Going Forward: dltphoto

I am going to be somewhat busy for the next few months as I continue on my journey into a new career to help sustain my photography habit ;-)

These faces are my motivation!

APAC Submissions, December 2013: dltphoto

"Branching Out", Abstract, Score 7

This months showing was a "photoclub bust" for me if  I was a competition minded and cared about progressing into future levels. Paul Baker was our adjudicator. He is very good at critiquing the images, mine just weren't ones that he felt needed to be discussed!

"Alouette in Green", Landscape, Score 7

This is my attempted image that went missing somewhere along the lines for November... too bad. Shot with my Fuji F200 EXR compact camera

"FireBreather", Assigned "Ancient", Score 7.5

This was the assigned image "Ancient". I thought it quite fitting, after all it's been there a jolly long time. It's as ancient an item one will find anywhere although its probably not viewed in that way!!

I don't think I scored the rock bottom score that evening, although I could be wrong. I didnt hear any 6's that I can remember!  Oh well. I really liked my images compositionally and they projected well. That's really all that matters to me.

Next month's adjudicator is a local artist  Janet Bright. She reacts to impact images but maybe less technical than the photographer judges.....

APAC Submissions, November 2013 :dltphoto

Two months of bad timing and I haven't been able to get to photoclub to see the images submitted or who the adjudicator is and how they scored images. This month I had a tragedy also since one of my images failed to get to the final process online, somehow. I'll just resubmit it in next months.

Assigned "Light", Follow the Light, Score 9

 After a fun and challenging evening out with a friend this is the result of us mucking around. For this image I actually combined three individual images since I had three mediocre images the play with. I used the simple technique shown in a previous post "how the magic happened". The exact same principle with different subject matter.
It appears to have scored well, although I wasn't one of the top three so this means the adjudicator was scoring quite high.

In Camera, "NightFall", Score 8.5

My other image to be scored was from the same evening,  painting with light. Not a bad effort out of the camera. Quite happy with the image considering the challenges we faced shooting it.

APAC Submissions, October 2013: dltphoto

I wasn't able to be present at this months exhibition evening due to a 'man cold'. I relied on my fellow club members to give me any feedback that the adjudicator had with my images.
All I know is that adjudicator enjoyed a lot of the images, she ( Betty Andres) tended to score on the high side according to my above average scores.

 

"Private Peeker", Architecture Score 9.5

 This was shot at Barkerville, BC. Initially for the textures it offered but I also enjoyed the fact the curtain is set in such a way as someone could be peeking out at me. She reviewed it but I haven't gotten any feedback on it.

'Life Lines', Floral, Score 8.5

This shot was from my phone last Autumn. I enjoyed the overall feel of the image and thought I had a pretty sweet shot from such a limited camera. The Leaf shot she reviewed and wished the depth of field could have been better but overall she enjoyed the colours but wished I might have come closer to pay more attention to the lines of the leaf. Of course I wasn't there to inform her it was from my phone....

'Smile for Dad', Assigned ( Humourous), Score 9.5

Last Christmas's photo shoot in my studio, I always enjoy getting the girls to do a little something odd and it worked well for scoring.

Nightfall : dltphoto

Normally every year I post some glorious fall/ autumn tree shots. All glowing red and orange etc... But this time I tried something a little different. Must trickier and something that needs to be better thought out for next year!

I went out a night with Mr Koopmans to find the perfect coloured tree at night. Scouting ahead of time would have been smart as the pretty trees aren't so easy to spot, but that wasn't the only issue. FOCUS. Since we were basically shooting under pitch black nighttime it was incredibly hard to focus. Fortunately I had my blast of light flashlight with me (Fenix) and we atttempted to set our focus, it was still very challenging though.

So initially I started off doing some wireless flash to attempt to light up a tree we found in Fishtrap Creek. Along with a long exposure we got some nice effects, but that soon morphed into Flash and Flashlight which became a little bit of light painting which I have never really fooled with. Plenty of experimenting that night!
Light painting is simply using a long exposure (tripod required) and walking around with a light type device, in our case a really bright flashlight. Then at the end it wasn't about the colourful trees anymore since we couldn't tell if they were colourful or not. So we just messed around with a gazebo type thing in the park!

Out Of Focus!!!

Anyways, we played for a while and here are some of my winners.

Mount Fujifilm: dltphoto

Once upon a time manufacturers encouraged me to sell a certain cameras with the lure of reaching a target and securing a free camera for myself. Of course there is a dilemma to this process since you could ultimately be pushing a product of which you are not entirely comfortable with but in this case the Fuji F200 EXR was something I wanted and it didn't disappoint.

Now that I am on a career change I find myself less able to carry around larger cameras on a daily basis, but this little gem can go with me almost anywhere. I see many beautiful early mornings and usually I am a passenger in a vehicle so I am able to capture snaps through the window and its a great all purpose walk around for candids. The only thing I wished it had would be the ability to shoot in RAW, but I guess then I should buy the Fuji X20!!! #youcanthaveeverything. wait, does hashtagging work here?

APAC Submissions, September 2013 : dltphoto

It's that time again folks. It quickly snuck up on me since I have been so busy juggling my new career and such. In fact I was in such a rush to get images in by the 8pm deadline that I just grabbed three images without much time for consideration, we'll see how I fare up! One new thing they have added this year other than a few different categories is the adjudicator's being able to give half points, so instead of a "Deep Six" there is now a chance of 6.5!!

This months Adjudicator is Rick Shapka, here is the brief info we were given before our submissions were due.

 

"Rick Shapka began his formal photographic training about 2002

by completing diplomas in photography at Focal Point, as well as art history at UBC. In addition, Rick completed workshops with a number of master photographers including Joe McNally, Jay Maisel, Jean Miele, Dan Burkholder, Freeman Patterson, Andre Gallant, Eddie Soloway, and Tony Sweet.

Rick spends his time with photography in and around Vancouver as well as traveling extensively to make pictures. His recent photographic journeys include Arizona, the Palouse, Moab Utah, Vancouver Island, New Brunswick and Namibia.

He photographs the landscapes, the people and has a particular interest in HDR and abstract photography."

First up is the Assigned topic which is "textures". Fortunately I had this one ready to go from my instagram account, originally shot by the trusty Nikon 1 V1 and filter applied via instagram.

Asigned Texture,"Red, White and Blue", score 7.5

Then on to the exhibition section. I choose two images from my most recent shooting, since I was in a big hurry! Both from the Nikon 1 V1, and yes I do have a DSLR but the little Nikon is just so wonderful ( please don't cancel them Mr Nikon). No fancy edits done to these images, basic Raw conversion only.
Not entirely sure I put them in the best category but well...whatever!

Landscape "Lady of the Lake", score 7.5

Portrait, "Night Floating", score 7.5

So I scored the Perfect "Mr Average", 7.5 all the way through. His scoring wasn't wild as compared to some but he rarely fluctuated from the .5's, which I guess will be the new trend. We'll see next month!!!

APAC Submissions, June 2013: dltphoto

This is the last month for photoclub before we take our summer break and hit our new year in September. This also sees the end of the current Presidents tenure. Gerry H has been excellent and I have very much enjoyed his direction and enthusiasm. I am sure that being the President of such a large photoclub has it's ups and downs and I hope he is able to come back and do it again sometime. Thanks Gerry. Also I would like to thank all the other excellent volunteers.

The adjudicator was Allen Bargen, sadly. He and I don't see photography the same way. You all have seen my work, feel free to look at his.
Clearly CAPA rules dominate his scoring. Personally, I think the capa rules are too restricting. If we all do what they want then we wouldn't be artists, we would be conformists.... Anyways, before I start to get too deep into this train of thought lets just look at the images.


First the assigned topic, "Fog".
I originally had an image I wanted to use and which I even printed, but I couldnt think of a great title and the image wasn't too inspiring to me. So at the last second I switched it for this image. Again my title sucks but I enjoy this image better, I don't have a printed version so it'll be a projection only for this one.

fog and wires, score (  21 out of 30 )

Next I choose to do two print images. Our projector at the club is kind of hit and miss so I felt I should print some this time as printing is the safest way for the adjudicator to view what you want them to see.

Portrait, "instrumental passion",  Score 8 out of 10

This is a nifty shot of my friend Omer Cordell, a talented musician and photographer. We had to shoot some images of him for his Bass endorsers. I found this to be one of my "winning" shots, alas not for the adjudicator. Its a barely edited image with some minor lightroom adjustments. My normal,

Lats up was another Macro attempt.

Macro, "shades of yellow", score 7 out of 10

Now I am sure that a real macro shooter would want better depth of focus in the shot but that's really not me or my style. This was with my Nikon 1 V1 and the 60mm Macro lens. I am more of an abstract type macroist! He didn't choose to talk about any of my images and actually I am fine with that. Personally I would choose to ignore his comments.

APAC Submissions, April 2013: dltphoto

This months selections are from my fabulous little Nikon 1 V1. Really enjoying this little camera. Even though this shot looked great in the original shooting format I decided it's time to try some edited shots at the exhibitions. Not a big fan of that but since I am a Level 2'er now I need to pull my socks up and put the puck in the net. So here is my wildly "action-ed" image of which I had no idea of how it would score. Fortunately I did OK!

Architecture, "the tension builds", score 8

One other shot for tonight from the same trip, but this time a shot nice and neat out of the camera, with minor Lightroom editing of course. I working again with the V1 with the "highlander" lens. Since this is now a whopping 540mm film equivalent focal length, I am playing with the wonderfully narrow field of view. Others would utilise this with sports or birds, but I am enjoying it for more artsy purposes. I enjoy the lines in this shot. The re-bar falls perfectly with the tension lines from the Port Mann Bridge. More abstract but I chose to put it in the Urban/ Rural category, which I thought would be a mistake, but it did really well.  I was one of the top in Level 2 and  had give a quick spiel about it.

Urban/ Rural, "avoiding the line up", score 9

Once again I fail dramatically at titling my images. I care not for titles. It means nothing to me. It changes nothing about how I view an image. However it didnt seem to effect my scores too much. The adjudicator tonight was pretty good, from the Lions Gate Camera Club. He did enjoy this image and wasn't aware of what the background was from. Always nice to surprise people.
No assigned image again this week. The shot I wanted to use which I thought would be good at the time ended up being to camera shaky ( cell phone) and would not have scored well. The concept was nice but the phone wasn't able to produce.

Boneyard by Howarth Photography: dltphoto

I had the pleasure of visiting a local gallery to check out a local photographer and close friend. A great showing of vibrant work shot exclusively with film. Love those film shooters.
I can recommend a visit but please don't judge my images on this as they aren't nearly as accurate and fun to see as her images on the wall. Who knows maybe you will end up buying one or two! The gallery runs until April 14th I believe.

Ruby Tuesday..wait, it's Saturday!: dltphoto

Sometime ago I acquired an extremely vintage camera called a Ruby, made in England sometime between 1925-1934. It is in fantastic shape, even in the original box. Since it is using a discontinued film format I had to use the only format that is commonly available today, medium format (120). This camera shoots an impressive 6x12 format. Wonderfully large negatives. Optically though not equally as impressive. My Yashica-D  is using the same film but in the square format 6x6 with a far superior optical lens.

My chum Colin, from our Photoclub, took the camera home and cleaned the optics of the Ruby since the lens was not really usable due to years of air and moisture, it was almost impossible to see-through it. He also rigged a spool to accept the smaller 120 film. Since it doesn't have the frame counter marking available, I loaded it and guessed the winding necessary to get it to the next frame without any overlapping. I fluked out with that as I got no overlapping at all.

Shutter speeds and Apertures.

It has very limited shutter speed capabilities, 1/100th, 1/50th, 1/25th, 1/10th Second Also with Bulb and T which is a different type of bulb mode, somehow.. Since I only had a 400 ISO 120 in my fridge I had to wing it. (winging it refers to utilizing my educated guesswork for all my years with film). I think I shot it at about 100th sec and F8 or F11... seemed to be close. Films delightful exposure latitude makes winging it a little easier.

Level 2. Drat! :dltphoto

It finally happened.
Here is an email I received.

"Dear Mr. Turner:  
 It gives me great pleasure to advise you that THE FREE RIDE IS OVER;

 you have completed the requirements for Level One by acquiring 200+ 

points by March 2013's Exhibition night and that you have now graduated

 to the Level Two category AND WILL HAVE TO STOP PHIDDLE-PHARTING AROUND

 AND GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!

NATURALLY, WITH THIS ADVANCEMENT COMES THE PRIVILEGE OF BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE
APAC EXEC. AND UNDERTAKING SUCH POSITIONS AS MAY BE ASSIGNED TO YOU.

(Please remember to precede your image titles with L2 rather than L1 

starting in April)

Congratulations!"

Then a follow up email from the APAC president....

"Eventually, even 6's add up to 200..."

Hahahahahh. Oh well.

 I guess I am going to have to pull my socks up and work harder with my 

random assortment of camera choices for exhibition images.

Level 2: Intermediate
One image in each category must be scored at 
8 or higher. All other images must be 6 or 
higher. Must compete in 6 categories with total 
of 50 points in each category

APAC Submissions, March 2013: dltphoto

Rumour had it that my good friend Jason Brown of Revival Arts Studio, was going to be the adjudicator for March's submissions. I have to admit it did sway my choices slightly. Although still I chose images that had already been slated to be "exhibited". I assumed I had chosen images that would be liked by him, having seen much of his work and knowing him for so many years. Alas no, he's helped keep me in Level one for a little while longer I hope.

I only chose to submit into the normal categories, I did not do the assigned. I haven't had too much chance recently to get out and work on them.

Urban/ Rural. "stepping on shadows", score 7

This image was a quick capture on my phone on our way to an Abbotsford Heat game. Its one of the sets of exit stairs leaving the building. The light was hitting it nicely from the side. I enjoyed the lines and the confusion with the shadows. It actually projected really well. I was very happy with it.

Experimental, "black frost". Score 6

This is another frost shot with my Nikon D200 and the 60mm macro. Again, shot into my very tinted truck windows with the morning sun reflected in the background. The frost was not black, somehow dues to the reflection and exposure the frost turned black (silhouetted I guess) and I just enriched that later through lightroom. Overall I thought it quite interesting... In keeping with my usual scores but sadly I will get promoted soon into level 1 due to overall scores.

APAC Submissions, February 2013: dltphoto

For this Month I went all out. Super excited about these three images. However the more excited I am is how proportional to how disappointed I will be when the adjudicator scores them. this theory I have proved tonight. The scores were very erratic. Not in my favour but I still enjoyed my choices.

After my last epic fail in the Macro category I though I would attempt something more obviously macro. Its bright fun and pretty much right out of the camera. Just how I like it. Its early morning frost on my black tinted truck window. Oddly the rich blue is coming from the reflected blue sky of the early morning. The Depth of Field is dramatically short but that's what is to be expected when I am too lazy to get my tripod and I quite like it this way. The adjudicator did not see it my way, she wanted more depth, sharpness and maybe rule of thirds on this, meaning not having the focused part dead centre.

Macro, "Cool Blue", score 8

Instagram'd Version

 I did a square crop in instagram ("The Hive") which was very well "liked" I should mention.

This next image is your textbook "instagram" shot and it's right out of my phone!
 I put it in the architecture category which was probably a mistake. It's a funky church in Abbotsford, hence the title. It should probably be in the "Duncan's lost his mind" category... Sadly, My title was VERY common so it seems. Someone else put an image in with the same title which happened to show three images before mine. That didn't help I am sure.

Architecture, "stairway to heaven", score 7

Finally, we wrap up the night with the assigned topic "Psychedelic, or just Psycho". This is another phone shot with an SLR Macro filter in front of the lens. To help with the close up, since my phone is lousy at macro. I saturated it a little to give it more of a  Psychedelic look... more drug inducing!

Assigned (Psychedelic, or just Psycho), "L.S.C.D", Score 20 (out of 30)

The adjudicators scoring was very low for the assigned, but still mine was one of the lowest.

The Next Generation: dltphoto

At a recent program night at APAC we had the very well known Nick Didlick attend to give a quick presentation about his Photographic achievements with the Olympic's and a rather brief session regarding the "next generation" of camera technology.
WOW, never has the Kool-Aid tasted so good. I am pretty sure that Nick affected several, if not dozens of the club members, yours truly included!
What tasty camera liquor was he talking about???

Nikon F5 and Nikon 1 V1 with matching Prime Lenses

The Nikon 1 V1, pictured with my Nikon F5. As I recall I talked briefly about the emergence of the new Mirrorless camera's. Size, ability and image performance. They have it all, and now do I. Initially you will see the "size" that I was referring too. Super tiny but not hard to hold. Ergonomically well laid out. Not as efficient as an SLR or DSLR for quick navigation, being more menu driven, but still has key elements in some nice places. So don't all throw out your huge Nikon lenses as there is some other good news! This little V1 with the FT-1 adapter, I am yet to obtain, will allow me to utilize all my fancy new Nikon AF-S lenses with some range benefits. As it stands all my current lenses will be "magnified" by 2.7x.... so for example, my Nikkor AF-S 70-200 2.8VR will effectively become a 189-540mm 2.8. Cool. This is going to be an interesting element but since I am not really a huge distance shooter or am more interested in the Macro equivalent with my 60mm Macro (will be 162mm . sweet.)
Anyways. Needless to say I am fairly excited and now I am able to do a little 1080HD video... Something I have never ventured into. The moving image, yikes.
Here are a few started Images with my current 27mm 2.8 1 series Lens. Loving it. Just need some nicer weather!

Of Paramount Importance: dltphoto

I recall a short time ago a friend of mine was petitioning to keep this old theatre in Chilliwack from being torn down, Alas I think it has been slated to be destroyed. Too Bad, interesting buildings are fun to shoot.

Attempted my first GIF file though! I need to work on it!

December 2012: Favourite Shot: dltphoto

Since December for me is kind of a write-off month for getting anything done Photographically. My pickings are fairly thin. Not to say that I didn't get out to take pics at all, but any "brilliant" content is harder to obtain.

This happens to be my choice for December. Snow, trees and some Blah. Visually it has nothing that catches your eye. It breaks so many rules. I don't think it's something that I would submit to Photoclub, but ummm maybe I will!!!

APAC Photoclub submissions: January 2013: dltphoto

No ranting this month. Just images.

Architecture, "A Yellow Lining". Score 9

 On my quest to score a 10 with a cell phone, I finally cracked a 9 with this shot. So close!.

Simple glass building shot (Best Buy in Abbotsford, incase you locals want to know), looking up at it with some nice sunlight hitting the corner of the building illuminating it with a rich yellow. I played with a few editing Apps on the Android phone. The original capture is featured below, for anyone who cares. I did have to clean the image up a little in photoshop to remove the blobs or dirt from the glass, but all other image editing done through littlephoto app if I remember correctly.

Original Capture

 2nd Image of the night! This was from my Sigma DP1s. A long exposure, about 6 seconds if I recall, at F11 at probably 50ISO with a neutral density filter or two perched on my little gorilla pod.

Experimental, "Colourstream". score 8

 Pretty much right out of the camera with this image. Just some minor Lightroom work to clean the image up a little, also attempted to remove the weird colour vignetting  the Sigma produces.

One shot forward, Three years backward: dltphoto

Here, in the dead or winter, I find myself going back through endless folders of images from loaned camera's and random shoots.I came across this image from my brief experience with the Nikon D3x during August, 2009. At one point Nikon's flagship Camera, with both Mega-Pixels and Build performance. Paired with my excellent Nikkor AF-S 60mm macro they were a match made in heaven. Anyways, this image I have chosen I can't really decide on.

320th sec, F5.6. 400 iso

I like the idea of it visually, it's pleasing and easy to look at. Howeve it doesn't inspire me since I am not a avid flower photographer.  When I  look at it as though it isn't a flower I go back to liking even more. I am very drawn the the shallow depth of field behind the centre of the flower, a sense of explosion of both colour and movement.

dltphogr.am webpage:dltphoto

I am loving the new webpage that instagram has provided for its users!

Check it out here (discoduncan)