May 23, 2007- Feeling sad for George

Hello fathfull reader.

About 26 years ago, my wife and i rented a farm and old house, for about three years, prior to buying the house we have now. It was a great place, set back from the main road, yet close to town for shopping and relaxing. Place was huge, 5 bedrooms plus a summer kitchen. I was not a fan of the stone basement. Always felt creepy down there, even in daylight.

Seems like a normal old farm property right. Well maybe not, for you see, I and many others in town as well as previous occupants, firmly believe the place was haunted. Not just due to creaks and groans of a 150 year old house or wind blowing through holes in the mortar, but out and out blantant haunting.

I must say though, George as we named him, was more of a practical joker than a "Get out of my House" kind of spirit. His big nusance was throwing rocks through windows. Well not really. You would hear a big crash of glass, spend 1/2 an hour inspecting all the windows of the house, and as always, would find noting out of place. Settling back into your chair to continue reading, and there it was again.If it happened once it happened 50 times over the three years we spent in the farm. After a while we would just sigh, say thats enough George and it would stop for a few days.
Other things that happened was singing could be heard from the kitchen, horses neighing, and knocks on a bathroom door, when you knew you were the only occupant of the house at the time.Many times i was alone in the house for a few days at a time, and would leave a book on the coffee table in the livingroom, only to find it gone the next day,and returned to its exact spot 1-2 days later. That i hated.:-)

Several people before, and after us, left the house before the rent term was up,always complaining of the things going on in the house.

The last family to live there, did so for about 20 years, bringing two kids into the world from there(we had our daughter there)I recently met up with them, and not having told them some of our tales, heard the same things told to us, when we asked if anything unusual was noticed at the house.

My concern for George is this. The property was sold last year, and the front of the farm will be an Auto Mall, and the rear will be single family dwellings. Not a nice fate for such a nice farm. Originally the house was going to be torn down, but i hear now, it will stay and possibly be an office of some sort.

I hope George treats his new neighbours nicely.

Thnak for listening

Dave

May 15 2007-The quest for knowledge, Part II

Just thought i'd give a brief out line from last night, for those that are interested.:-)

Instructor brought in her light system and her 19 year old daughter, who as it turns out, does not mind having her picture taken, unlike my daughter.LOL

Her system is pretty basic, but does a very good job. Two 500 watt strob's and stands, a plain Jane rod and stand fore backdrops and that's it.
Back drops are painted muslin, and canvas, and props were foam cushions to raise people up to make a nicer, rounder group photos. We worked on the 3', 6', 6',6' triangle being subject 3' away from backdrop and the lights 6' away a6' between them. This is her basic small studio setup.

We spent an hour or so watching her pose and shoot her daughter, and showing us various ways to soften light with out a softbox, and use home made reflectors for shadow reduction in certain cases.She showed the class how to work the light meter, at least i can do THAT.:-)

With home made light box, and metering, it only took her a moment to set the power on the stobs for her working ap of F8. Stob's trigger by wire and i see now what you need for the hotshoe to do that.
She works with a D70.

At the end of the night she posed a group of 5 students, some tall and some short etc, and showed us ways to position them, and also briefly touched on using a flash and umbrella as studio lighting in a pinch.
I may have to go this route for any pet store shoots, as if they are all small like the Petvalu my wife works at,. i won't be able to utilize the 6' method, but the one stobe method sh eshowed us. Either that or get the stobbracket and just lift the flash off the camera.

The best part was at the end, she asked to see the horse, pet and kid pictures i was asked to bring in, and she thought they were all great. I'm happy.:-)

Next week, our turn to wreck havoc in the photography world.

LOL.

Oh, my Pentax K10D partner, was not able to get his Sigma flash to sync wirelessly, so i think thats a dead issue, if anyone is thinking of getting the 500dg super for wireless flash.I thought i was getting it to work, but i have some shots with the flash in the picture and the red ready light is still on, so maybe my cheat method failed.
Now, to find the cash for a 540.

Thanks for listening.

Dave

May 8, 2007- The quest for knowledge begins after 50

Hi gang.

Well last night, was the first of 5 lighting/portrait classes in Barrie. Long day as I was in the field until 5:30 then a made dash to the school, a hour a way. Took a while to find everything, but we did.

As I walked in to the class room, one gent in the class was raving about his new digital camera, must be a Nikon shooter, says i. LOL

Nope, he has the K10D and kit lens, so I whipped out mine, K10D camera that is, and we bonded. I feel so good now. :-)

Teacher is not the regular instructor for the class. Great I think, a Physics Prof. teaching me photography.

Wrong. She also teaches the night classes for Wedding and Children's portraits.

Bonus, says I. Maybe this is worth the drive to Barrie, me thinks.

Course outline was presented and a two hour talk about portraits, what to look for, the "shapes" thing.(how to set up the people to form, in principle, diamond, triangle and eclipse. Not really sure how to explain this yet, but it made sense in the examples)

She asked us what we wanted from the course, and I mentioned more experience with not only on board flash, but how to light and expose for studio stuff. I mentioned about the possible pet work in stores. She used to do that before just going to people portraits, so she will add that to the class, and will bring in a bunch of tips for me.

Sounds like a real night class. Learn what you want, not what the school says you need to:-) Instructor seems to know her stuff, and is a good speaker. I think I’ll learn something here.

Looking forward to next week, She is bringing her lighting in and we get to play. She will be setting up the subjects, and will shot them herself, but we can do our own shooting, if we want(I want).

Thanks for listening

DJB

May 2, 2007- Turning the corner

Hello faithful reader.

Well its now May, and as the header say's I'v turned the corner. The Jan-April blah's are gone, the grass is greening up, the property taxes,house insurance and Truck insurance have all been paid and the John Derre is charging its little battery for a summer full of grass cutting and squirrel chasing. The grey one hates that, BTW.

May also brings out my other self, the equine photographer. My first show starts on the 20th. Good thing Monday after is our Stat holiday. Chance to snooze.
Lots of good things lined up. I have several shows back that i lost to another company last year. Seems politeness is still needed in some business after all.(I'm the polite one :-))

Had a visit Monday with my Doctor. Man getting old sucks. More problems found. Quess all of those gout attacks over the years has produced some nice arthritis in said foot/toes.However it has now pushed me to actually do something, and i'll be getting my 17 year old Norco mountain bike out this week, and start peddeling my arse around town. Gotta lose a few LB's and get the legs in shape for all day standing at the shows.

Just about lost the end of my thumb this morning. Cut it on a broken bottle that found its way int my garbage. Nasty cut along the top. Probably should have gone for stitches.

Daughter and Boyfriend are now hooked on Vegas. Gota nother one.

Bwaa Haa Haa:-)

Well thats it for today.

Thnaks for listening

DJB

April 24, 2007-Back to basic's

Hello faithfull reader. In keeping with the main spirit of my blog, that being horses and photography, i'm happy to announce that i have found a College night class that will allow me to hone up on studio lighting and Portrait photography.

Its a bit of a drive from my humble abode, about 80 Km's, but its also the closest facility i can find. Over the past 8 years or so, after putting photography on hiatus for most of the 90's, i have managed to remember, or atleast find classes, in all that has been forgotten. Several classes in B&W darkroom, now gone the way of the Dodo bird in most areas, general tips of the trade from the good folks at Pentax Discuss Mailing List(PDML), and now pretty much my last learning curve, that of studio lighting.
After this, next will be a specific class on Photoshop for photographers. I have just enough experience now, to be dangerous.

LOL

I have read up on the internet about this, but i tend to need to be able to see it in action before it really sinks in.

I was a bit disappointed that the school i took the B&W classes in, had stopped the class due to low enrollment, but i have enough experience now to be able to develop and get out some sort of print, if and when needed.
I still love film B&W prints, but digital software has come along way over the past few years, and coupled with printers like the Epson 2400 and Canon i9500(i think) excellent B&W conversion prints are now possible.

Well thats it.

Thanks for stopping by.

DJB

April 17, 2007-From desert to spongy grass

Hello faithfull reader. Sorry about nothing posted for a week or so, but i was on vacation in Las Vegas last week and am just getting back into Ontario life. We had a great time, as we always do, but its always great to be back home.

I don't mind flying to destinations, i just hate the very act of getting to an airport. Left the house early as suggested and arrived to an almost empty terminal. I did our check in over the internet and it only took a few minutes to get past Air Canada desks. For everything i dispise of AC, these ladies were great. So now we have a long wait, and beer is $10.00. Arggg.:-)

The hotel we stay at is a smaller one near the Flamingo, and is a nice, quiet building. It used to be our favorite place to play, and still is, but they don't have the ever popular $1.00 beer, so we now have two extra hotels we like, O'Shaes and Casino Royal. Dollar beer tastes great.:-)

Went on a tour to Valley of Fire National Park and that was excellent (insert Mr Burns here). A lot of nice photos were shot that day. The SO and i loved the quiet enviroment.
Went and saw the Wynn and Venetion hotels and the Secret Garden at the Mirage. Got my night shots around town, i missed last time in Vegas. It took a bit, but we managed to find our favorite slot machines that used to be at the Flamingo, but we found them at Bally's. The double diamond McDonalds one. Get the bonus lady and play a snakes and ladders type of bonus for extra points. I seem to be able towin on this one.

Even managed to come back with a few bucks.

Thanks for listening

DJB

April 5, 2007-Up down and film meets digital

Good day all. Well it may be the end of the first week of April, and Easter Weekend to boot, but you sure can'nt tell from here ist spring. The great weather the last few days, even of it did rain, it was warm, has turn sour again, and we had a small blast of winter over night. The wind picked up, the temp dropped and over 2 million people in Toronto and the GTA all forgot how to drive all at once. Amazing 1 cm of snow and cars and truck bounce off each other lik a pin ball game.

People, SLOW DOWN. How hard is that.

On a good note, a friend of mine, i have a link to his blog, knarf, recently bought a Pentax istD camera. Why is this so important, well because now, film is officially dead. He was probably one of the last hold outs of the members of the PDML.

Notice though i said Pentax, not Nikon or Canon. This is for all you people brainwashed in to thinking only N or C can produced good pictures.

Well, all i have to say is that Pentax has made excellent film cameras and lenses for over 35 years, and it proves some people think for them selves and not let marketers rule there lives.

Pentax makes a very good Dslr in the K10D and K100. Shake reduction in camera, great image quality and viewfinders.

Now don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with N or C cameras, i just wanted to let you know there is another choice.

I use Nikons BTW for my equestrian work as Nikon had better dslr;s before Pentax came out with theirs.

I use both and for different reasons. Do your self a favor, and try a Pentax when looking for your next camera.

Thanks for listening
DJB