New Website - Photoblog

I finally decided that I should actually try to fix up my website which was, until this morning, a disaster.

After about an hour of work I had something I was pleasantly surprised with. Alas, you can imagine that this means that my synapticparadox blog will not be as active as it usually is if at all... All of my blog entries from Synaptic paradox have been imported there along with comments people have made. Unfortunately not all my existing blog entries fit the photoblog concept so in some cases there will be pictures ('601' - the Go Train picture) to replace missing images.

The site is currently a work in progress and I plan on having more content on the site than just my photoblog.
Please come visit my new site and let me know what you think:
>> http://www.moniquebaril.net <<

Cheers!
Monique.

and then there was photojournalism...

3:30am, Toronto - The sky is very dark.

I went to a lecture tonight by a photojournalist... I think it convinced me that courses can be unnecessary...

I wish I could sleep or write right now... but I'm wide awake and my mind is all over the place.

to school or not to school...

I've been debating all week whether I should sign up for some photography classes. I've talked to a few people to get their thoughts on it... I'm not completely convinced either way. I think taking courses would force me to accelerate my learning but at the same time could potentially be a waste of money (money that could be spent traveling or buying / replacing equipment and books.)

I've been trying to ask myself what it is that I would hope to gain from taking photography courses... aside from the obvious (becoming a better photographer...) I keep asking myself this question and getting nothing in response.

I think I could learn a lot from taking courses... I could also learn a lot from reading. And I hate the thought that taking photography courses could potentially interfere with my studying Japanese (yes, I'm still studying... I don't give up that easily!)

decisions decisions...


As I was out walking tonight, listening to music, camera hanging off my hand I realized that maybe I like photography because it allows me to see things clearer. This all sounds very philosophical - it isn't. I should probably wear my glasses more often because I've gotten used to everything having somewhat fuzzy edges.

_______________

From last night's late night sleeplessness:

i finally found her...

I wonder what year? 1985? I should really find out. I'm sure I'd stumbled on this page before when I was trying to figure out exactly what this lens was.

for future reference: Nikon Lens Serial Nos - if ever you wanted to know how many of that lens you have are out there and when they were manufactured (and where...)

Black & White Photoshop CS3 Actions

I've put together three sets of CS3 b&w actions. You can download them here. If you do download and try them please let me know what you think... The first two are pretty basic. My favourite is the third. Both in the samples below and overall on other black & white pictures I've post processed, I've found the third one to be the most interesting black and white workflow I have. (The picture used below was selected somewhat randomly for the purpose of comparison of the different actions. Original can be found in my flickr photostream for reference.)

Action 1:
1. Desaturate to black & white
2. Convert to Lab color mode
3. Create a duplicate background layer
4. High pass filter on the duplicate layer
5. Set the duplicate layer's opacity to 30%
6. Set the duplicate layer to Hard Light
7. Apply a curve to the background layer.


___________________

Action 2: (most simple, most disappointing)
1. Desaturate to black & white


___________________

Action 3:
1. Add a Black & White adjustment layer.
2. Add a gradient map (black to white)
3. Add a curve
4. Duplicate the background layer
5. Set the duplicate layer to overlay mode with opacity of 30%
6. (not included - add a hint of gaussian blur to duplicate layer)


___________________

Alas, other than the pictures above I have no b&w pictures for you today... I'm not feeling daring enough right now to post the better of the b&w shots I have.
So instead here's some random DOF fun I had over the weekend.

more bokeh panos

After last night's discovery I've had an itch all day.
I headed to the park tonight to see if I could find anything to shoot.

I didn't find much...



It's really meant to be seen quite large. (A larger version is available if you click through to my flicker page and click the 'bigger' link below the picture.) There are a few other bokeh panos from the park on my flickr page as well.

It's definitely an interesting effect. I like it but I don't know what to do with it just yet. As you can probably tell I'm struggling to find a good subject - at least I'm not taking pictures of my dirty dishes again. I'm on the fence as to whether tonight's are better than the ones I posted here last night... maybe marginally. Still a very high boring factor though. My favourite so far is probably the one posted above.

Alrighty, back to your regularly scheduled surfing.

miniaturizing my kitchen

I just had a moment... it resulted in this:




wide-angle narrow DOF... [These really need to be viewed larger, click through to see.]

I need to try this outside!


Okay, time to take out that trash and eat something.

calibrated = pictures!

I think the computer's pretty close to being calibrated now, still a little over-saturated but not half as bad as it was before. And I didn't have to drop any money to get it set up [just a little time and patience...]

I really like these two candid portraits...






I have to say this weekend I took my time, I only took a few shots and surprisingly they worked really well. I think about 1 in 3 pictures actually turned out okay. I think that's pretty good.


And I just found out that it's photography month on TVO! [Oh TVO, how I love thee!] I'm a little disappointed that I missed last week's shows but now I have a full 3 weeks of TVO to look forward to. [I'm not a huge tv person... but I think this will be good.] They're mostly documentaries I've already seen but it's been about a year since I last saw them so I think it would be really interesting to watch them again. I'll try to hook up my computer to record a few docs... hopefully I can get it set up in time for tonight's show.

photography set-up

I spent about an hour last night doing some basic post on a bunch of pictures I took over the weekend. I was preparing them for printing (someone else will be printing them, not me - I don't print pictures - I don't think my pictures are really meant to be printed... unless they're printed large. I can't actually imagine any of my pictures in a photo album - I think it would be weird - they're just not photo album photos.) Anyway, after I was done I uploaded them to a site and started looking through them on my second computer. They looked okay... but the lights were out in the room and it was very dark. I always wonder how much light I should have in a room when I'm looking at pictures on a screen... I know that when I was at a printing studio they had the lights out and I was sitting in a dark room - not sure if that was because they didn't want to turn on the lights or if they had done that on purpose... (my printed pictures ended up printing darker than I would've liked.)

I came into work this morning and realized that the colour was completely wrong and that they were overall all very dark and unsaturated (and not in a good way.)

I have this problem every time I post process on my main computer. I usually have to run from one computer to the next at home checking what the pictures look like and then re-working them. I can't quite seem to get the calibration right. It's really frustrating.

So I started looking at hardware to help me do screen calibration. It's ridiculous... it seems like such a waste to spend $200+ on something to help me calibrate my screen. But at the same time, this whole running from computer to laptop to computer to my processing computer and re-working pictures is just not reasonable. I've been doing a lot of photography lately and spending quite a bit of time in front of the computer trying to post process pictures... It would be a much more enjoyable process if I didn't have to go through all this running around every time I process a picture. So maybe it's time to invest in this? *sigh*

I'll try re-calibrating it yet again when I get home tonight. Hopefully I can save myself some money by spending some time recalibrating using software and my eyes. Once I'm done I'll post 2 pictures I took this weekend (I'm quite pleasantly surprised with these.)


I'm also in the process of working on making myself a few different sets of black & white post-processing workflows. I have 2 so far - they're pretty basic ones. I had another one that I was quite fond of (and was using exclusively a few months ago but I haven't done it in a while so short of remembering that there was a duplicate layer with some gaussian blur on the second layer I'm lost.) I'll work on trying to remember that one and maybe post all three workflows here once I'm done (both descriptions and CS3 actions). They could probably be useful to someone out there. Stay tuned...

high park from a new angle

I used to train in high park - it was a 5 minute ride from my place. I'd grab my bike, run out the door and ride laps of intervals, racing cars, infuriating cars, trying to beat my best time, trying to keep up with the roadies, getting annoyed at cars that were going twice the speed limit and slowly gaining on me (the smoothest part of that road was where all the right car tires would tread repeatedly... the bike lane was by far the worst.) Going up and down the same hill over and over, knowing its exact distance, my best time, and exactly what it would take to beat it.

I spent a good two summers in that park - riding at least 3 days a week... and I have to say that for once this weekend I saw it in a very different light. I hadn't been there in over two years. It was busy, full of people enjoying the fresh air and the beauty of the park. I don't remember ever seeing so many people out just to enjoy the park. It always felt like people were there with a purpose. Maybe it's just that I was there with a purpose and so I felt others should too...











I've finally had an idea for a project I want to work on. It's completely different than anything else I've ever done and maybe a little abstract. I think I'll work on it for a bit and if I ever finish it I may post it here...

さくら

I have trouble sleeping in the morning... I wake up and then can't fall back asleep. No matter how tired I am, once the sun is up so am I. I can usually fall back asleep after reading a bit... so I shall go try that momentarily...

But first, here is a picture I took in yesterday evening's unpredictable weather - I got to the park and it started raining, I left the park and it cleared right up!



Panic struck earlier in the week when I realized that this was well underway in High Park. I'd been thinking about going to see them (the cherry blossoms) for a long time now and was really scared that with the warm weather I may not get to see them before they were gone. I'm going back on Sunday and hoping to get better pictures.