Aaron's Graduation

 This week Aaron graduated form VIU's business management program. What a smart kid. 

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 Clearence, our "special" brother requested to be in one of the photos as well.

This years Post: Indonesia

I should start by apologizing to all my avid followers. There are seven of you, but we will round it up to eight. I’m sure you have all been checking daily for updates, but this past year has been a roller coaster... well ok not at all, I just haven’t been photo taking or blogging, with no excuse for either. And now I sit in the shade in the garden in the court yard in my hotel in Surabaya in Indonesia, with the a plate of some of the most tasty French toast and fresh mango sitting being delivered to my side, and I says to myself, I says, I bet there are eight (maybe only seven) people that I could make jealous of my current situation.


Or maybe I just thought that the blog would be a good place to share pictures of my trip with family back home, and for some reason when writing on this page I start to ramble and lie. But hey this is my hot blogy and I do what I want with it (southparkrefernce)

So here the deal, it’s June 7th, I have been in Indonesia for a little over 2 weeks now. Annually VIU offers students in a select few disciplines to complete their practicums Indonesia. Becky, who was in her second year of early child education and eligible for the program jumped at the opportunity, and with absolutely nothing on my plate, I had no excuse when she asked if I wanted to join her in continuing travels in Indo. when she was done with her practicum. Yadda yadda yadda, today is Becky’s last day of practicum here in Surabaya and later today we will be in Bali to relax on the beaches and enjoy the over populated, over touristy, over commercialized Koota beach.


Let’s take a quick step back, to about the third yadda. All the pictures below are from that period. The last two and half weeks have been lots of fun. We visited Yogyakarta one weekend, along with the Prambanan temple. Touring a Russian submarine and the huge Surabaya zoo and seeing Becky pull her friend Sam out of a hippos mouth where a couple of the highlights. I also had the pleasure of experiencing what the girls have to deal with most days. Joining the group in a little Canada Festival at one of the childcare centers, was a night that made appreciate every moment that I do not have to be in a room filled with children.

almost forgot one of the shitty thing that happend. After about five days in Surabaya I was on a bus that was leaving for Bali when I realized my wallet and phone and both vanished. Turns out they were taken by a vendor who was selling fruit on the bus, but with no proof and no money there was no choice but to make my way back to the guest house where I knew Becky would be happy to open her wallet. Pver all very little was actully lost, mainly time on the beach and beers in my belly.

One  final thing, if you are looking at the photos and wondering why most are all super wide angle and distorted, it is becuase a day or two before starting the trip I dropped my 50mm, leaving me with 10-17mm and 70-200mm. Kinda lacking in the mid range, o well. live and learn. camera gear is fragile and valuables dont belong on your lap.



River front houses in Yogyakarta



Turn the red one.
Onboard the out of service Russian submarine that was comissioned to the Indonesian navy in 1952



The first day at this hostel the ants where enjoying the shower, the second it was the rim of the toilet. Guess who had to take get rid of them when someone else had to go pee.

Turns out we are famous. When at tourist atteraction in indonesia dont be surpirsed if the locals would prefer to have a picture with your over the monuments. Or in this case have you autograph thier T-shirt.

Indo flora.



A couple and thier daughter...



with little room in the building, Becky and her group found room on the street.

Taking a breather from the jam packed market in Yogyakarta

Sensor Dust

For a few weeks now I have been having my first issues with the dreaded "sensor dust". Its not a fun issue to have. absolutely every image taken has nasty dots all over it. depending on the scene and aperture the spots range from unnoticeable to extremely annoying and degrading to your photo. This image is a screen shot of one of my photos when with all the spot removal selections on it. as you can see it can be a bit of a time consuming issue. next comes cleaning, something I feel will be very nerve racking, one small mistake and the camera becomes useless.

afer posting this a realizing that it may not be the most clear example of the effects of sensor dust, after all it you cant see any. this second photo is an out of focus shot of plain blue sky. this time i did not remove any of the spots, although i did all i could in "camera raw" to enhance them. well how aobut i put the original up to so everyone can see the effect of dust in its natural state.  they are a thousand PX wide for closer inspection(you may click on the photos for larger versions).

Jumping

This weekend we made it out to Tofino for a camping trip. we lucked out with the weather, sunny almost all weekend. The first night we where down at the beach waiting for the sun to set, but unfortunately a small cloud bank sat just above the horizons. without a sunset we were looking for something else to shoot, Phil started to round up all the flashes he could find and we started having a little fun. Max was happy to be jump around as the model and we got a couple interesting shots. And camping being camping it only felt right to have someone drinking a beer, and Marcus was all over that. so a couple shots form that and then some others from the next morning before sunrise. Overall a good weekend.

Tubes

I also bought myself some extension tubes, allowing me to get right up in the face of some bugs. Maybe not the most original or creative photo but its new to me.

I know you were all probly very worried about me, but I am alive

I realize I probably talk a lot about myself here and use the word "I" , but you know what? that ok because this is a blog about me so if you don't like, suck a lemon. So today my good friend Phil dropped the idea of continuing my blog after noticing that it has been over a month since my last post. Being a very easy person to convince, here I am once again. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog but with class it has been extremely busy. like in previous posts, it is this busyness that has put me here, I am procrastinating, not only that but i am also fighting back running to the bathroom to empty a pot coffee I just finished processing. enough of the silly talk, this is a blog for sharing photos and that's darn well what I'm going to do. it's been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened in front of the lens. just a two days ago our lifestyle class ended with a camping trip that involved no sleeping, that was fun. earlier in that class we shot a number of sports from trail running to white water kayaking to mountain biking. Other less interesting classes form this semester include web design, nature and landscape, business and portfolio. the Nature and Landscape wouldn't be so bad but most of the nature that we have shot has been un-natural nature ( caged/mentally unstable parrots and a hothouse filled with butterflies). that being said we did spend a fantastic day where we visited Mitlnach Island, a breeding ground for a number of birds and sea mammals. That day was topped off with four orcas that made for a great treat. As for the web class my pages are all hideous and the business class, well that what I am currently putting off, so I have nothing to share from them.

Dussault Fashion Show

 Saturday the 10th was my first day of practicum. I lucked out by being invited to shoot the Dussault fashion show with Paul. These are are few of the images from that night. this being the first fashion show iv been to let alone shoot at, there was alot to learn. turns out they are very dark events. even though at 1600 iso on an XSI is usless, it is less uless then blury run way models.