Where I've been

The astute among you will have noticed a sharp decrease in posts in the past year or so. Part of this is finding my niche, concert photography. Where I live there just aren't all that many concerts that I want to shoot. Sure, there are plenty of little venues with cramped spaces and terrible lighting, but that's not much fun anymore to be honest. Been there, done that, so to speak. Since I'm hooked on metal concerts, I have to watch what comes around and sadly, it's not that often.

The other part, and this isn't a full excuse, is, I bought a house. It's a very nice house, on a private lake, in the countryside. Being a family man has eaten up much of my time, as has moving in, getting real furniture, etc.

I also met someone special, which takes up time as well, although in a good way.

So, for those of you still with me here, I will continue to keep this site active, but not as much as when I first started in the world of photography and everything seemed fascinating to shoot.

Well, there you have it, cheers!

Just a Statement

I have a media pass to photograph all the bands in the upcoming Gwar BQ this weekend, very excited! The Meatment and Ice-T will be there, as well as (of course) Gwar, Iron Reagan and many others.

In other news, for those that know me personally, I am free now. Broke, but free.

It's a good feeling.

Delays, Delays, Nothing But Delays

As usual, I meant to have this post before the holidays had arrived, not after. Oh well, distractions abound. I wanted to wish all my readers a happy and joyous holiday and New Year's celebration. I will be photographing Gwar in concert tonight at a venue known for having proper concert lighting. 

If you are unaware of who, or what Gwar is, I urge you to look up their live work on YouTube, it's a sight to behold. I fully expect to come back with ruined clothes (Gwar are well known for spraying their audience with all sorts of liquids during the show) so I'm going in grungy outfits with a rainpouch for my camera gear.

I probably won't get to processing and sorting the pics until the New Year, so check back here in 2014 to see samples.

Cheers!

Coming Soon, The News!

I have been invited to shoot a NASA rocket launch for Friday night (midnight launch.) Watch this space for pics.

I'm still here!

Sorry for the lack of updates, the new house, spring, yard work, etc have kept me away. But I am still alive and kicking. 

Here is my new friend, Argo.

Argo is a Roughneck Monitor (Varanus rudicollis) a wonderful species of Monitor lizards. He's shy, yet friendly, and highly intelligent (for a lizard anyway) and doesn't get too big. Currently he's about 1 foot snout to vent, and another foot for tail, and will reach (with tail) perhaps 5-6 feet.

Once the house is settled, and all the moving and unpacking (and sorting and and and...) is done, I'll get back to my vacation. Sufficed to say Belize was a blast and I look forward to going back again.

Cheers!

Too Many

Last one of the fireworks shots. I too a bunch, kept most (actually, not that difficult to take good fireworks shots once you know the method) but too many overwhelms the senses.

This will probably be my last post for a week or so, underwent some minor surgery under my left arm, and it's difficult to shoot one handed.

No Joke

I realize today is April 1st, but this post isn't a gag. I was fortunate enough to land a gig shooting for a book, and the following images are ones that will be in it. She's a local sculptor and is publishing her first book. I am honoured to have been selected to photograph her for the book.

That's all for now

No picture to go with this post, I'm at work now and technically I should be working. Technically. Anyway, the area is teasing us with warm(ish) weather and snow is but a distant memory. The next pics I post should be of sun, beaches, women in skimpy clothing. Okay, well maybe not the last one, but something non-winter related, unless Mother Nature pulls a fast one.

And now, the news!

For those of you following my journal, you know my posts are somewhat sporadic. I've set up a proper site for my photography work, http://www.studio-axis.com/

As with most sites on the web, it's not finished, and it's not quite what I want (the web designer and I are currently having a disagreement) but it's up there and oddly, the third hit already on Bing.

I'm nowhere on Google's ranking, but then I didn't expect to be, why I'm already on Bing I'll never know, but that's okay, for the dozen or so people that DO use Bing, I'm easily found :)

BTW, this pic to the left is yours truly. Good self-portrait photography is difficult.

Icicles

The stark beauty of the falls really comes alive in this image, well, according to my own viewpoint and hey, who is writing this journal anyway?

The astute readers notice I've been alternating between Black and White images from my Nikon, and colour from my Pentax dSLR. This will be the last Nikon shot, and the next one will be the last Pentax shot.

Not sure what's going to be in store next, but it should be interesting.

Accident

As the colder climate has settled in, I've done less photography, as I'm too busy freezing. I had a chance to take some images of a friend, and by experimentation with the settings on my dSLR, I snapped this image.

Totally overexposed in the skin area, but her hair and shirt are accurate.

I'm going to try again to duplicate this happy accident, as I think it's an interesting look.

As an aside, won't be doing much Black and White Medium Format photography for a while, the cost to develop the images is too expensive for what are, in effect, ancient and worthless Yashicas.

Don't get me wrong, I love the medium and the TLR format will always be fascinating to me, but I simply cannot justify the cost currently.

Sorry for the delay between posts. I will try to keep things more updated in the upcoming year.

News

I have been doing quite a lot of digital SLR work as of late. With my beloved Pentax K-1000 the images are simply stunning on slide film, but on normal 35mm film...not so much, not to mention the further loss of clarity when transferring them to digital for viewing here. However, I have a number of rather expensive lenses for it, most notably a fisheye lens and two dedicated macros, which up until this weekend I was unable to get them to work on my Samsung. Though the connection mount is identical, the required information cannot be transferred to the camera from the lens, and so therefore the camera shuts down.

But with the help of the British (who knew they were still good for anything?!) I was able to overcome this limitation (in effect, there is a setting in the camera that returns it to full manual mode, beyond the basic Manual setting on the main knob) and now the lenses work! Even better, though the focusing and aperture setting must be adjusted manually, the camera does pick up the proper shutter speed setting, resulting in properly exposed images.

I have been torn between keeping the 35mm film cameras, and going digital only, or switching between the two and attempting to convert the slide images properly. My main holdback as it were, was the cost of replacing the manual lenses. Now that that issue has been resolved, all my lenses can stay with my digital SLR and I can devote my time between that and my trusty Yashicas.

So stay tuned for some photographs with a dedicated Macro lens, and a catadioptric lens which will produce some truly wild Bokeh!

Postscript: I was just kidding about the British, they have some wonderful cars and would just about be perfect if they would only fire their Lord of Darkness (Lucas Electrics to the uninformed.)