Photo of the Week 2017-08-28

This past weekend was the 3rd annual weekend at the cottage with Lynn's older sister and her family. This year Bill and Cathy stayed with us while Michael, Melissa, Hannah and Thompson stayed at Lands End Campground across the bay. 

Although timing had not been in my favour for night sky shots for a while. We were fortunate enough to have 3 great days of weather and 3 wickedly clear nights where the night sky was dark, full of stars and the Milky Way ... and I was able to fight through the siren call of the sheets as darkness falls ;-)

I managed to make it late enough on 3 consecutive nights to see the night sky complete with Milky Way from the shore in front of the fire pit, this image was made the first night and it didn't get any better than this ... how could it ?

Hay Bay - Milky Way

DJE

Back Up, Back Up, Back Up ... and then Back Up !

I'm glad my backup strategy for my photography including my LR catalogue files is fairly robust. I use bare HD in a multi-slot docking station as my primary storage for photography. I have one backup copy of my main disc at the house and a second off site .... that covers the image files only. Recently (possibly because I transport the main bare HD regularly, possibly because my desktop PC has been acting up lately) the LR catalogue file became corrupted, unreadable and un-repairable by LR :-(

Fortunately I also use the catalogue backup functionality in LR frequently. My catalogue backup folder looked like the screen capture below ... and I had several recent backups to choose from. Now I do NOT have to rebuild the catalogue of my images from the past 10+ years
:-)

... I'm up and running again with little fuss :-D

Now I've decided I need to replace my aging 7 yr old desktop that I built myself. It's had SSD, RAM and HD upgrades since I first power it up, but the early i7 processor, OS and supporting components have been showing signs of fatigue. Also my Microsoft account (used to set up Windows 10) became corrupted recently and it's causing an issue with some processing software and the solution is a bit "kludgy" so I was considering a system wipe and fresh install of Win 10 ....

... but wait, it's 7 years old and that new killer MSI i7-7700 Gaming Desktop is so quick and purdy ! I don't game, but the preconfigured systems have fast processors, lots of fast RAM, hybrid SSD drives, USB-C and more ...

]:-D

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-08-21

The beginning of a new series ... 'Skyward - Graphics"

These first images of buildings in Paris, ON made with my infrared (IR) converted Canon EOS M and shot with 850 nm filter to produce high contrast B&W images that I then processed to have a 'graphic' look and feel.

This project is the result of moving back to a creative formula that served me well for a number of years. Instead of always and quite possibly only, shooting in the place that I love, 'the Bruce', I'm making time for photo outings to other locations, turning my eye and camera on other subjects ... to rekindle the creative fires.

I'm very pleased with these initial results. Now I just need to make time and visit some of the other towns and smaller cities in addition to Paris so I can expand the series.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-08-14

I've found a couple of pretty little inlets along the Burnt Point Trail that provide a northeastern views out over north Georgian Bay. The morning scenes there can be quite varied depending on the hour, the weather and the water conditions.

On my most recent visit with relatively calm water under dramatic skies and rain threatening, I decided the scene suited a high contrast B&W IR image.

brooding morning

Inlet along Burnt Point

On an overcast morning a couple of weeks previously, I captured a different mood with a conventional colour exposure.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-08-07

Following on last week's post about changing up the weekend routine and using a modified IR ca modified to awaken my creative vision ... over the past week, I've been experimenting with processing techniques.

Ever on the lookout for a processing technique that works to transform digital image files into a graphic, using a combination of LR, ON1 Photo Raw and Anthropics, Smart Photo Editor on and infrared capture, I came up with this result which I'm quite pleased with.

Penman's Dam  -  Photo-Graphic

I intend to keep experimenting, but having applied the results to a few other images from the day, I may have come up with something to keep in the processing arsenal. 

DJE