70: Challenge Entry warning!! (Merlin)

So this is my square crop entry. I'm posting 20 minutes before turnover. Sue me :-P

Edit: Whoops! MattO was kind enough to point out that I am a day early with rollover. Sorry about that. This is what chemistry does to your brain folks!

I really liked this picture. I know his left side was not lit, but this was taken as a sort of snapshot picture. I'm posting the original pretty much converted straight out of the RAW photo. I now realize I could have maybe selected out the eye and tried to lighten it up. Next time. I also did a run through neat image, but I toned it way down because I kept losing the detail of the hair. e301 left a great comment on my picture, and I thank him for that. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE RAW?

That being said, can I tell you how sick I am of entropy and acid base titrations?
I did take pictures today, but they were for the speed challenge. I will post when it's over

69: Solitary

Ok, so, not as interesting composition wise for me, but no person in the picture this time. And this was taken facing the other way.

I'm thinking I'm going to be to stuffed full of equilibrium constants and entropy that I'll need a break and go out and shoot some stuff this weekend

It is spring at last. Above zero rain, so no freezing rain, which meant no ice skating on the streets! whoohoo! Amazing what will excite you when you're sick of winter and ready for some green and pretty flowers. Still a month away from that, but this at least provides a tiny glimmer of hope.

Having said that, we'll probably get one of those huge blizzards in April like we did a few years back. Would make for fun pictures!!

68: Approaching

So this picture was taken at the same time as the self portrait I did a while back. My boyfriend had gone for a walk on the river on the other side, and crossed back over and was coming back towards me. I've submitted this to a geopgraphy photo contest at my university, so I don't think anything will happen with it, but I liked the picture.

Back to acid bases, equilibrium and Le Chatelier's Principle!

67: Cleo

This is my friend's cat, Cleo. She was being a real poser, which is very rare. My friends said she's generally not very photogenic. Her left eye is a little squished, but I thought she looked cute in this

66: Carrots

Carrots. Need I say anything else?

I won't be commenting for a while. Tons of assignments and two midterms will be my priority. Will get back to commenting afterwards.

65: Ready for spring

Don't you hate it when you forget to change your ISO back when you've were shooting low light the alst time? This is 1600 iso ans I'm to lazy to try and clean it up. Sorry.

It's March, which means spring should be in teh air. It's not quite, but at least it's been sunny. I cannot wait for spring. So looking forward to it!

64: Challenge Entry

Ok, last time I did this, I said I'd post it, and I never got around to it. Hopefully this time I'll remember. Or maybe I'll make it my PAD in a week. We shall see. I'm hoping for a nice average 5.5 score on this on. I like the sqaure crop format, should be interesting.

63: Nice Lens!

So, if you ever want to try something interesting, do this. Watch some bad zombie movie. Not a good one like 28 Days or something, but some cliche, low budget one. Take your ipod or MP3 player or whatver, put on random, and use that as your soundtrack. Don't turn on the movie soundtrack. You'll be amazed at how you can still follow exactly what is happening, and the music makes it very funny.

Yes, that's what my friends and I did tonight. And I let me picture be taken. So that friend I mentioned in my profile who I've learnt a lot of photography stuff from? I'm holding his camera and lens. He and his wife are great friends of mine. We get together, drink lots of good wine, and laugh a lot. Like we did tonight!

62: Simplicity

Woohoo!! I don't have a midterm for a week and half! I calculated I hand wrote things for about seven hours today. Wrote a lab report, practice midterm, and a notes for a lecture, as well as the actual midterm.

I wrote my management midterm today: intro to financial accounting. The actual midterm itself wasn't to difficult, but it was sooo long. My prof was great. She told us to budget our time, and even if we weren't done, move on to the next problem. So I did this, and it was a life saver. A problem I could have easily spent the entire time on got its allotted time, and then I moved onto the other problems. Hopefully, this will maximize my points I receive. Crossed fingers.

So, this is one of those, miracle of raw pictures. This had a major blue tint to it, and with a little white balance, got this instead. I kind of like the colours reflected in the water. Makes it look like it was a fiery sunset or somthing.

So, now I"m back to doing nothing for the rest of the night. I'm entering a couple pictures for a photo contest on Monday. Looking forward to seeing the other entrants and what will happen!

61: Standing Out

If these had been people, I think I would have met the standing out challenge from a while back.

There was a workshop tonight that I wentto most of regarding studio use. I get acess to a studio at my school that includes three lights, 1 soft box, two umbrellas, a black or white backdrop, and a light meter. Needless to say, as soon as midterms are done, I cannot wait to hit that studio! I have a friend who will also be shooting with me, and I promise to show the results off. It's a whole different technique, so it's going to be a whole new learning curve, but one I'm looking forward to!

OK, now it's back to revenue recognition, generally accepted accounting principles, and the basic accounting equation. Assets = liabilities + shareholder's equity for those of you wondering what the equation is.

I'm not commenting as much as I'd like, but I will pick it up. I'm finding I like to go in spurts, so if you don't receive one, it doesn't mean I'm not looking!

60: Jing Yuan and Adam

This is Jing Yuanand Adam. Theya re really cool friends and fellow students who I met through the MRSA. The mature and re-entry student association had a little soiree tonight. It was lots of fun, but short since we all have miderms coming up, it was short and sweet

59: Attempting to mask a crappy picture of slippers

OK. Snapshot. Crappy picture. But I did take it today! Doing my presentation on greenhouse effect and global warming tomorrow for biology. First power point presentation. I feel so special now that I can use powerpoint!

58: Ice!

Just in under the line. I will try and shoot new stuff, but I have a presentation and a midterm this week. This is from when we had that amazing freezing rain that coated everything in ice. This is the river that I've taken many a picture from, but from a different place. We figured the river would be a pretty shot, and had a nice surprise with all the ice on the trees

57: Disclaimer: Challenge Outtake!

OK, so my disclaimer is this is an outtake. If you recognize my photo, feel free to pass it by and not vote. The only pictures I took today were for the challenge, so I apologize

The rat is from my dairy entry, and even with the white background, doesn't really show up well. Oh well.

So, I wanted to title this along the lines of, Hey Froggie, Nice Ride!
Or, Duckie! Like my ride?

So, tomorrow I got back to school. I procrastinated more than I wanted to, and didn't get as much work done as I could have, but I did get a good chunk done. Such is life!

56: From the archives

From the archives. When some friends of mine came and visited this past summer. This is Mont Royal Park. It is affectionately called the Mountain, though it's more of a hill.

55: OMG! Snail killed Kenny! You bastard!

Ahh, this seems to be working now

Well, this is a South Park reference, for those of you who may be unfamiliar. I had a hard time with the white, but enough tweaking in PS and RAW Essentials got me here

In regards to yesterdays pictures - I got the effect by sliding teh shadow contrast and highlight contrast all the way to the right in RAW Essentials, and that's basically it.

The link to the triptych plugin is:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1006&thread=16558217&page=1

Ugly link. To lazy to fix it and make it pretty.

The snail is a Hungarian porcelin snail I picked up when I was there a few years back. It is one of the things they are known for, and I love the sheen it has. They also make some with a cool red sheen to it, besides the green. They also do 'normal' porcelin as well, all very beautiful.

Rant On
So Zoto revamped their website. Which is great. But they didn't give much notice about it, and it included doing things like taking away the blogging feature and making it a feature that needs to be paid for. Thay are also changing the galleries feature, so that we don't get unlimited galleries any more. This is fine, but I can't find any info on how many galleries us non-payers get. Very confusing, and a little dissapointing. I suppose I will go get that smugmug account now. We shall see. I'm waiting to see what all the other tweaks are.
Rant Off

54: Liam

Ok, third time is the charm. I hate how I can't fix the size of the picture after you've uploaded when you are using zoto. ERGH. Hopefully, this time it will publish and be the right size

This is my friend's son, Liam. He just turned two on Friday. Happy birthday, Liam! He is a very sweet kid, and was generous enough to share all his toy cars with me!

I was fiddling in RAW Essentials with the shadow and highlight sliders, and ended up with this. I liked the effect, so I decided to keep it.

I love his expression in this picture. His expression seems much older than he really is.

And so everyone can see how sweet he is without a lot of post processing, you get to look at another picture of him, too!

53: Triptych

My first attempt at a triptych.  I used a Photoshop action that I found, and then it was basically drag and drop into the frames. 

This is at one of the entrances to Jarry Park in Montreal.  I suppose it's a welcoming figure of fun, sprintime, and happiness.  I like the little cardinal on its left hand.  The park is where the Rogers Tennis Cup is played every year.  It brings in the big names, Roddick, Agassi, the Williams, etc. etc.  It alternates every year between the men's and women's.  The other place it is held is in Toronto, I think.  It is also where the Expos used to play many years ago.  The park was so nice.  There was a hill with kids sliding down it, and an ice skating rink.  I really need to strap my ice skates on at some point this season before it's to late!  I wanted to take pictures of the kids sliding down the hill, but I chickened out.  I got a sudden paranoia of crazed parents chasing me through the park yelling at me.  So I took pictures of the scultpure instead.

I had my first paid job as a photographer today.  wOOt!!  I had a lot of fun, and I'm happy with the results.  It was a group shot, so I used the 'everybody close your eyes and open them when I count to three.'  Needless to say it seemed to work.  I have very few where someone has their eyes closed.  I used a fill in flash for the faces, which worked well.  My boyfriend has been kind enough to lend me his flash that he used to use with his 35mm Yashica.  Glad I had it because I don't think the on board flash would have been strong enough.  And no, I won't be posting shots from it.  Sorry!

I got about half way through commenting on PADs yesterday, and am hoping to get through the rest today or tomorrow.

You guys rock.  It's amazing seeing everybody's shots, the little pieces of your lives and how people see things through a camera.  Kudos to everyone!

52: Still Standing

Isn't mother nature neat?

51: Deer

50: Me

1.6 kilometers to 1 mile.  That's the conversion for those asking about yesterdays PAD

So, I finally got the courage to put myself in front of the camera.  You can ask my friends and my boyfriend, I HATE having my picture taken.  I always make a face and make everybody mad.

One thing I realized today: 10 seconds is not a lot of time to run in sit on the chair.  To add to wishlist: remote shutter release for my camera

No worries, I made sure the ice was nice and thick.  Minus 20 C weather helps as well.  So, this is me.

I'm hoping to make this an on again off again series of me sitting in a chair in random places.  We'll see how far I get

49: 300,000 Clicks!

This is my boyfriend (in yesterday's PAD) car. He just passed 300,000 kilometers today on our way to the country. He's never had a car for this long, so he was very excited. Good thing we were in the country because we simply stopped just on the side of the road and took pictures.

Today was gorgeouscompared to yesterday. Freezing cold, but their had been freezing rain and CRAZY winds (up to 110 kph) yesterday. There was a 70 (!!) car pile up outside of the island of Montreal. One person died, and two major injuries if I recall correctly. Due to the wind being so strong, there were sudden white out conditions on the highway. Naturally, everyone slows down. However, roads were already icey, and this resulted in this horrific accident. There was another huge accident outside of Ottawa I beleieve.

For you warm weather people who never see snow, a white out is when the snow is blowing so much, you can't see anything except white. It can be very disorienting if you are walking because you can't even tell what is up or down anymore.

I was going to do errands and go to my last lecture yesterday. Needless to say, I did neither. The pictures in today's paper of people getting litteraly swept off their feet made me glad I didn't.

Yes I know weather is erratic and unpredictable, but this winter has been simply ridiculous. Yes, I blame this on global warming. I'm tired of having ice covered streets and sidewalks. March weather in january, and January waether in February.

One suggestion: stop idling your car! So often, I see cars running with nobody in them. Yes I know it's nice to go to a warm car, but few minutes of cold isn't going to hurt anyone, and you can cut your cars emissions! Every little bit helps at this point.

48: Oops!

Oops! My bad! Day late, dollar short.

This is my boyfriend. This was taken last summer (ahh. summer *sniff* *sniff* come back!!) up on the Mountain as we call it in Montreal.

47: Toasted head

Ok, not so good picture. Good wine though!

Got a study break coming up. One whole week to do nothing but study! And comment on PAD's!

46: Toys for Boys

One has to love a boyfriend who says, take a picture of my new router! Then, when in another bind, take a picture of my tools! He recently lost all his power tool to theft, and has been in the process of replacing them, so there you go!

45: Passing

Not much to say about this.

So I will rant and rave about Valentine's Day instead.  One has to be weary of a day that can be abbreviated to VD.  That being said, I find Valentine's day just one more example of how the masses can be manipulated with pretty colours, advertising, and mass marketing.  In my books, loving someone makes Valentine's Day every day, not just one day that happens to also coincide with a massacre.

That being said, if you like Valentine's Day and want to celebrate, please do.  I'll just pass...  Happy Valentine's Day ;-)

44:Trekking

My boyfriend, determined to find the lost lake, at the beginning of his quest.  He did find it, but hadn't brought his camera, so maybe I will join him next time he goes to find it!

43: Shark Attack!

Just when you thought it was safe because the river was mostly frozen over...

So, wandering around getting more of those cool ice pictures I like so much while making sure not to break through the ice, I notice this funnt thing sticking out of the ice. Low and behold, it looked like a shark fin. As far as I am concerned, this is a blatant taunt to the fact I didn't get to go diving anywhere this winter. Oh well. Hoefully thi summer!

Show in RAW, little dissapointed in the exposre. The sun was shining on the snow behind it, so the actual ice sculpture is a little underexposed. Some RAW stuff and then levels, curves, desat with channel mixer and then a blue curve on top to give it that blue hue.

And remember, sharks are out friends and greatly misunderstood by the mass populace. They are actually quite friendly! See! They can be our companions!

42: Icicle

 
So, this is an icicle, with lens flare added.  It was already there, but I thought, hey, Photoshop can make it really crazy, so I photoshopped it.

Gorgeous day, cold, but sunny, and lots of icicles!

41: Router

So, We get home after midnight, and I'm going, I need a PAD, and I can't do another breakdancing one because I've posted the two best ones I got... what can I do?

My boyfriend says, take a picture of my new router!! So, this is his new combination plunge/fixed base router. Should be funt o work with... needs a few nice bits, but those will come. Shot very quickly, and yes, I over neat imaged it, but I'm in a rush. Sorry. At least I actually took the picure today!!

40: Breakdance II

Ok, even though the quality isn't that great, I couldn't resist showing another breakdancing picture.  It's faceless, but still, with a slow shutter speed, turned out alright.

First night to just chill and do some work (I can tell you all about ratio analysis in accounting!), have dinner and a glass of fine since the stress of midterms.  This also meant not getting it together to take a picture.  Excuses excuses, I know.  Sorry!

39: Breakdance

Shot for one of my papers tonight. There was a breakdance competition tonight. The things these guys do is amazing. So, I didn't want to bring my whopper 2.8 zoom lens, which is just as well as it would not have been wide enough. However, this needed some major work. Lots of RAW processing, exposure compensation, tint and colour balance adjustments, plus some fill light. Then into PS for some levels, curves and contrast. Then to neat image. I didn't want to use flash because these guys were doing the head spins and stuff, and I didn't want to distract. Someone else used flash though and I did get a cross flash, but the picture itself was crappy. Oh well.

I cloned out two gusy heads in the lower corners, and as you can see, I did a crappy job rebuilding the shadow, but it will do for now.

Got a handful of things, and all I can say is they are not print quaility, but I think they'll work for a print paper. Was a lot of fun to watch these guys!

38: Jump!!

I know.  I'm starting to slack.  I'll have new stuff tomorrow.  I promise!  Today I'd like to comment, and I'd like to get some homework done.

Some light postporcessing.  Did some levels and curves because the stage lights are heavy on the red channels, and a bit of saturation as well.

37: Holy Snow

The title was my boyfriend's suggestion in relation to the cross from the window panes.  Old shot.  To brain dead from midterms, and very pissed off because I missed two or three questions by second guessing my self.  I actually had the right answer marked, and I change them to the wrong answer. ARGH

That being said, I'm on this blue kick.  My off center, and some of my prior posts I've been giving a blue tint, too.  I feel it works well with the snow and winter.

36: Hanging

More ice stuff. Experimenting with tones. Did a desat with channel mixer, then used curves in the blue channel to give it it's hue.

Forgot to Neat image it a bit, but I don't have time to do it and re save and re upload.

Friggin enthalpy and heat of formation. I'll be in a much better mood tomorrow. Hopefully get some commenting done tomorrow night

35: Gobble Gobble

So now I have to predate this, but I had this up on time. Blogspot was done. Oh well.

No holiday's in sight (Valentine's Day is not a real holiday) but my boyfriend made a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Yum yum. And a yummy bottle of wine went withit. more yum yums!

34: Volleyball

Shooting sports is very hard.  Hat's off to all sports photographers!!

My school's team is in red.  I left when both school's had one a set, but McGill was playing well, so I think they won.  wOOt!!

33: Peacock Beanie

It's 20 to midnight.  Eep!  Almost forgot my PAD tonight!  Busy studying for my chemsitry midterm on Monday.  Anyways, meet a random peacock beanie baby I picked up somewhere along the way.  RAW, little tweaking, blah blah, neat image, and voila

Now, can some explain kinetics and chemical rate of reactions?

32: Museums and Photoshop

Did my midterm (it was biology, Laurie2, accounting is in March) and was to tired to pick up the camera since I also have a quiz, lab, and a paper due tomorrow.  So, Did a quick and dirty PS action, and this is what we get.  Some more museum stuff.  Proboably a desk that Catherine the Great used or something along those lines.  So, yes, to much PP, but things look better when you're this tired.  Sort of like drinking a lot.  Things look better.

31: Art exhibit

Well, I shot my exhibit at our Fine Arts Museum.  It's a collection of items from the Hermitage in St. Peteresburg.  I think.  I am so anxious about my midterm tomorrow that I took a bunch of pictures and then left without really enjoying it.

I like this particular shot because of the reflection in the glass.

So, I ended up not using my zoom 2.8 at all, but a tripod on every shot. I have to admit, being part of the press corps was great!  I don't think tripods are allowed normally, but nobody batted an eyelash.  Plus, there were no crowds, which was nice.  Got unobstructed pictures, and no reflections in the pictures with the glass.

I hope, next opportunity, to enjoy it a bit more, maybe even go to the press conference.  Stupid mid terms!!

30: Blood Type and Food

I asked for permission to post a shot I did for a photo assignment for one of my school newspapers.  They wanted some concept photo for an article regarding blood type and what you eat.  One of the suggestions was stick a hypodermic needle into a tomato, so I said, ok.  Here is one of the results.  I couldn't decide if I should make the 'blood' the colour when it is drawn, or the colour when it hits the air.  The darker was easier to make with the food colouring.  Amazing how technicalities can make decisions for you.

Shot in RAW with my zoom at 2.8, ISO 1600.  Tweaking in RAW, levels, curves, and saturation bumb in PS, and then a run through neat image.

Happy eating.  These are leftovers from a homemade salsa I made.  Try putting mangos into your salsa.  It adds the coolest dimension and it is really good.  The sweet contrasts well with the spicy and acidity of the salsa.  I promise!

29: Fondue

Yum!

If you're allergic to shellfish, I apologize.  If you're not, then feast with your eyes!  We had fondue with an assortment of things, but I must confess, the shrimp was my favorite.  One of those indulgences of gluttony that could not be helped.

Lots of tweaking in RAW and in photoshop to get it the colours to look mostly correct.  Shot without a flash, in dim lighting, so lots of adjusting.  I suppose I should have ran it through neat image, but I've got school, and I'm trying to get my entry into DPC tonight, so it'll have to do.

28: Vintage

 
My friend is celebrating his 40th birthday, and we thought, hey, what a great excuse to have some great wine!

So, what you see is a decanted 1988 Chateau Beaucastle Chateauneuf du Pape, a Rothschild South African, and a California Syrah.

All excellent wines that fit well with a celebration

Shot in JPEG, and I wasn't happy with all the clutter surrounding, so I desatruated with channel mixer and added a slight reddish tint with curves.  Makes the picture seem much better. Of course, this much wine will make almost anything look good!!

Bottoms up!

27: Cold Noodles with Peanut Sauce

Just for Alresco, here is a cold noodle recipe with peanut sauce (with some comments)

1 pound fresh wheat flour noodles or dried thin spaghetti (I use Asian noodles, dried udon or even soba - buckwheat)
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup warm water
2 T cider vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 t cayenne (I usually use asian chili sauce: see note underneath)
2 t sugar
1/2 t black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed

Cook the noodles

While cooking them, whisk together the peanut butter (I use chunky) and water until blended. Mix together rest of ingredients. Drain noodles and rinse under cold water until chilled. Mix sauce with noodles.

Few side notes - I never measure. I just eyeball everything and adjust by personal taste. The sauce (before you add it) should not be to thick. If it is, just thin it with a bit of water. I like it spicy, so I dump a fairly large amount of chili sauce in. The garlic is raw, so if you're not a garlic fan, skip it.

Hope you like it!

I wanted to take a picture of them, but they don't really look that appetizing, so you get the peanut butter jar instead

26: The Adams Family

Ok, not really the Adams family, buy we sometimes act like them: completely crazy!  Wonderful friends we spent the weekend with.  This is from the same day as all my PAD's this week.  Very little done with it.  Shot in RAW, converted, some light levels and curves, resize, USM and save for web. 

Now, if only all the weekends could be that fun and have such great weather!

25: Snow and Ice

Ok, let's try this again.  Blogger went down for a bit, so here's try number three.

I like the ice on the ends of the needles in this one.  Gave myself a nice little exercise in post processing with layer masks.  Two different layers of levels, and then masked out what was needed on each one.  Some sautration and hue, bump in contrast, crop, resize, USM and save for web

I realize I really like to take pictures of frozen things.  I love the things nature can do with it.

24: Tundra

This is Tundra.  She is the most wonderful Newfoundland owned by friend of mine.  I've known her for several years, and spent many afternoons and evenings with her and her owner (mother) in the park and in the country.  She's the type who will bark at you, and then lick you to death.

I like this particular picture from this weekend because you can see her breath, and her expression is very 'Tundra.'  She has beautiful markings on her body, and I will probably post a picture of her whole body at some point.

23: Winter on the river

So, here is a picture from this weekend.  It's five pictures hastily stitched together.  Not a great job, but I don't have a true wide angle to do it justice, and I didn't bring my fisheye *doh*

Show in Raw, converted and stiched.  Curves, selective colour, and saturation, resize, USM, and save for web

Thank you everyone for the comments you've been leaving.  I've fallen behind due to school work, but I am checking them out and will try and comment as soon as some of this moelcular biology and intro to accounting stuff gets in my brain :-)

22: Windswept

Ok, it's not really windy, but the way the little pine is growing always make me think it growing in a windy area.

After the huge dump of snow yesterday, we had an absolutely gorgeous day.  So good in fact, my next few PADs will be from this weekend.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was perfect at right around zero degrees (Celsius) and not to windy.

Shot exclusively RAW, and while I don't think I'll always do that always due to lack of space, in this situation, it worked out well.  I was having a hard time with exposures due to it being so sunny and the snow being so bright and pretty.  I was blowing out highlights here and there, and with RAW, I was able to bring things a bit more under control.  I'm officially a RAW convert now.  Love it!