Tag Archives: photo of the month

Photo of the Month – August

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Hi Folks:

I’m still editing the images I made in August, but I’m far enough along now to pick a favourite.  This image actually relates to another blog post we have coming up called ‘Walking Victoria‘, but as I haven’t written it yet I thought I’d talk a bit about Lightroom presets instead.  There are presets in a number of different areas in Lightroom: import presets, metadata presets, print, slideshow and web templates for example, but for most people the word ‘preset’ in Lightroom refers to Develop presets.  Some people love them and others say they wouldn’t deign to use them, insisting that each image is unique and should be treated as such.  To each his or her own, as the case may be.  My position lies somewhere in the middle.  There are a number of websites that have presets for sale; personally I haven’t found the need to buy any.  There are other sites that offer presets for free, and I have downloaded and installed some of those.  I’ve also made some of my own.  Mostly I use presets as starting points for creative ideas, or for suggestions when I’m not sure how to present an image.  I almost never leave the image ‘as is’ when using a preset, but continue to build onto what the preset has to offer. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Cover Stories

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Hi Folks:

Normally for my ‘Photo of the Month’ posts I highlight my favourite image made in the past month.  However, since Marcia’s new book, “A Year in the Life of a Bus-Traveling Poet” was opened for sale on May 21, I thought I’d profile the two images I’ve made (so far) that grace book covers, and the books on which you can find them.  I’ll start with Marcia’s…

The original image is of a blue flag iris.  I made this image many years ago (on Kodachrome 25, my favourite film of all time) at Petroglyphs Provincial Park in southern Ontario. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Discoveries

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Hi Folks:

April’s ‘Photo of the Month’ is a little late, but bear with me…  Although I do have a bus pass, I also walk around town – a lot – and in the process I’m always making new discoveries.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking around the Fairfield area when I saw a faded beauty partially protected by an overhang… looked to have been there a long time (30+ years, anyway).  It was something I’d never seen before, but a little research confirmed a 1952 Humber Super Snipe.  For all you non-biologist types, a snipe is a small woodland bird (its use for Quidditch was replaced by the golden snitch in Harry Potter fame but that’s another story). Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Botany Bay

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Hi Folks:

I still remember when I was visiting my aunt in Prince Rupert, BC back in 1983 that she directed me to a nearby marshy area where the poor growing conditions led to many of the trees adopting a natural ‘bonsai’ – stunted growth and twisted forms that would give a forester nightmares.  I’ve seen similar growth in other places in Canada as well – when I was working in eastern Ontario in 1979 we encountered a cedar swamp where the trees averaged 160-180 years old but were barely the diameter of the average human wrist. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month

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Hi Folks:

Well, September descends upon us tomorrow – back to school for those who are so inclined, and the end of summer vacation for most.  On this last day of August I had a look through Lightroom to see that I made nearly a thousand images this month.  In the digital age there are many who make a thousand images a day, but I’m still from the film era, where I would get a dozen images from one roll of 120 film.  Anyway…

I’ve put a lot of thought into what to make my ‘photo of the month’ for August.  We had family visiting at the beginning of August, and while I made several ‘tourist’ shots, I’m not a people photographer at heart.  We went to two different car shows this month and there were some good prospects there, but I profiled an image of an automobile last month.

I met some old friends for lunch today as they passed through town, and in explaining to them what we like about Victoria I mentioned that this is largely a city of villages, each one unique, and yet forming a coherent whole.  We haven’t been everywhere in Victoria yet, not by a long shot, but of the various places we have toured Oak Bay is my favourite.  While a separate municipality from the city of Victoria proper they are adjunct, with Oak Bay covering the city’s southeastern shore.  From our walks there we’ve found that Oak Bay has a sense of neighbourhood and community that we really like.  To that end I thought I’d use one of my Oak Bay images for this month’s selection. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month

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Hi Folks:

Last day of the month, and that means it’s time for me to sort through the images I’ve made this past month and pick my favourite. I’ve actually started working on a book of photographs (details will surface somewhere down the road when I get closer to my goal), and part of that means going through, sorting out and editing about a thousand images in Lightroom so that’s been taking up a lot of my time. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Butterflies

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Hi Folks:

Well, it’s a little late in the day but it’s still the last day of the month, and time for my ‘Photo of the Month’.  Each month I pick my favourite image of the past month, although lately it’s often been more than one image.  Most of my work involves landscapes, but sometimes I also stray into macro work.  My dedicated macro equipment is in storage at the moment, but I have enough to get me through temporarily.  I found two new (to me) species of butterflies this month.  The first is an Anise Swallowtail, seen up on the top of Christmas Hill in the Swan Lake/ Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary.  The second is a Lorquin’s Admiral I found at the Oak Bay Native Plant Garden.  I trust you’ll enjoy them as much as I do. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month: Signs

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Hi Folks:  It’s the last day of the month, and that means it’s time for me to select my favourite image for this past month.  I’m still processing images from April at the moment, so I’m a bit behind; fortunately Lightroom is patient with me.

Although I mostly make photographs of landscapes/ scenery, as I walk around I also keep an eye out for signs that strike me as being funny, irreverent, or sometimes just a little bit odd.  I’m not the only one; Ellen Degeneres sometimes profiles such images on her show (according to Marcia).  Anyway, I thought I’d show one of those images as this month’s photo.  As an image it’s not great, but I like to think the message is cute.  Read the signs and you’ll see what I mean.  I wonder if there’s an interconnecting door?

Before and After

Before and After

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

P.S.  You can see some more of my ‘Signs’ images on our Flickr site (although not all of them fit into the above categories).

Photo of the Month

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Hi Folks:  Well, if you promise not to mention that the ‘photo of the month’ post was due yesterday, I’ll pretend not to notice!

At a meeting of our local photography group recently, several people did presentations of images based on a specific theme.  Mine was on ‘faces’.  I should explain that I’m not a people photographer, and people appear in far less than 5% of my work.  I shot a wedding, once, and swore I would never do it again.  However, as a landscape photographer one thing I like to do is to look for ‘faces’ and things in other objects.  Sometimes they’re fairly obvious and sometimes they’re more elusive.  If you go through my Flickr photostream you’ll find a number of such images, but I chose one to highlight as April’s photo of the month.  It’s a piece of driftwood I found along the shore on Dallas Road – nearly an entire tree, in fact, and there are some good size rocks embedded into the roots.  However, looked at from the bottom of the tree the shape forms a fairly good representation of a human skull. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month

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Hi Folks:

Well, since yesterday was the last day of the month this post may be considered an ‘April Fool’s’ joke, but the only fool in this case is me. Besides, yesterday was Wednesday and Marcia’s ‘Poetry Corner‘ post and I didn’t want to compete! Yeah, like that’ll work. Oh well… 😉

So. March has been a busy month, photographically speaking. I made close to 2000 images this month, and while there are those who will shoot that and more in a day, I come from a world of 36 and even 12-exposure rolls of film so I’m still not used to the scattergun approach when it comes to imaging. Of those 2000 or so images, many were used as the basis for panoramas, or more specifically stitched images, since not all stitched images are panoramas, nor need be. Continue Reading →