictures of birds when the opportunity arises and the birds aren’t ridiculously far away so I don’t have to swap to my telephoto lens. The above is one such occasion, and probably the one decent one I’ll ever get. I mean, how often is it that a bird flies overhead and the sky is actually clear and blue? Seriously! Love this shot. Hope you do too.