Photo 365

On January 1st I will start a Photo 365 project. You’ve probably heard of this before but in case you haven’t it’s pretty simple; take 1 photo a day for a full year! That’s it, one photo that will represent that day. Simple enough right? Well many people start projects like this but don’t finish them. I’ve done a little research to get some ideas and feel that I’ll be able to get it done.


In the end I hope to have improved my photographic skills. I will create a Flickr set to upload all the images and occasionally blog about my progress. I also plan on creating and printing an album to commemorate the project. To be able to look back and see my year in images should be rewarding. Who knows what will happen, what changes will occur, which events will mark the year.

Ciao for now,
Patrick

I'm making an effort to learn about black & white photography. I took a workshop recently that consisted of 3 parts; the first we discussed what interests us in black & white photography, how to see in b & w, looked at great examples of high impact images, the 2nd part was a field-trip where we were given projects and the 3rd was to look at our work and discuss things greyscale. I unfortunately missed the 3rd part but really enjoyed the first and second parts.

For a black & white image to be a "high impact" and memorable image, it needs to have great composition, the subject needs to be very clear to the viewer and the lighting really becomes more important then a color image. Some people may not agree, even I am just learning about this idea, but in our discussions we all agreed that an average color image is easier to look at than an average black & white image.

I looked at my catalog of images and sorted all the b & w images and here are a few of my favorites.

Sometimes you can save a color image that has really bad color casts by changing it to black & white. A good example is if you have a group portrait and the clothing people are wearing just doesn't work and can ruin the shot, well just turn it to grayscale and voila, problem gone!

That's it for now!

Thanks,
Patrick

My First Photo Published!!!

One of my images was selected to be published by Peachpit in a new book on the Canon G10 / G11 camera. All images in the book were submitted by Flickr users and selected by the folks at Peachpit. Check out the Flickr page for the book and see all winning images here.

My image was taken with the Canon G10, handheld at 1.6 sec at f2.8 and ISO 80. I worked pretty hard to get this shot so I'm pretty happy that it was selected for the book. I tried many different versions playing with framing and exposure times. I had to lean and support the camera on a railing while holding myself at the angle I needed to get everything in the frame. The 4 rings of this amusement ride move up and down and hold at the top for a moment which aloud me to try many variations of effects. Keep exploring and playing with angles, exposures and effects, you never what you'll get.

My next post will be on the black & white workshop I took a couple weeks ago. I'll post a few of my favorite images and talk about what I learnt.

Thanks / Merci!!

Patrick

My Big Sister Karen

Karen Viola Gervais

My sister Karen passed away on the morning of November 30th. She was only 54 years old and taken too soon.

The first snowfall of this winter was softly coming down the morning Karen passed away. I remember looking at the ground and trees as the pure white snow was covering them. It was truly beautiful just like she was. For me, the first snowfall will always be for my big sister Karen.