Don't ask about the flowers

Some flower photos for you. I think this is where I start getting behind on photos, or risk overdosing you guys. There's 69 from today during a visit to the botanical gardens, which are just amazing! No end of stuff that won't grow in Calgary, but some of it will, much to my surprise. 

I don't have any system here, it's almost bedtime after two long days. My phone tells me I walked 19,000 steps yesterday, and 8,000 today. I'm hoping tomorrow is less walking. Maybe it will be a water day.

So these aren't the best, or the first, or according to some arcane method, just madness and selecting some. Edited on a laptop screen in less than perfect viewing condition, so no idea how the colour balance turns out.

OK, now I know day and time

Here we are. As I mentioned, we survived all the usual arrival indignities inflicted upon visitors. I'm glad we didn't rent a car at this particular here. We've been out for a couple walks, and have some basic supplies. I've napped. Our phones now know each other. My camera now knows what date it is, though it always protests about being changed. The first few photos will have a weird date.

So far my laptop and iphone are not airdropping one another, so Instagram will have to do without till I figure it out.

What time is it? What day???

Normally we know these things, but I woke up this morning wondering. My phone thinks it’s a time, but that was several time zones ago. My laptop thinks it’s a different time, and that doesn’t happen often.

I’m in a small dim room with 24 other people, only 3 of whom I know. This room is as close to the middle of nowhere as I’ve ever been. Time really is sort of irrelevant just now. The screen on the wall says 4.5 hours till we’re somewhere.

Most of the other people are still asleep, but I’ve managed to snag a coffee. The staff are really good here. Last ‘night’ there was a really good meal, complete with champagne to start, then a nice red wine. I think breakfast will show up soon. I hope. Ah, 15 minutes, they say. Good. I’m hungry.

I’m told the full scope of departure treachery has not sunk in for the cats. The reliable humans have shown up to attend to their needs, though unfortunately for the cats, not their desires.

There are many movies to be seen, and the music offerings are extensive. I got some music going, and ended up getting some writing done. I also did some sitting and staring blankly at the wall. That was about the time I was asked if I was ready for coffee or tea.

Breakfast was good. All the arrival rituals went well. Life is good. This is my view.

Image of 2018

When I first started doing Image of the Month, I wasn't sure how long I would keep doing it. How long I would able to find or create fresh images.

Here I am another year later, still at it. I think the practice is a good one. It makes me get out and look for images. Not just any image, but better ones. Not just randomly finding an image by accident, but doing the research to put myself in the path of possibly interesting, or doing extra work to figure out how to make something ordinary become interesting. When I get a nice one early in the month, I'm inspired to look for more. When I don't have one as the month gets on, I start getting itchy, and will plan something, hoping the weather cooperates.

Oddly enough, good photos come in bunches, I'm not sure why. It's like you get on a roll and they keep happening. I think part of is that if I'm out when the light is good, all sorts of things become interesting and photogenic.

It also makes me think about what makes a good image. I ruminated at length about 'best' in the blog for 2017 Image of the Year, and you might want to review that. I've thought about it more this year. I've taken just under 20K photos this year, down a bit from the almost 27K last year, but then, there wasn't a week long photo extravaganza in Yukon this year. That really racked up the count. Next year I'm going back.

Sometimes I see images and click quickly to capture the light. But more often now I'll walk through the scene thinking about what images are there to be had, and which of them I want to capture, and which lens I have with me.

One example is the three rocks in a frozen Fish Creek in this blog (Second last image. Spoiler, or you could scroll down.) I walked past it at first, then noticed some of the reflected light on the ice, and walked back and forth looking to see if there was a better image. I had the behemoth lens with me so I had lots of choices for composition. Did I pick the best one? I doubt it, since I'm still learning composition. It would have been really interesting to have another photographer there to discuss it. Even so, I took that one, and the more I looked at it the more I liked it, and even more after editing to bring up the colour a bit.

To that extent I've succeeded this year, photographically speaking. I've been looking for interesting, and figuring out how to capture it. I'm doing less of what I think of as technical photography, capturing images to get better at using my camera and lenses. Sometimes I'll walk past a photo I could take, but I have some like it already, so it's no longer as interesting. Maybe if the light was different I'd stop.

There was no obvious choice for image of the year, not even an obvious top three. I've got 23 images I've given 5 stars to over the year. Mostly that happens right away because the images stand out, and mostly I don't change my mind later. As I was reviewing to see if I'd overlooked any, I bumped a couple up to 5, and a few back to 4, and several from 3 to 4. To save you doing the math, that 23 is .117 percent. There are 158 images with 4 stars, that is .805 percent.

Linda says I'm getting pickier, and my photos are getting better. I hope that's true. Some of the 3 star photos from this year would be 4 or 5 if I'd taken them the year before. As may be. In any case, this talk of numbers has you thinking I'm blithering, or dithering. You want to know which ones make the podium. Here's the 23.

In trying to narrow them down I thought about how hard I had to work to get the shot, in terms of working on composition, settings, and degree of difficulty. In that sense, #5 the tulip was the easiest. I was walking past, looked down to see the shot, focussed the camera, tweaked settings, and took one shot. The remarkable thing is there was zero editing in Lightroom. I didn't want to touch it.

The hardest is #12 the Fish Creek reflection, mainly because I had lots of time to think about where to put the tree reflections and how to have it just touching the rock, and get everything just so. Next hardest is probably #17 the beaver dam flats reflection. I spent a bunch of time thinking about composition, and working on subtly different shots.

Any shot with a bee has probably involved lots of photos that aren't quite in focus. One day I shot well over a hundred photos and only got a couple I was willing to edit. So while there's a bit of luck in a good bee photo, there's also perseverance. The other difficult one is #3 the red tulip. I've talked about red being hard, and I've shot a great many photos where the red blossom goes purple, or magenta, or just plain garish.

Now I'm thinking of the photos in terms of personal style. There are several local photographers where I can recognize them from the shot. In that sense the downtown skyline shot loses some points because other people have very similar shots, and the library shot loses lots of points. It's an indoor space so lighting isn't an issue, and anyone else could look at my photo and duplicate it. The others are unique shots, in that the light will never again be quite like that again.

So which ones? After a lot of struggle I got it down to these 6 finalists and was stuck.

I haven't done this before, but this image gets honourable mention. The more I look at it, the more I like it, but I've only been looking at it a few days. It would be a pretty amazing image to top the others that I've been enjoying for months.

2nd runner up.
I've been coming back to this one ever since I took it. I love the subtle shades of colour, the shapes of the petals, and how the lines lead my eye around and around. Plus zero editing in Lightroom, did I mention that?

1st runner up
I scrambled a bit to get this shot before the light went. The orange and gold and yellows are a lovely backdrop for the silhouetted tree and bit of bush. It looks like it should be in the middle of nowhere, but it's in the middle of a busy park. I'm glad nobody was walking into the shot.

Image of 2018
I keep coming back to this one and finding more to look at. As I mentioned earlier, it's the one I put the most work into in terms of finding the composition and getting the camera in just the right spot.

So why not the purple flower, the Beaver Dam flats, or the downtown skyline? We are talking subtle here. The purple flower has a bit too much going on on the left and not enough on the right, some sky drama and a bit of cropping might have made that a stronger image. A bit of sky colour would have taken the beaver dam flats one over the top, I think. I love the skyline shot, and would be happy to see it printed and framed on my wall. But it doesn't really say anything unique in the sense of personal style.

And yes, if I took a break from it, and came back with fresh eyes I might choose differently.

So, as the joke goes, enough of me talking about my images, why don't you talk about them, tell me which you liked, or how I'm an idiot for not choosing the one you think is best.

A blue reflection quickie for you

I was out in Fish Creek looking for images New Year's day. The win was not getting my feet wet in spite of playing balance'em on wet icy slippery muddy rocks. The light was interesting for a while and I captured some images that I thought would be good.

The downside of the walk was the police helicopter doing orbits over the part of the park I was walking in. I'm pretty sure they weren't watching to be ready to rescue me if I fell through the ice. I suspect it was a training flight, but what it really was, was annoying as hell. Around and around and around. It completely destroyed any sense of tranquility from the walk.

Coming back to the car I saw this, and was sort of enchanted. The car is cleaner now.

I'd been up on the hill hoping for the sunset, but no deal. That happens a lot. But I liked the reflection and curves in the car.

Once I got home and looked at the other photos, I was disappointed. Nothing obviously wrong with them, but they're kind of plain and boring. Clearly my photo eye wasn't on the ball.

So, AMA, I have one person suggesting I make something up for her. You fool!! (said in a loving way.) I'm about to start a casino shift for our community association, and will be up late late late. Who knows, maybe my brain will fall back into night shift work thoughts. That could be bad.

You can avoid this potential fate, and send in your questions.

I have officially finished dithering on Image of the Year. Sort of. I've got it written, I want to sleep on it once more, and I'll publish Friday morning.

A mostly frozen creek

From a walk late in the year near Fish Creek bridge 8. I really enjoy getting out for a walk, looking for photos. All these are with the big zoom lens. It's often a surprise to see what shows up, since the lens and camera can see far more detail than our eyes.

I was entranced by the shadows, the shapes of the snow on ice, and the colour of the water with light and reflections. The ever so slight skiffs of ice on the water add a little texture.

Converted this one to black and white. As I look at it more, I'm wishing I'd composed it without that little diagonal bit of snowy river bank in the corner, thought I suppose it's balanced somewhat by the opposite corner.

Yes, I'm still thinking about 2018 image of the year. I've cut the list of 23 down to 6. Mulling criteria.

AMA, Ask Me Anything is still open, though perhaps not for much longer. There hasn't been any interest in it this year, so perhaps people think I'm all interested out. That might change after I invent some questions, attribute them creatively, and answer in the middle of a jet-lagged flight of deranged fantasy.

December Image of the Month

It was a big month for photography! Part of it was a learning curve for the new Sigma 14 mm f1.8 lens. Until a couple days ago, almost all the edited images were shot with that lens. So much fun!

Just under 3000 photos, although just 136 edited as single images. The star shots that were assembled into a movie are edited, but I don't count them for this.

My choices. For those that hang around till I finish dithering, some of those are on my short list for image of the year.

Second runner up
This is the first image from the new lens that made me go wow once I edited it to bring up the colour and reflections in the water. I could barely see them with my eyes.

First runner up
I haven't done any astro photos since my Yukon trip, and it's one of the reasons I bought this lens. There was a clear evening so I tried to get away from the light pollution, and didn't quite succeed. This was captured west of Bragg Creek, near the Maclean creek campground, looking west, and there's still light in the sky. Beats me where from. I'm really pleased how the Milky Way showed up for a first attempt, and know how to do better next time. The view with my eyes was stunning.

And the Image of the month!
This was shot during an evening workshop with the famous Neil Zeller. He and several other people were under the bridge, but scrambling down over the rocks didn't appeal to me. I wandered around and got some ok shots, and chatted with people. Then I noticed a nice flat spot upriver a bit, only part way down the bank. A few test shots, then this.

So what's coming for photos in 2019? Lots of travel photos. I've got two big trips and one small one booked. I'm pretty sure I could generate a year's worth of blog photos from either of the big trips. I've got a list of things that need macro photos. More star shots! Plus Curtis and Celina, of course, the real stars of the blog. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, and I hope you, as one of my small but loyal band of readers, continue to follow along. Keep those cards and letters coming!

Don't forget AMA!

So here it is a new year. The sunrise is potential as I write this. Maybe. It's dull pastel grey now. I've got my camera and boots near the front door, ready to dash if I see a hint of colour. Let's see what happens...