2007: Part the Second, or not all pictures are gems

Well, there's good photography, then there's bad photography. Using a camera can be very frustrating at times. As I have said before, most of my bad pictures are gone. Usually deleted before they are downloaded. Well that used to be true. I now keep even the bad ones, sometimes they can be useful.

I don't know why this series of pictures is so blurry, I will ponder this later. Any way back in February of 2007 I was up visiting my mother in Central Ontario. As for the past few years the winters up there are getting cold and snowy. Of course I had my camera with me and had to take some shots around her neighborhood. They all looked good before I downloaded them, needless to say I was disappointed at first with the outcome.

So without further preamble the bad pictures:



These are the first three, and yes I remember growing up with that much snow in the winter. They actually don't look that bad considering, in an artistic sense. With a little of Photoshop mods they could be amazing pieces of art. (note to self, find a copy of Photoshop)

This is my moms front entrance:


And yes eventually she had to get someone to shovel off her roof. :)

Looking down the street to the main road that goes by her street. The snow fall happened about two days before I got there. It was so cold that the snow on the road hadn't had a chance to melt. In fact, they rarely use salt on the roads in this area.


Well that's it for the blurry shots. Needless to say my skills got better. I also think that the camera sensor was affected by the cold. Just checking the weather from that day and year, it was down to -23 degrees celsius with a high that day of -10.

PaladinPhil

The Year 2007: Part The First

Well 2007 was a year where I started to take some more pictures. By this time I had also picked up a proper tripod for my camera. A small portable one that was sufficient for what I was doing at the time. Now I will be going back and forth here, there's a bit more to show and I am going to be working on themes rather then a chronology. Works better for displaying what pictures remain that I didn't delete.

Yes I deleted a fair amount of pictures. They were really bad, super blurry, or other things. I changed my mind later on about this policy. So now on with the show.

As I said earlier I bought a tripod. I wanted something to hold the camera steady while trying to take pictures of small stuff and self portraits(that will be a seperate post altogether). Before I had taken pictures of my miniatures in singles or small groups. Well this time I figured I would take pictures of larger groups.



As you can see I have a lot of toy soldiers. As well you can see an issue that was starting to irk me a bit. If I stood about several feet away while taking the picture it blurred, no matter if it was a portrait or landscape setting. If I got close...


I got some great detail, in the center and front, but the background started to blur. Mind you some of the shots I took have a certain look to them now that I look back on it.


Now when I started using the flash, thinking that might solve the problem...

Metallic paints and a bright flash just don't mix too well.


Now this miniature is one that I am proud of. Made of cast metal, it had to be pieced together, holes filled in, primed, then painted. This is the finished piece as it stands.


And finally a shout out to my "namesakes".



So that's it at the moment for my army, I may go back to them someday and try to take some better pictures. That will all depend on a few things.

PaladinPhil