Monday, December 27, 2010

Fun with seagulls at Crescent Beach






I had hoped to find a storm surge along the Highway 331 coast just the day before Christmas, no such luck. However, I was able to have a little fun with some of the local birds as they did their thing in order to survive - I had never seen a gull grab a clam or, perhaps more specifically, I never really studied these creatures enough to notice these habits.

The 70-300mm VR zoom was the only lens to use for these subjects.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Remembrance Day - 2010




















It seems I will soon run out of bandwidth using this Google account, too many image files! Today was a gorgeous late-fall day and our small village had its usual Remembrance Day festivities, which includes the short parade with veterans and military personal, plus a few children thrown into the mix.

They started the march from the new fire hall and ended up at the United Church cenotaph; it used to be a longer route from the Legion Hall, but some of the aged in the group cannot walk as easily as they could in their earlier years.

Using two lenses on the D60, the 12-24mm and 70-300mm VR, plus the trusty SB-800, I had no difficulty capturing the various emotions and solemnity of the occasion. I noted the military photographer was using an old Nikon D2X and 18-200mm zoom, along with her own SB-800. I should confer with her to see if they would like some of my captures.

At some point not to far down the road, these few veterans remaining from the second world war will no longer be part of this event. Sad.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Cresting waters in Pinehurst











This is is simply astonishing, the rain has been coming steadily for over three days and there is still more in the forecast. I cannot recall seeing as much water in a short period of time in my life. We have had floods, before, helped out by late-winter snow and ice, but thus is 100% downpour.

I knew the light would be available a bit earlier as the time changed, I wanted to see how high the water was in Pinehurst along the edge of Trunk 10. I took my Nikon 12-24mm with me to church services, as I knew I would need its sweeping coverage to capture what was happening. Even with dour overcast light at 7:30am, I was able to get these interesting captures to hopefully show you the magnitude of the weather system.

A mixture of color and b/w files seemed to be appropriate.

If it continues to rain much longer, Trunk 10 will be closed as the waters will reach flood levels.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Finding treasure in drabness







The best of autumn is behind us, leaves are just falling from the trees and it's kind of boring for shooting - or is it?

I have the ability to extract every slither and nuance of color even if it doesn't seem obvious. Post-processing can help bring out that little extra sparkle where there seemingly wasn't any. As always, the best light is overcast as it eliminates any shortcomings due to shadows, but light levels can be inadequate unless you use a tripod or activate the VR mechanism on your lens; the latter is handy as it eliminates the need to drag around more gear, Nikon zoom glassware is sharp even at wide apertures.

D60 and 16-85mm VR for the first four files, the 70-300mm VR was needed for the last two.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Stolen shots



We had our annual stake conference at the Rebecca Cohn, this morning, this is where all the Saints gather once a year. I casually walked in with my Domke F-4AF bag (including the D60 and f/2.8 zooms), I had anticipated shooting some available-light images as I had done there a few years ago. I simply ignored the "no cameras or recording" device signs (why are these things banned from a place that has concerts and plays?)

I was able to get off a few frames before the staff realized I had intruded on their policy. I politely asked that I take a couple from the balcony of the youth choir, this is probably the only record of them performing. They kindly obliged and I stopped shooting.

I put away the bag and enjoyed the conference addresses, realizing I had done my photojournalism duties and stole a couple worthwhile captures.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Fall splendor in Mahone Bay







I gathered these captures two days ago, just getting around to them as a new laptop was pending. Thankfully, the 3 GB of RAM does make Capture NX2 run much better than it did on the former machine.

D60 and 70-300mm VR.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Peak season for colors















It seems that this autumn wasn't as glorious as I would have hoped, but, nonetheless, not too bad from a photographic point of view. I tried to chase the "good light" and use it to my advantage where I could so my files weren't the typical boring fall images. It's hard to find new ideas after shooting the same subject material for a quarter of a century.

Monday was our Thanksgiving holiday, it afforded me some time to go out and see what was out there to be had. I went both early in the morning (sun now rises after 7am!) to just before sunset. I cam away with some decent captures. I used the 12-24mm and 16-85mm for this particular blog entry.