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.

  

Glam Or Somthing

I'm a week into  my practicum, and am learning lots.  here are some photos from this week, with access to real models im finding it alot easier to good looking photos. Weather its a fashion show, langerie on commercial street or gothic looks on east hastings, its been week full of new experiences.

Drops

Here's a series of photos that I just completed for a "creative" class. The project itself was entitled "self directed", allowing us students to go any which was we wanted, as long as at least one photo was involved. my original involved some deep feelings, lots and lots of pre and post work, along with a little carpentry and electrical work. so when I found myself with two days before I need to get the photo to the print shop, and lots more Easter eating to do as well I trashed the whole thing. Because it is a self directed project I decided to something that I myself enjoy. freezing action, close-up. the series is not as it appears. to create it I set up a drip above a single stationary pencil, focused, and sat watching drops fall trying to get my shutter finger in sync with the moment the drop hits the eraser. Ya it's as fun as it sounds. then with all these photos I figured I may as well put a series of them together, then thought it would be a little more interesting with something else in the frame. so a few other writing utensils were added and used as a background to put the drops on. without photoshop a far far more complicated setup would have been necessary or there would be drop all over the pens and pencils that would move around frame to frame. so that it.

Tire Girl

It took a week but I did it, finally finished this photo. well the editing at least. last Wednesday our fashion class headed out to the local auto wreckers for a more interesting and inspiring location than the studio. The day before we had been assigned to shoot three HDR (High Dynamic Range (two or more frames of the exact same scene but exposed separately and differently so when merged the shadows and or highlights have more detail then would have been possible with a single frame.)) photos for a separate class. So with my stunning smarts I came up with the idea to not only merge multiple photos into one, but also multiple assignment!!!

ok maybe not the first person to ever do this and may not be stunning anyone with my smarts but, I am very happy with the results. Because everyone shares the same model and we are always very rushed when it's time to shoot I always get flustered and it becomes impossible to think of poses and what-not. hoping to avoid my flusteredness preplanning and setup prior to my turn was a important. After knowing where it was that I wanted my shot to take place I recruited a couple helpful classmates to assist in pre-lighting a stand-in model. And right there I saved five minutes of rushed unhappiness for me and anxious impatientness for everyone else.

Then the time comes to take the shot and again I don't have a pose, so much for my great pre-planning. we first tried a crawling up kind of pose but that wasn't so hot so we moved on to this, the king of the castle, on a stormy day, in wedding/funeral attire look. you know the one. One reason why we used this was because it was a stable position for her. tires are not the most sturdy thing and when you want three photos of your model before she moves so much as a hair stability is something you are concerned about. apparently I was not concerned enough, after taking only two attempts at the shot I figured if she moved I'll just have to fix it in Photoshop, and that what I did.

It a rarity that when shooting people that I have them pose until I am satisfied, I continually find myself telling the person to get up, and assuring everyone including myself that I got the shot, when I know it's not the case. and i spend hours in photoshop to pay for the few minutes i have saved my subjects from posing.

I know it was a long rant but I wanted to share what I have learned, from now on "practice practice practice" has been changed to "practice prepare and pose".

An escape

So,

so i just realized that I like to start posts with "So", but with all asides aside, let me continue with what I am here to talk about. And what am I here to talk about, anything, I am really only trying to put off a project that has to get finished tonight. what I'm typing doesn't actually really matter anywho, its a photo blog not a diary and not a place to blab to people. well it could be, but no one reads this, so its more like blabbing to myself, and therefore a diary. but since your reading it and you are a person, that makes it a place to blab to people which is what i had just said this is not, so lets get to the photos. do you ever find yourself writing in circles, i do?

the pictures. our last fashion class was kinda interesting, we worked on backgrounds, something that we had not done in any of our studio work yet. I think the final results aren't to bad, definitely more interesting than previous. here they are. First person to comment on any of my photos gets a tequila shot next time I see you. And now i burry that comment in a bunch of text so only people who actually read this will have a chance, and thus i will likely never have to buy anyone a shot. ha, i win. oh no i loss, nobody going to read this. :( bullshit aside its time for me to go do my work.