Blog for Dynamic Expressions

Project 52 - Week 20: Pelicans for Mother's Day

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

The plan for this week's entry changed slightly this past Sunday. Usually for Mother's Day, hubby, the kids and I all head over to our local community centre where they host a Mother's Day fair every year and it was the rides and colours I'd planned to photograph. This year, however, we decided to change things up a bit thanks to some absolutely beautiful Manitoba weather and headed out to Lockport. The kids and daddy did some fishing and I shot pelicans. It was a wonderful afternoon spent with the people I love most, doing what I love to do. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

One dad mowed this into the grass across the river from us:

Best kids a mom could want :)

Pelican coming in for a landing

Their formation here reminded me of the snowbirds

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Project 52 - Week 19: Soggy soccer game made for a pleasant surprise!

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Springtime = Soccer, Soccer, Soccer for our family. As a thank you to the coaches, the other parents and of course our boys that work so hard to make every season a wonderful experience, my way of giving back is to do all the photography for their team including action and posed images. Our season kicked off at the end of April and I was there with with my camera to capture the moments. My absolute favorite part of sharing the images I take at each game is the boys' facial expressions. Normally its just a bunch of blue uniformed kids running around the field and you can only tell who they are by their jersey numbers and hairstyles. Thanks to a long lens, however, you can really get into the action and boy do some of these belong on the blooper reel!

Our Manitoba weather is always unpredictable and since this is my son's 6th year playing the sport, we are quite used to being rained/snowed/hailed on and still we attend every game and cheer our soggy boys on as they run/slide around the field. Just this past week we were at what we expected to be a very wet game as the rain had been coming down all day and didn't look as though there would be any chance of it stopping before kickoff.

Upon arrival on the field, the rain did in fact stop and just as the first half was getting underway, we were pleasantly surprised by this:

It turned out to be a beautiful night for watching the game and our boys played their hearts out. I'm looking forward to more awesome funny faces as the season progresses and who knows... maybe the sky will have some more treats in store too!

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Project 52 - Week 18: Trappist Monastery Ruins reopens!

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

After much anticipation and many delays, the Trappist Monastery Ruins in St. Norbert has finally reopened to the public after being shut down for a few years due to the site being unsafe. They have done a number of reinforcements around the walls and windows, which do not necessarily add to the esthetics of the place but I suppose this is better than having a wall fall on your head!

I headed down there with 3 other photogs one evening and decided that the wonderful textures in the stone called for some HDR work. Below are a few of my favorites from the day but more can be viewed here.

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Project 52 - Week 17: The PWRC and The MFF - Acronyms Come Together!

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

As many of you already know, I am a member of a wonderful photography group called the Manitoba Foto Friends - or more affectionately known as the "MFF." We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the wonderful volunteers from the Prairie Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre for a win-win event that was valuable to us all!

The PWRC is, as their name implies, a rehabilitation center for wildlife and their ultimate goal is to nurse these injured or abandoned animals back to health and re-release them into the wild. Unfortunatley this isn't always possible as sometimes injuries are too severe or animals have already lost their healthy fear of humans prior to their arrival at the PWRC. As such they can't survive on their own any longer and these animals make up their team of "ambassadors" who are taken to schools and other venues to provide the public with education regarding their species and behavior in the wild.

Many photographers dream of being within 5 feet of an owl or peregrine falcon in order to get amazing photos but few of us ever have that chance (or have the patience or experience) to accomplish that goal with these species in the wild. Thanks to the PWRC we had a rare opportunity to join them at the park with the ambassadors in tow and spent 2 wonderful hours photographing these people-friendly and amazing birds.

Each photographer provided a minimum monetary donation (though many contributed above and beyond) and contributed an image or two from the day to the PWRC for use in their promotional materials to help facilitate their education and awareness programs. As I say, a win-win for both groups and it was an afternoon we'll never forget.

Group Photo by MFF Member, Charles Musuka (published here with permission)

This is Nascha, a Great Grey Owl

Meet Perry, the Peregrine Falcon

And this beautiful creature is Tao, a Great Horned Owl

We also spent time with Kele, an American Kestral (picture a minature peregrine) and Naira, a tiny little burrowing owl with the biggest eyes you've ever seen (more images can be viewed here.) A fantastic experience and as it was such a success, we are hoping to have another event with the PWRC sometime this fall.

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Project 52 - Week 16: Baby's First Birthday Portraits

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

I had the pleasure of photographing a beautiful little girl for her first birthday portraits the other day and what a wonderful afternoon it was! Here are a couple of my favorites and a few more can be viewed here.

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Project 52 - Week 15: Happy Easter!

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Mr. E. Bunny visited our household as he does so many others and my kids had a wonderful Easter morning. As it was a quiet day, my daughter and I snuck into the studio and spent some time playing with lights and poses. We had so much fun that her portrait will be my entry for this week.

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Project 52 - Week 14: Home Studio Tests

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Thanks to much effort by my better half and children, I now have permanent studio space to call my own! This week's challenge had a few areas to consider: lighting, backdrops, and subject distances from both in my great, but still fairly small space. Oh... and a white balance nightmare when using both continuous and strobe lighting.

Thanks to some great lighting equipment from both Impact and an Alien Bees product, a variety of backdrops and photoprops, and my ever patient daughter, I'm happy to say my studio has been given my green light and I can't wait to capture clients' moments in it - a great alternative for those cold days!

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Project 52 - Week 13: Point and Shoot Surprise

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Heading out during spring break with children in tow is an endeavour in and of itself. During that week off school (and work for me) I took my kids down to the Manitoba Museum of Man & Nature to enjoy the exhibits and a fun filled afternoon. At the last minute I decided to leave my beast of an SLR behind and challenge myself to see what I could do creatively with my little point & shoot Sony HX5. This little camera is so handy and is always with me, even on those days when the big camera is left behind (can't capture a moment if you have nothing!)

I took many candids of the kids that day but my favorite image was one shot in their Science Center exhibit called "The Matrix" which is basically a house of mirrors combined with laser lights everywhere. This was my favorite:

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Project 52 - Week 12: Cornstarch Monsters

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

This week's challenge was inspired by, of all things, an episode of the TV sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." Who knew the right combination of cornstarch and water could be such fun! The idea is that with the appropriate mixture of the two substances, pressure on the mixture actually converts it from a liquid to a solid. Take your mixture and pour it onto a speaker playing loud music with a lot of base, and you get some very neat creations. Just watching these "monsters" transform as they dance is a blast, but capturing them on camera and then editing them for colour was my ultimate goal.

I won't get into the messy mixing process and setup as this website does a much better job of detailing it and the science behind it. Below are a couple of my favorite captures.

And then with the hue adjustment slider used in photoshop, you can make almost any colour in the rainbow out of them!

Thanks for reading!

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Project 52 - Week 11: SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera)

dynamicexpressions@shaw.ca — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

This week I decided to tackle another challenge on my list and that challenge was to create an image with my camera that required absolutely no processing. As I shoot in RAW this is sort of a misnomer because I have to process images just to view them but in this instance, I wanted to come up with a vision and execute that vision all within the camera. No post-cropping, sharpening, levels or colour adjustment... just a shot converted from RAW to JPG and presented as is. I am happy to say that after a short (and very WET) wander around our local zoo, I accomplished my mission.

My subject of choice was the flamingos as they always have such vibrant colours and their poses are just wonderfully suited for great compositions. I set my camera to the "Vivid" colour setting in order to really allow their feathers to pop without having to change it in post later. I had my flash with me and used it to provide a bit of fill flash and isolate this guy/gal from their not so pleasing background. Below is the result:

In post I will likely do a few levels adjustments to really bring out the flamingo and darken the background to true black but considering its SOOC, I am supper happy with the result and will be working on this challenge for other things in the weeks to come. When I shared this image with my photoclub, I was asked to show a monotone version of it. While this is now a processed image shown below, its a neat rendering and I'm glad he suggested it and had to share.

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