Walk-about.

My days off for the past few months have been tuesday/wednesday, making today my saturday. Rather than sitting around and vegetating I decided to head over to High Park and then down to the lake to take some pictures. It was slippery and not as nice without the cherry blossoms, but it was nice to walk aimlessly around and catch up on podcasts. I also noticed that the squirrels in HP are really friendly, I think next time I go I'm going to bring some peanuts with me.

A video of things I would never do.

Watching this makes me feel better about my recent camera purchase.

Picture A Day, 2014

Yesterday while bored out of my mind at work I was thinking about my New Year’s resolutions and what I can do to keep up with them. For those of you that don’t know already, I’ve got two main goals/goal categories for this year:

-Keep going with the fitness and weight training/stop eating poorly.

-Practice/improve my photography skills, plan a few solo picture taking trips

I think the weight training and fitness goals will be easy now that the holidays are over – I pretty much stop going to the gym during the holidays because keeping a routine is far easier when you don’t have Christmas and New Year’s events coupled with irregular work schedules messing your fitness routine. My plan is to start going to the gym on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays (instead of two days a week,) and by the time spring is here I’ll be ready for swim suit season! Awwwww yisssss.

My plan for taking pictures is going to be a little more intensive. I HEREBY VOW THAT FOR EVERY DAY FOR THE RESOT OF THE YEAR I WILL TAKE AT LEAST ONE PICTURE A DAY. NO EXCUSES. To help with this I’ve started a new blog, Picture a day, 2014 

 

Now I’ve already missed a few days for this year and I’m pretty sure most of the pictures I take are going to be kinda boring but committing to taking a picture every day means I’m going to have to try and find new subjects and places to shoot. I’m also hoping that through this process I’ll learn some more about what works and what doesn’t, better framing, and just in general learning how to take better pictures. I don’t plan on really learning how to do post production on my shots, I understand that professional photographers need to do these kinds of things but for me the art in photography is getting the shot the way the way you want, the way it really is in the world, so as a rule none of the pictures I post on my picture a day blog will be shopped, (though they may be cropped. Maybe I should also take up rapping?) 

Another thing to note is that not every single picture is going to be taken with my dslr, some of them might be taken with my iPhone, or maybe different cameras down the line...

  

Black & Whites

7D Love'in

So, in my last post I talked a bit about my new camera but I want to talk more about it because I’m still riding that new gadget high like some kinda crazy meth-smoking norse god. This camera is just amazing, its fast, feels great in my hands and it will probably be the last camera I buy for the next 6-7 years, (they normally only go for a year or two before I upgrade.) While its not a full frame DSLR I still kinda view it as a scout merit badge for my graduation from beginner photography to enthusiast photography. I also updated my kit lens to a sigma 12-55mm f/2.8 so shooting in low light (what I prefer doing,) will be a lot easier going forward. I can’t wait to get up to the cottage so I can try and take some shots of the stars or for the weather to get a bit warmer so I can walk around at night without freezing my arse off. 

I think my only real new years resolution is to get better at photography, its something I enjoy a lot but 99% of my shots look like shitty amateur shlock. Maybe by this time next year I’ll try to submit something to a community art show? Maybe not, but at the end of the day its just about enjoying my hobby : )

My new baby.

The first pic I took with the new body and lens.