Photoquarium Blog

Here it is my weakest link, my deepest confesion, the truth behind my madness. I have a problem completing things.

Where, you ask, does this confessional come from? Well I read this blog post by Brian Auer on Epic Edits, My Weakest Area of Photography. This post was exactly what the title says, his weakest points in his photography and how he is going about to improve on them. This got me thinking about my weakest point in photography and life but that is to deep for this blog and we will stick with photography.

Post Processing

I would say this is one of my most inconsistent parts of my photo process. I go out and take hundreds of photo’s and instead of taking them off the camera right away and starting the sorting, processing and ratign of my photo’s I let them sit there and forget about them for a while. This is bringing me to a mountain of images that I either forget I have or get overwelmed with when I try to start the actual process.

How I am going to fix it

Organize – Getting To grips with image management

Organize – Getting to grips with image management 2

Organize – See it through

Printing Photo’s

This on is along the same lines as the previous in that it is a procrastination issue as well. I am alway saying that I need to print my photo’s be it as a framed photo for my wall or as a photobook that I can put on my coffe table for myseld and others to enjoy.

How I am going to fix this

Posting online

I have my photoblog on photoquarium that I post to in spurts but not consistent enough. Also I need to post to my flickr account as well as othere sites like vazaar. I need to get my photo’s more exposure and critisism, I am not sure how I can progress and get better if I don’t get opinions on my work. Maybe I should spend more time in places like photophlow where I can chat with people and get my photo’s critiqued there.

Well its spring time, the ground is turning from white to brown and eventually to green. Everything seems to be coming alive so I had better follow suit. I think its time for a spring time resolution.

I am going to commit to a photo challenge for the month on May. This challenge comes from Trevor and his inspirational blog PhotoChallenge.org. He has been running challenges since December and I have been following them with a regretful attitude since I never actually participate. But that is going to change this month.

May’s challenge is shooting a new object each week. The spin on this is that you need to take more than one photo of the object throughout the week which should get you to think about how to change things up for each photo.

The first weeks object is Beverage this should be a fun and simple one to start with. Also I am going to cheat a bit since I have a picture I took a while ago of a Pint of Alexander Keith’s (see it here and here). I am just going to tag it with the photo challenge tags and start the rest of the week with taking different shots of beer. What a great subject and gives me an excuse to drink take photo’s of beer.

Hope you enjoy the pics should be a fun time.

I have always likes the skylines of cities. I know its a bit cheesy and that the a city skyline is a bit cliche as a photo but I think they can be beautiful and intriguing at times. You can add so many elements to a evening or mornign shot of a skyline like colorful clouds, the moon, planes, etc. For me though I think a good skyline shot consists of great light and sky color and the brilliance of all the buildings and thier lights.

In my home town of Calgary I have always been on the lookout for good locations to view the downtown cores skyline from different angles and vantage points. I have tried to find a few resources online that could give me clues on where to go to check out downtown Calgary and get some stunning photo’s but there wasn’t much out there. So I have done some scouting on my own and am sharing the results with you. Each point will include a link to google map’s with the location pin pointed on and a photo I have taken from there (if available).

I also stumbled upon this blog entry from photographer Thomas Hawk about 10 Places for photography in San Francisco in my RSS feeds today as well. It seems like I am not the only one that wants to share the beauty of their home town. The photo’s of Thomas are a lot better than mine but at least it gives me ideas and a goal to strive to when creating my own shots.

So here is the first of many locations. I will be adding to this collection of articles about where to photograph the great city of Calgary.

Ramsay :
There is a small lookout at the top of a hill just west of 5^th St SW that has a great view from the city. It is a small location at the east end of Earl Grey Park with a park bench that is south of downtown and gives a great northern view. Map Here.

Good old government agencies, I wonder what would happen to most buisnesses if they were run the same way that Canada Post is. Nothing seems to ever go right when I send packages through them and it seems most people have issues with sending packages. Is this an industry standard for mail/package companies?

I sent out my camera Express Post on Jan 30th after work. So I assumed that the package would get processed and then sent out by the latest Monday Feb 4 and then the repair shop should get my camera by Friday, I even gave then a extra day or two since Express Post is 2–3 days.

After tracking my package I see that it is out for delivery in Mississauga on Feb 4^th. Sweet they are early even better. Over the next 3 days the status is still the same. So I email the repair contact I have to see if they have recieved my camera yet. After a few back and forths they tell me they still haven’t received it. There goes all my excitement about the efficiency of Canada Post.

After the next weekend I get an email from the repair company saying that they contacted Canada Post and the package is on its way and it should be there in a day or two. Again, monday … not delivered, tuesday … not delivered. Finally on wednesday I get an email saying they have received the package.

An Express Post 2–3 day package ended up taking almost 2 weeks. What an effeicent and well oiled machine Canada Post is. Now if this was any other company I would gbe able to phone up and complain and get my money back or some sore of sorry but with Canada Post it seems I have to start a Delayed Package inquiry. So off I go and do this, I actually did this on friday 6 days before the package was delivered.

I get a response back from my online submission of this inquiry and it says that someone will contact me within 5 business days about this. Oh great more waiting, just what I like. Are they hoping that I go away and forget about how inept they are. I am sure this works for most people. They get frustrated and just forget about this annoying problem.

As of today I still haven’t had a response back from Canada Post so I guess I wait. If I don’t hear something by monday I am going to get a bit more aggressive about this.

Now the wait to see how long it is going to take for my camera to be repaired and returned.

At the beginning of 2008 I had some lofty goals, not really New Years resolutions just goal, to get increase my photography knowledge and to practice the techniques I read about a lot more. So I had started the year determined to participate in the 365 day photo challenge. I joined a couple of the Flickr groups to help keep me motivated, as well as subscribed to a few photo challenge sites. Well needless to say I lasted about 10 days into the 365 Day challenge. During this time I was struggling to take quality shots and I found myself just taking photo’s without any preparation or thought before hand. Now I know that not all shots need to be prepared but I was becoming a bit disheartened with my quality so I decided to stop the challenge. I am not giving up my photography I am just refocusing my goals. I have decided, instead of just taking random photo’s and posting them up I will be instead focusing more on the techniques and theories of good photography.

At the moment I am in the middle of reading Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography (Updated Edition). The book has been helping me discover some of the composition concepts of photography that I may not have known about or that I needed a more detail on. So I am going to be focusing on each of the techniques for a short period of time to help improve.

Now that all being said, I have some bad news. My camera (Canon Rebel XTi) has been placed on the IR (injured reserve) list. The other day I was about to go out to my friends birthday dinner at a local sea food restaurant called Catch. I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t want to carry around my 24-70mm lens since it is pretty heavy. So I switched and attached my 50mm f1.8 lens. Lighter, smaller and still very quick for the low light situations I would be in. After I had attached the lens I decided to take it off and make sure the optics were clean before I headed out. Much to my surprise the 50mm lens was stuck. I couldn’t turn it more than 1/4 of the way. I tried with a bit of pressure and still nothing. So I kept applying a bit more force. Eventually the lens POPPED off with a crack, and at that moment I knew something had happened.

I looked at my 50mm lens and the mounting system had broken. Now the lens isn’t completely destroyed it was just a chunk of plastic missing from the mounting system and it was twisted out of place a bit. I was a bit miffed and worried I would have to replace the lens. Calmly I rotated the mounting system back to the right alignment and carefully tried it back on my camera. everything seemed great. The lens mounted and unmounted fine. The optics seemed to be aligned and clear still but then I tried to take a shot. Oh the horror!!

The auto focus wasn’t working. I checked to make sure the lens was selected to auto focus. It was. I took the lens off and reattached it and still no auto focus. I then tried my 24-70 lens to see if that one worked, it didn’t. That is when I took the lens off and looked at the camera body. Much to my chagrin, I noticed that one of the dip pins used to connect the auto focus feature to the lens was not popping back out. It was stuck down ant therefore would not make contact with the lens and therefore the auto focus wasn’t working. After a few choice words mumbled under my breath I calmed down and knew it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I had bought extended coverage on my camera when I bought it. Phew!

Over the next couple of days I started the claim process and everything is going to be fine but I am shipping my camera to Ontario to get repaired. Yesterday I posted the package with my camera in it and now I am without it for about a week.

What do I do, how do I cope? I guess I am just going to have to find other things to do with my time. Maybe work on this blog and site, maybe read a bit more about photography, maybe catch up on some of the post processing and thin out my older photos (I have a lot that need to be deleted). Or as the girlfriend would like, pay more attention to her

Here’s to hoping my camera is back soon all injuries healed and ready for a few good workouts.