Hi Folks:
We thought we’d do a themed post for May’s images. Although Marcia is mostly renowned for her flower photography, she does in fact shoot a wide variety of other work as well! As we’re both big fans of clouds and cloud watching, we thought we’d use clouds as the basis for our photos of the month. Marcia’s first.
Hi Folks:
For Mother’s Day this year we traveled up to the Okanagan to celebrate with Mike’s Mom. We had two days together so we got to treat her to two different places!
Hi Folks:
Eek! Already mid-May and we haven’t done a Photo of the Month post for April yet! Just so much happening in this town… At the end of April we had the opportunity to go out to Finnerty Gardens at the University of Victoria and wander around for a couple of hours. We had a great time. There’s one place in the gardens where four saplings have grown together, and where the stems join they form a perfect bowl. Victoria’s spring rains filled the bowl with water, and falling camellia flowers completed the scene. Here’s Marcia’s image!
Okay, that’s it for now. Go out and make some photographs!
Hugs,
M&M
Hi Folks:
Last Saturday was our fourth Free Hugs session for 2017, and it also marked a number of firsts! Our usual procedure is to arrive at the Homecoming Memorial, doff extraneous gear, coats, etc, retrieve our Free Hugs posters from their tube, then Marcia assumes her (most glorious) hugging position while Mike makes a few images. That done we wait for the first huggers to arrive. The intervening time has ranged up to several minutes, but in our last few sessions we’ve broken records for the time it takes for our first hugger. At our last session we had someone stop within seconds of getting ready, and we joked that the only way to beat that would be for someone to show up before we were ready. Well, it happened! Not only did we have our first hugger arrive before Mike had a chance to make any photographs, we had someone waiting in the wings so to speak as well! After that surprise we joked that the only way to beat that record would be for people to be there waiting for us before we arrived!!
Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Last week marked the 8th annual Victorious Voices Festival here in Victoria! We missed the first two years, but we’ve been stalwart supporters of the event ever since. If you want to read our previous posts on this amazing creative blending of people and talents, you can find them here. Back in 2013 Mike wrote his first (and so far, only) slam poetry piece in honour of the courage of the many young people who perform during this event. If you’re interested, you can find that here. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Hoppy Easter Hugs, 2017
Saturday of this past weekend was the second chance we had to go out hugging this year, and the weather was perfect – both for those out and about enjoying the day and for us! We were out for about 2½ hours and hugged people from an additional 5 countries! So far this year we’ve met hugging ambassadors from 15 countries – 56 countries in total over the 8 eight years we’ve been doing this. In addition to the hugs we continue to appreciate the smiles, the waves, bicycle bells, car beeps… even the neighs of the carriage horses! And this past Saturday another first, as one man came running forward, arms wide, and jumped up into Mike’s embrace, allowing himself to be spun around and around!! We do so love our hugging sessions. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Under the ‘better late than never’ category, we wanted to present two alternate views of spring here in Victoria. We had a late spring this year; our own personal Flower Count at the beginning of March was about 3% of what it was last year. However, as the month wore on the weather improved and we’ve been able to enjoy our ‘normal’ plethora of sights and colours and sounds!
Marcia’s image is first. This is one of our flowering plum trees, growing downtown on a very lucky street corner!
Entire neighbourhoods of the city are thus transformed every spring. It’s quite a sight to see!
Mike’s image for March was made in Mount Work Regional Park, just west of Victoria, and shows how the warmth and rains of spring transform the wild landscape as well.
Okay, that’s it. Now go out and make some photographs!
Hugs,
M&M
Hi Folks:
As two fools for spring (and pretty much everything else), we thought it was appropriate we hold our first Free Hugs session on April 1. Truth be told, we had hoped to be out earlier but had to wait on the weather…we certainly had a perfect day for it!!
This is our eighth year of hugging Victorians (and others). Yesterday we hugged people from 10 countries; so far we’ve hugged people from 56 countries (that we know of). Every hug is unique and special, and we appreciate the stories from those who stop to share. We also wanted to offer a shout out to our first huggers of the day (who arrived within 10 seconds of our unrolling the posters), the mass of hugs we received from the group touring from China, the little boy who is a self-professed hugger, the dog hugs (and face lick), the honks and waves from passing motorists and the carriage drivers, our favourite pedicab driver, the air hugs from across the street (and those who crossed the street to get hugs), the cyclists who stopped for hugs, and the best compliment of the day, from the man who said, “Thanks for helping to tear down the walls between us.” It all meant a lot.
Last year was our biggest hugging year ever. We’ll do our best to top it this year! So if you’re over by the Homecoming Statue at Ship Point and you see us there, stop by for a chat, a wave, a handshake and even a hug! Or two… 🙂
Hugs,
M&M
P.S. (to Stephanie, good luck with your thesis!!)
Group Hug
Hi Folks:
In my opinion, digital photo printing is equal parts art and science. It covers much greater depth than can be contained within one blog post, so if that’s what you’re looking for, there are plenty of other resources on the ‘net. If you want an introduction to photography and colour management, you might want to start here: Photography and Colour Management.
Okay, this is going to be a quick (for me) blog post. Assuming that you have some understanding of colour models, you know that while Lab is completely device independent, CMYK is completely device dependent (RGB is somewhere in the middle). As Vincent Versace has been known to say, printers are default devices: they only work with the information you send them. As such, the colour on a print relies on the printer and the inkset it contains, the paper chosen and the .icc profile for that paper. The printer profile is a set of instructions that translate the RGB colour space from your monitor into a CMYK colour space that your printer will recognize. Every printer/ paper combination has its own .icc profile, whether custom made for an individual machine or provided by the paper manufacturer for their stock. Now, while the only way to know 100% what your print will look like is to print it (known as hardproofing), one can get most of the way there by softproofing. This simulates (as much as possible) what the print will look like on your computer screen. Once you have an idea what the print will look like, you can modify the settings to make the print emulate what you want. Keep in mind that monitors are emissive devices (they project light) while paper reflects light.
Hi Folks:
It seems Pi Day (3-14) is upon us once again, and there’s no better way to celebrate all things irrational than with pie! In the past we’ve profiled recipes for pastry and for various dessert pies; this year we thought we’d take a different tack and mention a crustless, savoury pie instead: a potato bacon cheddar tart. The recipe comes from our favourite Canadian chef, Michael Smith, and may be found here: Potato Bacon Cheddar Tart.
As Michael himself would say, the best recipe for cooking is to cook without a recipe! To that end, and since Marcia can’t eat nightshades (including potatoes), we use yams instead. And if you want to switch up the cheddar for some other firm cheese like Havarti, that would probably work too. Have fun with it!! The recipe is pretty simple and straightforward to make, although, as mentioned, it’s important to stagger the placement of the bacon around the centre of the pie plate to avoid having a big mound in the middle. And remember to put a baking sheet underneath to catch the drips.
Bon appetit! Now, the 100,000th decimal place for pi is… ? Oh ya… 6.
Hugs,
M&M
P.S. Happy Birthday, Uncle Albert!! E=MC2, huh. We’ll believe you. You could always see the beauty in the sinuous undulations of the rim of the crust, and you recognized that baking is all chemistry and physics… 😉