My Favourite Image of the Year

Hi Folks:

Every year that we can we head to Government House on New Year’s Day for the Lieutenant Governor’s levée. It’s an opportunity for us to meet the present Lieutenant Governor and his/her spouse, listen to the opening speech, the bagpipe music, toast the piper, and partake in some coffee and good food. We also stroll the grounds and make photographs of the flowers already in bloom – that we dutifully send east to family – just as a reminder of what’s yet to come for the rest of the country. 🙂 Before heading out to wander the grounds, however, at some point we head to the balcony at the back of the house, look out over the grounds and the Juan de Fuca Strait beyond. It’s also my opportunity to make some images of Marcia, and without hesitation it’s my favourite image of the year.

Marcia on New Year's Day, 2016

Marcia on New Year’s Day, 2016

I know she looks beautiful here, but the image doesn’t really do her justice. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

From Marcia and me, we wish you a new year filled with as much happiness, health, prosperity, excitement, love, peace and adventure as you can handle!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. Santa Claus brought us both new cell phone (cameras) this year.  Who knows where that may lead!

My Favourite Image of the Year

Hi Folks:

At the end of every year it’s become more and more common for photographers to go back through the images they made over that year and choose what they feel is their best work.  This can be an immensely challenging and yet creative project, because what one feels is one’s best work is often not the work most popular with others.  Marcia and I do something similar, choosing one image from each month to use in our annual photo calendar.

However, I know without hesitation what will be my favourite image of the year, and I don’t have to wait to find it – it’s made on New Year’s Day.  Every New Year we head to Government House to participate in the Lieutenant Governor’s levée … we have the opportunity to meet the Lieutenant Governor in office (and his or her spouse), share in some coffee and treats, listen to the speech and the bagpipes, and at some point we wander out to the balcony at the back.  There’s a great view of Juan de Fuca Strait and the Olympic Mountains in Washington from there, and I use my cell phone to capture an image (okay, several) of Marcia at the rail.  Being New Year’s Day it gives me an opportunity to marvel at all that this amazing woman gives to me every day, and an opportunity to look forward to another year of adventure with her.  Without a doubt, it’s my favourite image of the year.

Marcia on New Year's Day, 2014

Marcia on New Year’s Day, 2014

From Marcia and me, we wish you a new year filled with as much happiness, health, prosperity, excitement, love, peace and adventure as you can handle!

Okay, that’s it.  Now go out and make some photographs!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. Santa Claus brought us both new cell phone (cameras) this year.  Who knows where that may lead!

Photo of the Month – May

Hi Folks:

We’re featuring one of Marcia’s flower images as our ‘Photo of the Month’ for May.  While Marcia doesn’t share Mike’s passion for f/stops, shutter speeds and the like, she has great fun making images with her Android-enabled cell phone camera.  We both do.  Almost all of our cell phone images are made using the Camera 360 software, as ‘undeveloped’ as possible, and then brought into Lightroom for final editing.  This is Marcia’s favourite image of those she made in May.  Victoria is known as the ‘City of Gardens’, and walking anywhere in Victoria for most of the year is an open invitation to stop and photograph the wonder! Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Cover Stories

Hi Folks:

Normally for my ‘Photo of the Month’ posts I highlight my favourite image made in the past month.  However, since Marcia’s new book, “A Year in the Life of a Bus-Traveling Poet” was opened for sale on May 21, I thought I’d profile the two images I’ve made (so far) that grace book covers, and the books on which you can find them.  I’ll start with Marcia’s…

The original image is of a blue flag iris.  I made this image many years ago (on Kodachrome 25, my favourite film of all time) at Petroglyphs Provincial Park in southern Ontario. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Spring Flowers

Hi Folks:

At the end of every month I create a post with my favourite image of those I’ve taken in the past month. However, since this site belongs to both Marcia and me, this month I’m going to break with tradition and post one of Marcia’s images instead.   For some strange reason she doesn’t have the same fascination with shutter speeds, f/stops and depth of field tables that I do, but she has a good eye.  This image was made yesterday, using Marcia’s new cell phone camera, while we were walking around the Rockland district of Victoria. I admit I did push it around in Lightroom a little bit, but she nailed the lighting and composition to start with and all I did was accent it. It’s an image of a group of hellebores, or ‘winter roses’ as they’re sometimes called. These were growing in one of the gardens on the Lieutenant Governor’s grounds.Winter RosesSpring flowers. January. I’ll get used to it eventually…

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

He Says, She Says…

Greetings, dear reader!

We watched ‘Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone‘ again on TV last night, and although we’ve seen it (several times) before, what always intrigues us is Harry’s transformation from the world of the mundane to the world of the magical, and even more that these two worlds co-exist.  Both Marcia and Mike have had many ‘magical’ experiences in their lives, and so this week we thought we’d talk about living a ‘magical life’.

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View.