88: Last of the studio shots (For real!)

Ok, Last few at the request of some friends :-)

Pumpkin/carrot top person is Callye this time, and one more of Jean Seb. This pose was actually inspired from that funny can you touch your toes thread. Except when he touchs his toes, it didn't really look like anything, so I had him try some other things and I liked this one.

So there you go! Fun stuff, and we can't wait to get back into the studio!

Thanks for the feedback!

87: Callye

This is Callye when she gets mad. Joking! We were goofing off with fanning to get the hair so we were trying different stuff. Ok, this will be the last studio shot since I think I've bored everyone. :-)

My printer died yesterday. It's ridiculous how dependent I am on it as a student. *sigh*

86: Jean-Sebastien

Jean-Seb again, but this time you get to see him :) Did a bit of the draganizer action on this, because I thought it would be appropriate, and I'm happy with the result. I'm not sure about the shadow, but that's learning about the studio lgiht set up.

85: Jean Sebastian

Ok, I promise to post a real picture of him tomorrow :) We had way to much fun goofing off with this!

84: John and Callye

So remember how I said I get to use a studio since I am a member of my university's photo society? Finally got in there. Wow was it fun! Wow is there a lot to learn!! The main thing I've noticed is the vignetting, which you can see in this picture, and almost all the others I took. We had a great time, and cannot wait to get back in there! These are my friends, John and Callye. You'll meet my other friend tomorrow

83: On Assignment

On assignment for one of the school papers today.

I did two others, and one got me into a comedy show that normally cost $25. It was a comedy showdown between Toronto comedians and Montreal comedians. I only stayed for the first Montreal, and first Toronto comedian, but they were both very funny. I also got a bit of the 'I'm a journalist and can go into the show just to take pictures!' I would have had no problem paying, but as money is not as abundant as I would like, going to laugh for a little bit in exchange for shooting some pics was a nice deal.

82: Medals

This was taken as a favour for my boyfriend's wine blog (linkie on the right). It's one of the few times we're tasting completely different things in the same wine. I'm tasting fruit jam (blackberry mostly) and he's tasting tobacco.

I just emailed the picture to him, so he should be posting soon.

Oh yes, and he thinks this wine is seriously overrated and that one should not trust the medals listed on the label!

Cheers!

81: MacDonald Engineering Building

Not much else to say. One of the buildings on campus

79: more river

Ok, blogger is working now!

78: Hopscotch

As always, by boyfriend decided he had to see hwo thick the ice was, even though it had started to break up. It was still quite thick in most places, so he was able to cross the river

77: Breaking Up

So even though it was well below freezing, there have been a few spells warm enough to start the breaking up of the ice on the river.

Just some fun wide angle stuff, taken with the fish eye. I'm really starting to like this lens! I forgot to take some jpegs, and I have no raw covnersion software, and I'm on dial-up, so I didn't feel like waiting for RAW essientials to download

76: St Paddy's Day

So this marks my getting caught up on my PAD. Next step will to get some comments onto those who have been morally supporting me through my mideterms. Thanks guys!

I went to a drop-in CV (resume) clinic today, and while I was waiting, what I think was the on campus day care kids dropped by. They had obviously spent the morning making green birron things and the hats and stuff, and we're doing a little mini parade through the various offices in the building. They'd stop and wave their little green streamers and say Happy St. Patrick's Day

As they were leaving, they didn't do much smiling, but they did do a lot of staring. I'm assuming they were staring at my fabulous camera :D

They are a little on the fuzzy side because this was indoors, and I didn't want to use the flash on them. Fixed these up in raw which made a huge difference.

While I'm not a supporter of commercialized holidays, especially ones like Valentine's Day, I will support St. Paddy's Day. Why? How many holidays are out there where you are expected to go out and drink beer? That being said, have a good time day, drink responsibly, and DO NOT drink and drive. Take a cab. Please!!!

And the final thought for the day courtesy of the comics page today: If you drink green beer, where does all the green go when it comes out the other end?

75: Fun with fish-eyes

I lent my 16mm Zenitar fish eye to a friend who took it to Europe for 2 1/2 weeks. His pictures with it were awesome, and I realized I needed to start palying with it more as I've hardly ever used. I bought it this past summer of DrNick (thanks Doc!), and decided today I'd try some stuff with it.

So, here are a few results. I'm realizing I don't think I'll be able to use it much for anything close up because of the manual focus. I have a hard time determing what is in focus when it's a close up. I've tried a few times and everything ends up fuzzy. Maybe if I get one of those magnifying things for the eye piece, it will help. Other than that, I will stick to things that I can put the focus on infinity.

These were taken on McGill campus.

74: Balance and Play

So this is the photo contest I entered at my university. The themes were balance and play. I submitted three, and all three were selected for display. Judging hasn't happened yet, or if it has, then I didn't win anything. These are displayed in the walkway between two of our major libraries. Lots of people looking at them, which is fun. Our names aren't on them, but it's still fun to know people stop and look at the pictures. Just in case some McGill folks look at this, I'll refrain from pointing out which ones are mine, but those of you who know my stuff should be able to find at least one of them ;-)

73: Self-Portrait

:P

This is what I look like, and my next midterm isn't until Thursday.

I don't know where I got this picture from, but if this is someone's material, and you are that someone or you know that someone, please let me know so I can give due credit, or if need be, remove it.

72: Rant

Ok, A day late and a dollar short, and not even a picture. Instead, I am going to rant and rave over how much I hate multiple choice tests. I hate hate hate hate them. They are screwing me up, even though I know the information. I'm so annoyed I can't be bothered to even find an old picture to put up. Sorry

ARGH

71: Since I never re-posted it...

Well, since I messed up yesterday, might as well post an old shot I took down to dubmit and then never re-posted it. This is from the burst of colour challenge. I called this poof! No, it's not someone's hair, as someone asked, it's a very cozy soft scarf. I tend to get cold easily, so this winter, it's been a great way for me to stay warm. Fuzzy pink scarf for my neck and fuzzy cute panda slippers for my feet. Now if only warm fuzzy things would help me solve acid base titration questions.

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!