My weekend

So this weekend was eventful. I met up with a lady who created a lost dogs network in the Quinte area and spent some time with her and her pets. She had some sort of mixed hound with the most amazing eyes. Her name was Saphire (the dog, I mean) and the woman is Jenn Nicholls. She had a few different pets and they all seemed very relaxed, much like herself. 

 I then went to Amherst island the next day and attempted to look for some owl friends. Didn't run into any owls, but have come to the conclusion that a 300mm doesn't cut it. I ran into a photographer from Syracuse, NY who was carrying a 600mm around. I fell in love, and of course she had pictures of the little owl that I had been searching for on the island. (We met on the ferry) She told me about some other good places to look for raptors in the area and we exchanged info. That was nice. 

 

On the way home, I did run into some cool stuff despite missing out on the owl. Yes, I sulked. I found some awesome farming land out in Greater Napanee (Hwy 2) with a good stretch of giant solar panels. Snapped some shots quickly and I'll definitely be going back. I am also going to wolf island soon to check out their array of giant windmills. After all of that excitement, I turned onto Wallbridge-Loyalist to see a hawk of some sort. Seeing as I only had the 300 on me, I used the hood of the car to snap some sharp-as-possible images of it, but they still seem too far away. Oh well! I'll get my dream lens when I win the lottery :P 

      The last thing I did this weekend was going a re-opening bar in downtown Belleville. The owner had some bad luck last year with a fire which postponed its opening for quite some time. Did an interview, had some fun listening to music and taking some interesting shots. It was incredibly dim in there, so I played with shutter speeds a bit.

Mike Botterill and some of his staff at the Bellevegas Boardroom Lounge, downtown Belleville.

A cold, clear night.

So I went out to the farm tonight (Rockwood, ON) with the intention of taking some pictures. I got out to the house, no one was home at that point and got my car stuck in the un-shoveled driveway (heh, oops). I took a moment to look up at the sky between digging snow out from underneath the car. The moon was really bright with a strange ring around it. The centre of the ring, closest to the moon was crystal clear, and the outside was sort of a haze, but you could still see stars. Really odd and I will look up the technical term later. I quickly grabbed a tripod and my camera and got a few shots.

These are my two favourite ones...

Here's what 2nd yr photoJ's accomplish during newsroom week

http://www.qnetnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/combinedfocusandpioneer2.pdf

^Link to the full pdf version of this week's Pioneer Newspaper. Janek Lowe and Adam Jackson, two talented photoJs were the editors this week and I think they did a good job at keeping the newsroom organized and busy, as well as laying out a good paper. Clover Raftis did the InFocus pages, which also were well done, with a unique twist to them.

The MS story is mine, as well as the diabetic InFocus.

Enjoy! It's a good read.

Ode to Valentines love, life and random.

Hello bloggy world! 

I was walking around today and noticed some pre-Valentine cute things. Plus some random stuff along the way... I know that I'm not the most fabulous photographer (yet) and have a pretty hefty "things to break the bank with" list. I think the first step in progressing as a visual journalist should be just to shoot without concerns, deadlines, stresses, etc. every day. 

Saying that, I probably won't manage it and certainly doubt I'll be posting every day, but at least I have a place to sort of archive my progress over some amount of time. 

Goals, seeing as I mentioned them earlier :

-Lighting equipment (umbrellas & stands)

-Pocket wizards or some other remote device for trickier lighting scenarios

-Something that can allow my camera to do wicked time-lapse shots

-Another flash? Hmm? I have the SB-900, and my SB-800 broke :( so I need another one now

-Bigger telephoto lens than my 80-200mm...300, 600?? I'm pretty serious about my birding photos...heh

-Macro lens

-Mirror lens for night photography

-Shoot LOTS, go to more events, find more stories  (I have two multimedias on the go outside of school)

-Work super hard at my internship @ The Mercury, get name out there more

-Spend money on a decent website, maybe when portfolio is a little polished (editing in progress)

-Find an owl to shoot - biggest goal for the past 5 years or so, I think they know I want to see them so badly, so they hide....

-Care less about peoples' opinions? I don't know if this is a good goal or not, but I think it'll help me be less stressed/anxious in the long-run. 

Anyways, I guess that's all for now.

Here are some pictures from today :)

Playing in Walmart with a telephoto lens. These sculptures remind me
of spring/summer time on my back deck. We have quite a few
of these lovely ladies sitting around.

Depth of field.

Sigh, dreamer.

Love is in the air and on your pjs.

Cute Valentine feature perhaps.

Love monkey. Reminds me of my dad who has more monkey plushies than I do.

LOVE love Love Lo0o0ove.

On the way back from the store, I thought the sky looked nice, and I'm a fan of old trees.

Oh hey, red-tailed hawk, nice of you to show yourself on this lovely day.
Wish you were sharper, but I still love you.

Pretty crystal ball ornament that makes me think of warmer times.

Humming bird ornament I found next to the crystal ball thing. Spring is coming!

In the meantime...Let's light the fire and keep warm 'til the sun is closer to Canada.

A picture I took when it was warmer out, looking at the pond out back.

Kind of an "after shot" of the previous one, but shot tighter. Same Cats tails, but
with a snow-covered ice rink behind them.