Photos I Am Not Even Marginally Proud Of Taking 001

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Gabriel

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You’d think business would be booming, but in these “tough economic times” I guess even Satan had to take a second job… weird he’d end up driving a cab in Ottawa. Go with what you know, I guess. The song is AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells”, from their 1980 ultra-classic ‘Back In Black’.

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Technical Stuff: I did my best to make sure it was in focus. I did this by half-depressing the trigger, and allowing the computer in my camera enough time to adjust the pixels, as translated through my lens. That’s about it… I guess getting enough of the car in the frame so it could be recognized as a taxi was important. It wouldn’t have made much sense to have just the number 666 and a grey background.

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Other than the “evil taxi” angle there’s absolutely nothing about this photo that warrants wasting 180k worth of space on the Internet. In ten years, when the Internet finally reaches its capacity, and the people in charge of purging all the crap from the system to make room for more Jonas Brothers videos find this post, I’ll have no problem when it goes missing. Until then, take a look at how in focus that car is… oh yeah, I own that bitch.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Entertainment, Everyday Stuff, Marginally Half Decent, Photography | 2 Comments

Portraits Of People Who Can Make Me Smile 003

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Gabriel

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I spent a couple of weeks walking around town at night looking for cool lighting situations, and this was one of them. It’s not a big town. I have another shot that showcases the light better, but this — despite being a little out of focus — was the better shot of my very pregnant girlfriend. This was the end of a muggy two-week heat wave where the temperature never got below 30C (86F), so we were enjoying the cool air on the porch of our apartment building… which, when my girlfriend is standing in a certain way, looks a lot like Spanish Harlem.

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Technical Stuff: The porch light is behind and above us, the background is lit by two street lights. The camera (Kodak EasyShare C533 pocket digital) was set on ‘landscape’, which (I think) means wide angle, and open one stop. Once you’ve got that, just find yourself a woman with vaguely Spanish / Native Canadian features, knock her up, then wait five months.

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There are a few things I really like about this photo — my girlfriend for one, but the broken bricks behind her, and the way the light works around them, are what make it special. Which makes sense because they’re the only things in focus. If I were to get serious about this shot I’d crop at the window, and lose the air conditioner — which I hate, mostly because it’s not ours, and the green chair. But the chances of me getting serious about a photo right now are slim, none and nada… no time, I’ve got a kid coming in a few weeks and I still haven’t grown up yet. The song is “Spanish Caravan” by The Doors from ‘Waiting For The Sun’ (1968).

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Posted in Family, Photography, Portraits, Vankleek Hill Photos | 3 Comments

Something Wickedly Overpriced This Way Comes

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Gabriel

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I haven’t walked through the gates of my hometown summer fair since I was a kid… and, from what I remember, back then we mostly crawled through a hole in the fence separating the fair grounds from my friends house. My fair avoidance is mostly because I don’t like crowds. But, seriously, the games are almost guaranteed to be rigged, the prizes were probably stolen from children in the last town the Carnies worked, the rides are a broken bolt away from having my hometown featured on CNN, and it’s just way too frigging expensive.

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Technical Stuff: I had the exposure settings on my wee pocket digital set at +2, which, in a real camera, would mean the aperture was open to allow more light to the film. With a digital it basically means the tiny internal computer modified the brightness/contrast settings on the image with some rudimentary PhotoShop-type program. I was also resting the camera lens on a link of a chain-link fence because I didn’t have my tripod with me.

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Admission to Canada’s Wonderland amusement park, plus a handful of ride tickets, is $35. Just to get on the grounds of Vankleek Hill’s fair this year cost $20 for the day. Thing is, even if you took the time to examine each cow, you could have seen the entire thing in under two hours… if you took each ride twice, walked with a limp, and ate a long lunch. The funniest part was the concert on the last night where the featured band forgot how to play AC/DC. Watching that would have been worth the price of admission, but we could hear them for free from my friends place where we were roasting marshmallows. The song is “As Wicked” by Rancid, from their 1995 classic ‘…And Out Come The Wolves.’.

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Favourites, From My Wall, Occasional Events, Photography, Seasonal, Vankleek Hill Photos | 5 Comments

Red Sky At Night Mmm Mmm Mmm

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Gabriel

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Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning, sailor’s take warning because she’s probably got an STD. Better listen, because that’s a direct quote from Jesus Christ. Seriously. Jesus Christ of Nazareth is quoted, in the Bible, as having said “when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and louring.” I don’t know what “louring” means, but I assume it’s an STD of some kind.

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Technical Stuff: The first thing you have to do to get a photo like this is make sure there’s no traffic. I was standing in the middle of a crosswalk with two blind turns. It’s not exactly dodging gunfire on the Gaza Strip, but every situation has its own unique dangers. I also set the exposure at ‘+1’ which, on a real camera, would mean I closed the aperture a couple of stops (less light). No, digital cameras are not real cameras, and all of us using them to capture our important moments are all going to be fucked when they finally change the default image coding standard away from jpeg — bet you didn’t know saving an image as a jpg/jpeg automatically reduces its quality.

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So the sum total of direct quotes attributed to Jesus in the Bible comes out to a couple hundred words. Maybe. The guy lived for thirty-three years, I’m sure he said a lot of things. But the editors pared it all down to a couple hundred words, and thirty-four of them are about the weather. And the translators couldn’t even get the rhyming scheme down. Honestly, I think the poor bastard got crucified twice. The song is “The Storm” by Big Country from their 1983 debut, self-titled album.

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Posted in Everyday Stuff, Nature, Photography, Sunrise Project, Vankleek Hill Photos | 1 Comment

Almost Like Art | Clouded Eye

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Gabriel

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It has been a long time since I last published an “Almost Like Art” post, and that’s mostly because when I take a photo of a brick wall, it looks exactly like a brick wall. I have friends who are artists because they have the skill and ability to make a brick wall look like art. It’s like I stalled, or took a different branch in my photographic evolution. So, while I can make sure everything in the frame is interesting and basically in focus, I can’t do it to the degree where someone’s going to shell out $200 for a limited edition print.

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Technical Stuff: The idea was to put the camera lens against the peephole of my door. It’s a shot I’ve taken before, but I couldn’t find it so I thought I could recreate it… but I pressed the trigger before the camera was against the door. So, long story short, the light meter fucked up and the shot was overexposed. Taa-daa, it’s art. And now that it’s in your computer’s Internet cache you owe me $200. No personal cheques.

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While you’re searching for your credit card the song I’ve posted is called “Is Is”, from the 2007 EP of the same name by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

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Posted in Almost Like Art, Cool Stuff, Experiments, Photography | 1 Comment

Sundown You Better Take Care

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Gabriel

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Sometimes the rains end and the clouds break and you see the sun setting and there’s an almost immediate sharp quiet where once you were just becoming used to hearing the rain hit the roofs of empty cars and houses and you can’t help but stand mesmerized in the street as you watch the sky turn gold and peach and WHAM that’s when the car hits you and it’ll be a Mazda… you know, one of those little fuckers with the happy face grill. Fuck I hate those.

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Technical Stuff: This shot is all about light settings — exposure time / shutter speed, and how today’s pocket digital camera is useless at deciphering them. On most of these camera’s the automatic exposure settings are set when we half-depress the trigger, and hold for a split second. During this time the camera focuses, which is obvious, but this is also when the camera decides how long the “shutter” will stay open — or, how much light will hit the digital pixels to create the image. So when it’s dark, the “shutter” stays open longer, and when it’s brighter the shutter is quicker.

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The thing about pocket digitals, however, is because the focus and the exposure settings work on the same button, chances are very good either you’ll get the subject properly lit, or you’ll get the sky properly lit… but never both — the sky is never as white as it is in a digital photo. So if, as in this photo, you take the reading off the clouds, they look great, but the townscape is blacked out. This basically makes photo software mandatory because to get this shot perfectly lit means lightening the town by a full stop. The song is, of course, Gordon Lightfoot’s 1974 classic “Sundown”.

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Posted in Everyday Stuff, Favourites, Nature, Photography, Seasonal, Vankleek Hill Photos | 1 Comment