White Hosta Blossoms & Strings.....

Before I get around to transplanting the bush that bore these blossoms, I thought I would include them in a little still life image. The violin was passed to me by my late Father-in-law, and while I can scratch out a tune on it, I will never be the musician he was. So every once in a while, I include it in my photos when I think they need a touch of elegance, if you will. This was originally shot in colour, which was fine, but I have to say that I much prefer it rendered as a Black & White image. I plan to enlarge it to 20 x 16, and I am hoping that the print will produce the tones I am hoping for. Digital images are great, but somehow I still think that this one would look better if I made a wet print in the darkroom, using chemicals, enlarger and printing paper. Maybe I will get around to that someday.....hope you enjoy! Cheers! 
 

Late August.....

It was a wonderful day today, weatherwise, and I had made plans to get a whole bunch of yardwork done. But for whatever reason, I got side tracked, and set about constructing this little still life arrangement.....ya gotta go with the flow! The lighting was a real departure from what I usually do. Instead of setting up my LED lights for this, I experimented with some "home made" lighting. The main light from the left rear is just a remote flash bounced into a silver circular reflector on a stand. It was triggered by the on camera fill light, which was a plastic rectangular shaped ice cream container with a hole cut into it just big enough for my little on camera flash to fit into it. The opening was covered with a white cloth with an elastic around it to keep it in place...something like a lady's shower cap. This contraption gave me a very soft fill light, with no harsh shadows. The ratio is about 3 to 1, and helps add more texture to the scene, which already has lots of texture in the pineapple and the burlap cloth. It was a lot of fun to experiment and try something different. You'll never know until you try, and I have always felt that you can do a lot with some very simple items. Oh by the way, the fruit was absolutely delicious afterward....Cheers!
 

Loaded on Liftoff....

 Finally the heat has relented, and you can actually go outside without worrying about it being melanoma weather. Wow! That was one hot Summer! But, as usual, a couple of days after my birthday, the weather cools off, and I have to say that for me at least, it was more than welcomed. It seems that I spent the whole Summer in the house with the A/C running full blast. I just paid the Utilities bill, and it wasn't pretty. Anyway, enough whining....today I took a little excursion into my back yard, which is overgrown with weeds, and took a few pictures. The tools chosen were my Sony a77ll, and attached to it was my Minolta 500mm f8 mirror lens. Since it is a crop sensor in this camera, that 500mm supposedly is equivalent to a 750mm lens. There are lots of arguments about that, but I couldn't care less really....This little image was taken hand held, and I think it was more good luck than actual skill on my part....but I'll take it. This bee is lifting off from the Rose of Sharon blossom, fully loaded, and I was not sure it would be able to fly at all. Usually, these sorts of shots are taken with a macro lens, which I have, but was not using at the time. The 500mm was being tested, to see if I really needed to buy the SONY 200 ~ 600 mm lens, for bird photography, and such. But I have to ask myself....is it really worth spending the bucks? Will I become a REAL bird photographer overnight? Nahh, I don't think so. I will be saving the money and spend it where it will be more useful. Maybe I'll buy another accordion....LOL! Cheers! 

Somewhere on the French River.....

At what point is photography no longer photography anymore? There was a time I recall that I was very much a purist, when I would spend many many nights in the darkroom, making black & white photographs. Yes, they were called photographs back then, but these days of digital, your photographs are referred to as images. This image is no longer a photograph, even though I took the image with my digital camera. However, after shooting it set to the Illustration Mode in the camera, and then putting the resulting image through various filters in my Corel software, I came up with this rendering. It has a painterly effect, and for what ever reason, I have grown more appreciative of the various filter effects....sort of. I usually ask myself a question when I finish an image.....would it look good hanging on my wall somewhere? That is all dependant on others who might also be exposed to the image on a daily basis......So for now, I will content myself with putting my "images" here on my blog, and hopefully there are those who will enjoy it. Cheers!
 

The French ~ 2

 For this second rendering of The French, I thought I would try putting a frame around the image. It gives me an approximate preview of what it would look like as an enlarged wall hanging....sort of.  Capture specs are the same as the image below. Hope you enjoy.....

The French - Illustration

From the days of the Coureur des bois fur trappers and traders to modern times, the French River which empties out of Lake Nipissing and flows down into Georgian Bay, has been a place where the canoe has been a primary means of travel. The many rapids on this river meant that you have to plan on a few portages to get to your destination. The painterly effect of  this image was achieved with my SONY a7ll camera set to Illustration Mode, using my FE35mm f1.4 lens. Hope you enjoy it....Cheers!
 

Petals and Patina

 These purple petals are what fell from a bouquet that was on an end table in the living room. As in the image below, I decided to give them a bit of a send off, before I threw them into the garbage bucket. They are old, and somewhat faded....just like me I guess....but I still enjoy the colours, and my head keeps churning out crazy ideas of what to do with stuff that is just ordinary. The background is of my own contrivance. It originated as a bouquet of different coloured carnations, and I took a photo of it, all the while moving and zooming the lens, to give the image a painterly effect. Then in post editing, I can control the opacity levels. In the original image, the background was a blue/grey wall that had a few flaws, so instead of trying to perfect the wall, I replaced it with this multicoloured one instead.....works for me. Have a great day! Cheers!

A Pile of Petals.....

Usually when some of the flowers in a bouquet start to die, and drop to the table, the petals are taken to the garbage container. Instead of doing that, today I decided to give then a bit of "glory" before they were thrown out.....just a crazy idea of mine on a very cold and rainy day. Hope you enjoy.....Cheers!
 

Calla Lily.....

It was a rainy dreary day today, so I decided to busy myself with taking a few shots of this lovely Calla Lily that my wife received for Mother's Day. We were trying to keep it outside, but the weather turned so cold and windy, so we decided to bring it indoors for a few days, until Spring decides it is going to stay for a while. The lighting is provided by a portable flash bounced into a white umbrella, and the on camera flash bounced into a silver reflector. No "special effects" were applied, to make it look more "painterly" or abstract. The darker vignetting around the edges is deliberate. If I have a lens that is not quite perfect, and shows a bit of vignetting, that is just fine with me, although most folks who do the online lens reviews give this a thumbs down as an optical flaw.....whatever! It was a fun way to pass the day...hope some folks will enjoy this image also.....Cheers!
 

Oranges in Bowl Abstract.....

 

As far back as I can remember, I have always been interested in art and artists. When I was in grade 2 or 3 in the one room with 9 grades school house in Newfoundland, the teacher at the time told me that I would some day be an artist. I was very skeptical of that and it is a feeling that I carry until this present day. I used to enjoy taking pictures with the old Brownie Hawkeye camera, and still carry a picture of my parents in my wallet that I took when I was about 11 years old. I treasure it. Over the decades, whenever I happened to take time out from living, I would enjoy looking at the various coffee table art books. Then sometime in my 30's I became interested in photography...big time. Back then, a fine black & white image appearing in the developer in the darkroom was the ultimate end. It would be dry mounted and framed and hung on the wall in that special corner. My, how things have changed. Now it seems that an image taken of anyone or anything, can be the end, or the beginning of something else. Abstract artists used to be in my mind at least, very suspect and not to be taken too seriously. Just what the blazes were they trying to say anyway? But all these years later, here I am, using my perfectly nice images from my camera and lenses, and with the help of digital software, transform them into something else resembling the style of art that used to confuse me at one time. But I am no artist....I am not trying to convey some deep profound concept with my images. I make them because I enjoy being able to make another version or rendering of what comes out of the camera. The end has become the beginning, and the idea that we old folks are stuck in the past, and do not like change, is all bunk!! We are open to change, whether it makes sense to others or not is beside the point. The world is changing, and sad is the person who allows the person they used to be, to define the person they are today.....I enjoy abstract images......Cheers!

Floral Illustration....

 

This little image is my first one for 2025, and is somewhat belated, due to the fact that Covid paid me a visit the day after last Boxing Day. It knocked me/us down for at least 5 weeks, and to say that it leaves you feeling somewhat drained afterward is putting it mildly. We were fortunate to have family and friends that checked in on us, and this little floral arrangement was brought to us by our neighbour Terri. She is a very creative person and  great to have living close by. When I finally got around to picking up the camera again, I chose to photograph the things around me that expended the least amount of effort on my part....yes, I'm a lazy photographer, or at least I seem to have become that lately. Anyway, tonight I decided to play around with one of the shots that I took of the bouquet sitting on the coffee table. It was photographed with my camera set to Illustration mode, and then after editing, I took it over to Corel Painter Software, where I was able to add a bit of an impressionist feel to the image. This is what I settled on, and I find it enjoyable to look at. I just might print it out on some textured paper and throw a frame on it as well. Hope you enjoy, and here's wishing Cheers and Good Health to everyone......