Saturday Bonus posting...

Had way more cool pictures to show then I really wanted to post yesterday. So here's some fun for you.







Happy Saturday..
Paladin Phil

Toronto Photo Walks: High Park (Part 5)

Fun stuff today. Blurs, flares, night shots, you name it. Some were intentional, others not so much. This is one reason why I don't delete any "bad" picture. Sometimes when you look at it on a proper screen and at a larger size you see something in it rather then on the cameras LCD viewer. Take a look and enjoy.






That's it for now. Check back tomorrow, Saturday for a bonus posting of fun stuff. Keep the boots to the ground.

Paladin Phil

Monday Bonus Post

Was out having a smoke and saw a critter. Went back inside and grabbed my camera and managed to track him down in the back yard. Alas I was foiled by poor light and couldn't get a good focus on him. So here's the bad night shot....

2008: They All Can't Be Gems

I have recieved a few compliments on my pictures. I do admit some are sheer strokes of genius. Today we won't be talking about those ones. Today we will look at the rogues gallery of bad photography. *insert dread music here*

I have mentioned this before, and will probably beat myself over the head about it again. It doesn't matter what you do some times you will take bad pictures. I keep mine around to remind myself of what the hell I did wrong. Mind you I am not the idiot at fault with a bad picture, some times it was the situation. Other times I was moving to fast to get that perfect moment. Then there's the time when you deal with one of the two worst things in show business. So let's start on this small step into the unknown and unknowable.

A steady hand is a good thing when taking pictures. Alcohol and too much coffee will defeat this. I am not saying that I drink too much of either, just that I have been known to imbibe on occasion. Still all joking aside you can get a little camera shake that just throws off your shot. Cases in example:




In all the above pictures I was standing still looking for a good shot. Needless to say I didn't get it. There were probably mitigating factors for some of them, like moving people, low light, not enough sleep, regardless. It happens.

Now there are a few other things as well. Experimenting, judging by eye, and not thinking. These can lead to some interesting shots. Take these ones for example.



Trying a new technique with the first two, I was trying to reduce the "red eye" effect with a business card to direct the flash upward instead of forward. I think alcohol may have been a factor, alas it didnt' turn out too well. the last one was where I went by eye and thought the lighting was perfect. Well, it wasn't and low light combined with camera shake ruined what I thought was a perfect picture. I learned something I could do later on, and I may try the same time for the picture I was looking for.

Now dealing with animals can do some interesting things to your pictures. I think it was W.C. Fields who mentioned something about working with animals and children. Lucky me most children I have dealt with have been good. Animals on the other hand....:



I guess trying to take a picture of two dogs playing on top of your feet doesn't help matters much at all.

I think there's one more category of bad picture, and ruined shots. Not watching where things are. Fingers, feet, items, oh and what the heck you are shooting in the first place:


Shiny metal doesn't work with flash, you would think I would have learned that by this time. Feet, or toes of shoes, in a shot that you didn't want. Finally....what the heck was I shooting again? Trust me I know what I was thinking for that last one. A 'smoke' filled trash can. Don't worry I will get to it eventually and all will be made clear.

So as I go forward I will try not to torture you with many more bad photographs. You never now, it could change. So until next time have fun.

PaladinPhil

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