Dabbling in video.....

Dear blog diary,    For a couple of months it seems that at I have abandoned you, forgotten you---not true --- I promise that I will update you more often (hopefully)! Covids and all the resultant lockdowns have certainly altered the rhythm of life for most of us. Perhaps better than many, I have been able to keep my hobbyist/sparetime photographic interest going at at pretty good pace---not continuously as I certainly get my full share of creative dry patches--like just now, which might have prompted me to look at my blog. Normally, at this time of the year, when we are almost guaranteed hot sunny weather here in Toronto, I would have taken the opportunity to head off to the central city area (I am located 20 kms west of the city core, but luckily on a main rapid transit line) for street photography when we are normally flooded with quirky tourists and sidewalks jammed with overflowing & colourful outside restaurants. As of today, due to Covids both these are mostly missing and personally, I am not anxious to bring Covids home with me---why take the risk? Isolating myself in house, garden and immediate proximity with mask are the order of the day.

                    All of the foregoing has led me to further investigate what new challenges my cameras can offer. Over the years I have used the video function, albeit infrequently, almost always only on my overseas travel jaunts to basically to diarise sights and sounds, as opposed to constructing a composite video sequence that builds into a short story or visual report. This past month, with trepidation, I decided to get my feet (somewhat) wet in the video process. Not over-board---just dabble. So far I have produced 4 clips---each time, trying to unearth & incorporate new features in the software menu. I am a strong believer in incremental learning---adding a new technique one at a time All my clips have been created using the old free Microsoft Movie Maker that was included as part of Windows 7 and earlier. I was able to locate a site that allowed me to download old Movie Maker into Win 10 and so far it seems to work perfectly. I also decided to upgrade my Photoshop Elements v.12 to Elements version 20 bundled with Premiere which is the companion video software programme & which Adobe state is targeted at beginner/enthusiast to near pro level. Anyway, to this point on my video journey & with only 4 clips in the can so far, I have ventured to use Movie Maker only and am still building my confidence to use the more sophisticated platform for my next effort.
                  Just a note on Photoshop Elements---as mentioned I happily used v12 for a number of years. To be honest I cannot see any real/worthwhile improvements in v20. Can only suggest that you save your money for this upgrade.

Capturing Covid 19....

            We are living, and hopefully surviving, a very strange period. Something the that will mark down 2020 as a year for the history books. The personal and financial trauma of Covid 19 is not over yet and while we are all hopeful that it will be resolved as result of the measures that governments and populations around the world have taken to isolate, we have to be aware that until an effective vaccine is developed, we could experience serious & potentially deadly flareups. It has always been easy as John Q. Citizen to barrack the policy makers and political leaders from the sidelines with criticisms sans the need to offer any real alternative suggestions. I have to admit that I have been very impressed with the quality of  various national crisis managements and the ability of political competitors to suppress their natural inclinations to score cheap points and, in general, to pull together for the common good.
              With all that said, I decided to walk the neighbourhood to try and capture evidence photographically, something of this great 2020 Covid 19 event before it dissipates. Already the (Canadian) government, as are others, are beginning to relax some of the most stringent epidemic lock-down regulations and I am sensing that vehicular and pedestrian street traffic is slowly, very slowly, returning to more normal levels.
                       I live near a major hospital and from just observing from the front exterior it is clear that major changes have been enacted so that it can function effectively in the Covid world. All  hospital entrances are controlled by security guards who efficiently turn away unnecessary visitors and limit access only to those unfortunate enough to require services. I noted all the masks and gloves that litter the grounds of the public areas around the hospital. I find it very difficult to understand the mentality it requires to jettison (infected?) safety gear so haphazardly and without thought for folks who eventually have the job to pickup this discarded rubbish.
       On the hospital lawn some one, some organization, has erected a memorial area of uniform small white crosses commemorating local victims of Covids. With two large old folks residences abutting the hospital, I can only guess whom the crosses mark. A nice touch--- while I was stooped down trying for an interesting angle, I was joined by a video photographer from a local TV network clearly working on a project along similar lines.
This city, with so much superficial wealth, has many citizens who are clearly having major difficulty feeding themselves & their families.
               The Canadian national unemployment has shot up from a low 4 to 14% + in the space of just 8 weeks. Much of the poverty in this city is hidden away behind the walls of smart condo apartments and the estates of private family homes. My photo above depicts a food table that appeared and note that just half an hour later when I returned, the table was bare.

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What are you smokin'....?

Not sure what the neighbours thought of the scented pale blue smoke drifting their way through open windows, as I completed my set-up for my attempt to capture lazy whirls of smoke arising from the burning incense sticks (were n't these called josh sticks back in the sixties?) As part of my ongoing photography education, I had spotted some beautiful studies in smoke and felt it was time for me to attempt a reasonable capture.
I felt that a set up with pure black background would work best as it effectively contrasted with the pale blue smoke. The trick I discovered with much trial & error was to illuminate only the smoke with a speedlight flash, being very careful that the light from the flash did not escape & light up the black background---otherwise  the effect of the pure black back-drop would be lost. To achieve this with material on hand, I placed the light in front of the back-drop and wrapped a cone of black paper around the flash to concentrate the light spread only onto the rising smoke swirls. I also quickly identified the need to make sure that all the air in my studio was 100% calm to avoid chaotic breakup of the smoke streams. This included closing all windows, doors and switching off the forced air heating system. Such is the delicacy of the smoke whirl that even any movement by myself in the room made the smoke rise chaotically and break up in a manner that I did not feel was compositionally what I was seeking.
              I set the camera, my Nikon D610 DSLR, to 1/200th, and a moderate f 9, ISO 200, with speedlight at 100% power. The burning incense sticks pulled out in stages to about 4ft. in front of the black back-drop. These settings were arrived at of, course, after some considerable trial and error.
Smoke from the incense sticks has little native colour and photographs as a light grey when illuminated from slightly below & behind the smoke. This is where the physical constraints of photography intersect with creative licence. In the top picture, I painted the three different zones of the smoke swirl using large soft brushes in Lightroom set with tones of green, blue and yellow (top). In the image to the lower left I toyed with the white balance in Lightroom to accentuate the blue aspects captured by the camera.
Capturing attractive smoke swirls is a numbers game. The  smoke formations come together and dissipate in a flash. I spent the best part of 3 mornings on this project with the camera and later refining selected images on the computer. I estimate that in total I took more than 300 shots.

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Drips on a leaf...

                   Watching drips of water balanced on the edge of a leaf. Easy? No, not so easy. Drawing once again on YouTube resources for new & challenging ideas to keep me gainfully occupied during these long Covid 19 lock-down days by capturing small droplets of water teetering on the edge of a leaf, I decided that this was just the type of challenge that I needed.
The first task was to find this suitable leaf----we are not short of them in our home, especially at this early spring time of the year when it seems as if every corner and available table top has pots of seedlings awaiting milder temperatures and their transplanting into their allocated rows laid out in the vegetable garden. My initial leaf choice was a long slender amaryllis bulb leaf onto which I gently sprinkled a fine spray of tap water. It was my plan to watch the tiny streams of water collect into droplets on the edge of the leaf, building in size so as to be highly photogenic. Unfortunately, surface tension of the droplets was not what I expected & they kept overloading to the point of being excessivly weighty and rolling off the leaf. It had been my plan per the samples on YouTube to capture, three, four or five full droplets in a row, so as to maximise the creative effect. I was just unable to control in position multiple droplets at the same time, without losing several uncooperative drops over the edge. Back to Youtube for solutions! I discovered that placing water drops on the leaf edge in precise position is simple, if one employs a pipette, or in my case a turkey basting syringe with a narrow exit tube. Now I was able to magically position the droplets and even to increase/adjust the size of a specific droplet if required. Simple when you know how!
             

 On this day to learn, I also grasped that the creative impact of leaf edge water droplets is maximised with an eyecatching background. My photos were captured with a 20x30 inch sheet of white foam board as back-drop. I learned that plain white background 1) does not an interesting photo make and 2) that the lens effect of the droplets is nearly 180 degrees, so that the droplets on the leaf edge were picking up dark edges to the extreme right & left of the foam board--not attractive. An interesting photo education experience, but one from which I felt I could develop a better shot.
             Second attempt. I rounded up another leaf, but this time of a more traditional leaf shape, as opposed to the long, smooth straight leaves of the amaryllis bulb I had used in experiment #1. This time I decided to use the leaf attached to the plant and use the other leaves as background. Also I determined that the shot I was aiming for would be more abstract in concept with (hopefully) impactful use of colour. Pipette activated with a charge of clean water, I gently placed drops on the edge of the selected leaf---easy when you know how! I illuminated the entire set-up with my desktop LED light. This small battery powered  LED light is compact enought so that it can be easily moved around the set-up, effectively obtaining various illumination effects as rays shone both across the leaf surface & up through the leaf from under.
            Project completed----for now. I am sure that I will return to this idea on some future snowy house-bound day and attempt to achieve the rather more clean creation I envisaged.

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My tribute to Leonard Cohen.....

Help! I think that I am getting carried away with this selfy thing cloistered away in Covid 19 lock down. With just the two of us at home, I have a real shortage of living models. But wait---maybe I should be making eyes at the cat, as know that she loves to be so often the centre of attention.
Anyway, with time on my hands, I decided yesterday to set up camera and speedlights. Rummaging

through my box of gear & gadgets,  tucked inside, I discovered a set of commemorative Canadian postage stamps depicting the late Leonard Cohen, chanteur and raconteur, on the over-wrap and with different Cohen poses on each stamp.  An impressive guy who had a most interesting life. We had little in common, except for being of a similar certain age. I remember him as a celebrity on the circuit in Montreal, early 1970's. Anyway, with these thoughts in my mind, I  felt inspired, in my humble way, to try & to capture something of a Leonardesque feel to my photo.
                Unfortunately, I do not have a dedicated studio in my house and have to set up tripods and light stands in available quiet corners when there is no one else about, (usually when my wife is out shopping!). I find studio photography to be rather intense intellectually, with so many settings, adjustments and fine

tuning to arrive at the desired effect. Each time I attempt a studio portrait shot, I try to incorporate a technique that I have never previously tried, in an effort to expand my repertoire of techniques. Yesterday, I positioned a speedlight behind the model (me) pointing towards the camera and screened by the model from  the camera, such that just a rim of light was dramatically created around the outline of my black jacket against a black background. I was quite pleased with the effect.
I used my Nikon D610 set to manual, 35 mm Yongnuo  prime, f5 at 1/200th, ISO 100. Three Godox V850 speedlights. I employed the 10 second self-timer with my face 1 metre from the camera.
                For dramatic effect I selected a bright yellow daffodil as my prop, experimenting with the daffodil hand held, vertical, horizontal----eventually feeling a mouth held version was the 'money' shot.
Pictured at right is a painting of Leonard projected up on to the end wall of a building on Crescent Street, Montreal, (Sept. 2019).

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Multi me......

               Although intuitively I was aware of the concept, there are two very interesting words that apply to  creative photographic work. The first of the words is 'of'', as in, a photograph of an apple. A superb and eye catching photo of a red apple, but nevertheless a rather boring and probably forgettable picture of said red apple. Now let us imagine the rosy red apple is caught by the camera at the very instant that a beautiful butterfly alights. Clearly, there is a story here 'about' the instance and the photographer's luck/skill in capturing such a fleeting, never to be repeated image.Where did the butterfly come from?  Where is it going?. Did it want to eat some of the apple? etc, etc, so many  questions to be asked of this simple scenario. As a result of this simple proposition, I shall in future try harder to have a story to tell about my creative output.

            The days and weeks of this Covid lock down grind on. Luckily I am almost always very busy with a list of household tasks to be completed---would Mrs. W. want it any other way?
Yesterday I embarked on a selfie project. With a shortage of live models in my life, I often have to hire yours sincerely to pose. Now I do charge a hefty fee to pose for myself, so in view of this cost I decided to go the value route and incorporate four of me in the photo---not so difficult to achieve thanks to Photoshop Elements. My tripod was carefully set up to ensure that the camera was stable &  untouched for each of the poses with the 10 second timer switched on so that I had time to hustle myself into position for each specific pose. To make the photo a little more interesting, I decided raid the wardrobe & to wear a different outfit for each pose. As with most things Photoshop, there are always multiple ways to achieve the same end effect. I opted to stack the images on top of each other, employing the rubber eraser tool, exposing the image (in this case, our trusty model) from the layer below. This layer on layer approach was repeated with erasure to expose the lower relevant layer details. Ultimately, I had each of the four models showing through to provide the effect of appearing that the different me's were all in the room concurrently. The entire project took me several hours to complete, but in an otherwise unhurried lock down day, I had lots of fun at zero cost to the household budget.

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Out in the garden.....

                 Likely we are still at the relative early stages of the 2020 corona virus lock down. The streets are eerily quiet, almost total absence of the big jet aircraft that continually criss-cross the city (Toronto, Canada) skies and yes, the air really does seem sweeter & cleaner. My eyes closed to concentrate senses, I drank my morning cup of coffee in the garden, enjoying the first spring day where the sun tentatively radiates discernible warmth downwards. With so few other distractions

beckoning,  my spring garden work is well ahead of schedule --- my wife has laid out detailed campaign plans to accomplish her vegetable and flower successes later in the year, always assuming Mother Nature decides to partner up in this project

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                    Local parks and nearby places of interest are virtually 100%  closed and with a strong desire to continue to develop my camera skills, I am daily hunting for fresh & captivating subjects located on the property, towards which to point my lens. It is now only days away from having to cut the rapidly thickening lawn & with this in mind, I dutifully spotted the trusty lawnmower lurking in the shadows of the darkest corner of the garden shed, covered in a layer of winter dust and accumulated oily smudges.
             

Many of the photography related channel operators on YouTube, themselves also house and apartment bound, have been presenting creative suggestions & ideas on how to spot candidate household objects & possessions as a basis for creative photographic ideas. With this approach in mind, I found myself rolling around the driveway trying to find new & dramatic angles to digitally capture my lawnmower now that she is all oiled & polished up for a full summer of work. Not easy to seize arresting depictions of the mundane mower. I quickly discovered that ground level angles--as viewed by the innocent earthworm just before being shredded, offered much more dramatic views of this noisy metal monster compared to the usual and rather boring 6ft high eye vantage point of the adult male.
                      Just a word on YouTube. Fantastic tool that we, here in 2020, are all privileged to be able use & enjoy. Personally I have learned so much about photography from a considerable number of highly qualified presenters. I have learned at my own (slow & plodding) pace, incorporating new procedures and techniques into my approach as best fitted my digital progress. On the flip side, YouTube can be a monumental time waster. So much intriguing, captivating (and potentially useless) material---so little time.

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Put on the kettle .....

Last week of March and woke up to an inch of snow on the front lawn. Hurried through my breakfast time chores to take my last photo of a "white snow scene" for this season.... & there it was----gone! So quickly a steady spring rain downpour had washed it all away. With plans askew, but not to be thwarted on this another day of Covid 19 virus lock-down, I began a prowl around the house to spot something--anything, to set my lens upon. With a morning cup of coffee on my mind, this photographer's eyes alighted on our stylish red kettle. While the water boiled, I looked at it from a variety of angles. On initial examination it appeared rather blah, unexciting, unappealing.  With a few sips of that hot, life sustaining liquid coursing through the old veins, ideas as to how I could tackle the project started to flood in. It quickly seemed apparent that this would have to be a macro photography project in order for me to move in close enough to capture small details of the kettle & to register them large on the sensor. My self set guideline is that the finished work would be abstract, such that I could ask you, the viewer, to identify the subject, and you would be unable to do so. Often the small details are much more enthralling than the full subject. But wait---before,  proceeding, experience has taught me that I should take a cloth with a small amount of detergent to give the outside of the kettle a real deep clean and polish--rubbing away microscopic particles and smears in corners that had been missed as part of our regular kitchen hygiene routine. Time spent in macro photography cleaning and preparing the subject in advance saves multiples of that (wasted) time in post processing making good a shoddy set-up.

In all, I took more than 60 images of the red kettle with my Nikon D610 fitted with a 35mm f2.0 prime plus a 12 mm expansion ring. My 'You Tube' teachers have impressed upon me the necessity to keep firing away in the search for an angle. Digital shots are free, so just click away to your heart's content. Often at the end of a photo session, I  have a sense that somehow I have failed to capture a 'keeper'. Only when I unload my work into Lightroom on the computer and have had time to thoughtfully review the shots, deleting and sorting possibles, do I realize that a few may have real potential. On this particular occasion 60 shots were reduced to fifteen, to six and finally to just four. As mentioned in earlier postings, I feel that as the owner of this creative output, that I have the right to take artistic licence to achieve end results that I find pleasing. I crop and sometimes reverse the image, I manipulate temperatures, contrast, levels and tints until I find the result that pleases my eye. This is all about technology and the human touch working in tandem.

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Creating an abstract at home.....

Locked in at home.... Aren't we all in the same situation! I have noticed however, that the creative techniques photo tutorial content providers on You Tube seem to be reacting super fast to the situation, providing lots of great project ideas for us to tackle. Some of these offered inspirations are well thought out and realistic for me to tackle, others seem to demand higher levels of competency, or demand more sophisticated gear than I can muster. I am particularly enjoying Joe Edelman's videos (as in learning from) at the moment. Joe is offering a daily series of in home camera related projects and can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTqS95CRNAI&feature=em-uploademail
Yesterday, Joe's challenge was to create an abstract photo of an every-day object in the home such that a viewer of the picture would NOT be able to identify what the item was. After some reflexion, I decided that the subject of my effort would likely be found in the kitchen or bathroom, finally deciding on a couple of my wife's ornate cosmetic pots. I used my Nikon D610, a 35 mm f2.0 Yongnuo prime lens plus a 12 mm extension ring to better enable me to 'fill the frame' and achieve details at close-up. Work was shot on my desk in front of a north facing window, mid morning light supported by a small battery powered LED light.

In all, I took over 60 shots from different angles, culling the list down to four 'keepers'. Photos were adjusted in Lightroom 5. I have to admit that I am prone to take artistic licence so as arrive at a final look that I like. This type of photography is, I believe, part art and as the creator, I  have the right to control the final appearance of my work. Different of course, from the hard actuality of street photography where the maxim 'you gets wot your lens sees' basically holds true and to change/subvert that reality is highly questionable.


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Street humour and absurdity among the chaos.....

This being the year of the great corona virus pandemic and with all the implications that encompasses, closed shops restaurants, cultural events etc etc., the city is going to be a lot quieter than usual. Winter passes into spring very rapidly in these parts---one moment we are all freezing, almost the next, it is pleasantly sunny & warm. The good citizens, especially the young, change also from being cosseted in thick down jackets to sporting t-shirts, shorts and assorted skimpy summer wear--- enjoying their first chance to see and be seen. Spring is street photographer's paradise.
                    It has always been my first impulse on the streets to look for humour and absurdity among the chaos, unintentional and spontaneous. Typically I do not photograph street performers and attention seekers. They are not acting naturally and seem contrived. Having said that, the audiences for the street performers DO represent opportunities for my lens, as they react unselfconsciously to the performance.
                    Incongruity is another of my fascinations on the street. The over-weight and weary middle aged male walking in front of the shop window display that highlights young and attractive things energetically strutting their stuff, the smoker standing in front of the large no smoking sign---you get the idea. These types of scenes or set-ups, can be planned to a degree, in advance. When I spot a provocative sign like the no smoking example, I will loiter-- for no more than 5 minutes, as I tend to be somewhat of an impatient person. With Lady Luck on my shoulder, I will capture the appropriate unsuspecting target who will sally forth at the precise moment into my viewfinder and illustrate  my story.
What do I NOT photograph on the streets? Early on in my street career I did occassionally photograph the less fortunate including those who live outside, in shop doorways etc. In deference to my own sensibilities, I no longer shoot these pictures, unless I receive their specific approval, sometimes offering the price of a coffee for their cooperation.
NEVER do I take photos of children. In earlier years I did have a couple of nasty confrontations on city streets when my lense had been pointed at parents and their off-springs and I had to call the police for my own protection. In the second of the incidents, I believe that I was the victim of an attempted shakedown. Do not wish to repeat these experiences, so I am very careful as to what I shoot.
I always carry copies of the local (Ontario, Canada) laws and regulations regarding citizen rights to privacy in my back-pack.
Notes on photos above. In both cases, I seem to have captured couples that seems to be in stages of boredom with each other. Inter-personal relationships and trying decipher--always interesting.

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Street photography inspiration...

The thermometer outside my kitchen window inched up to 18C this lunchtime AND I saw a robin hopping across the lawn. Would it be overly optimistic to believe that Spring has sprung on the 9th March on this part of the north shore of Lake Ontario, Canada. This is unseasonably balmy and everyone knows it won't last. Anyway, the point here is that the lure of crowded city streets beckons strongly to this street photographer who has been cooped up away from icy thoroughfares at home, for far too long.
 I have enjoyed looking for photo projects in the house, but soon it is the time to really start using my camera again. For me, the theatre of the streets, with all its vibrant chaos & unpredictability, is where it's at. Out on the streets, I feel as though I detach myself from my own reality---moving into a bubble may be an analogy. I feel that I become hyper observant to all that is going on around me--yet, for the most part being separate from what is in front of the lens--the proverbial fly on the wall. Apart from difference in air temperature, the warm days of Spring & especially hot Summer days, there is a difference in the way people on the street behave and conduct themselves according to the seasons. In Winter, everyone seems to be in a hurry, intent, with head down and for the most part uncommunicative, huddled & bunched up in their Canada Goose for warmth.
                  Come the lazy, hazy warm days & evenings, the boulevardiers, poseurs and flaneurs  (why are all these words taken from French?) take to the streets, lounge in the open street restaurants, or just cruise the fashionable tourist areas in their Rollers, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. These high flyers, clearly seem to occupy a different realm than the rest of us ordinary struggling mortals, making for such rich street photography picking, as they so willingly & confidently parade their material success. They love being photographed!
                  I have been an active street photographer in Toronto for about 6/7 years and I now sense the changes, apart from just being older, that are taking place inside me. In my early years of  photographing the street, I would return home hungry, after a full day & tired legs with 150-200 shots and then the next day have a real struggle to pare down my haul to perhaps 50 keepers, and then with superhuman effort, hit the delete button again to reduce the keepers to say 25 that I thought were 'amazing'. I used to really fall in love with the results of my days on the street. By last season, things had evolved, so that as I readied myself for street action, I was prepared to have just a single 'good' shot from an entire days session. Would have been satisfying to have captured 5 keepers, but just a single, of which I was totally proud, would be an acceptable reward for a full days effort. I take comfort in the fact that a similar outcome also worked the same for Cartier Bresson, the father of street photography---he took many more than 100,000 shots on film during his career and secured his immortality with perhaps less than 200 genius quality photos---a catch rate of fractions of one per cent.
Notes on photos above in this posting:
#1. Lady on zebra crossing. Early evening, had just been raining. She was crossing very slowly at this high vehicle volume and dangerous location. She knows that she does not have the speed or athleticism to jump clear of aggressive and dangerously driven cars. Her rather sad face and reliance on her walking stick likely reflected a difficult existence.
 #2. Street musician. This old man frequently plays his one string and very squeaky Chinese instrument outside McDonalds, Yonge Street, Toronto, one of many artists who perform on the major thoroughfares during the summer months. I was drawn to this photo opportunity as  the player had masked his face in that unusual face garb/mask often favoured by Chinese ladies who wish to retain pale skin. Not sure if the blackened face mask benefited his earning potential. Note: photographer is mirrored in the window to the right of the musician.
#3. Day after grand opening of our new centre city cannabis emporium. Sizing up the lady against the wall for a shot, when suddenly an arm pushed through the main door and into my picture. I like the pic--totally unplanned---just like much in street photography it happens in the blink of an eye and is gone. No repeat performances. Motto: always carry the camera switched on, finger on the release, with settings locked in.


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