Tag Archives: photography

Negative Space as Subject

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Hi Folks:

This is one of those posts that’s been percolating in the back of my head for a while… It’s not so much about making great art as it is about expanding your vision, learning to see in a new way.

Before we get started, we need to first define the term ‘negative space’. In visual arts like photography, drawing and painting, negative space is the space around the subject. In music negative space is the time between the beats. The question then is not whether or not one can make an image without a subject. Ansel Adams famously said,

“There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.”

so that’s not what we’re talking about here. On we go and I’ll try to explain. Continue Reading →

Flash Exposure Compensation for Smart Phones

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Hi Folks:

NB: There are a lot of different smart phones/ tablets on the market and a lot of different apps, and so depending on your hardware and software, this may or may not work for you.

When I was a boy we didn’t have radio signals for remote flash units and we didn’t have TTL (through the lens) automatic flash exposure compensation… we had manual flash, guide numbers and a lot of educated guessing. It seems to me it snowed a lot too, even in summer. Okay, never mind that. I do remember flash bulbs, flash strips for Polaroids and pocket cameras and flash cubes for Kodak X-15 cameras, but those days are pretty much behind us now. There’s no question that modern DSLRs and accessories can do amazing things in terms of lighting, but more and more people are using their cell phones to make pictures and more and more of those phones have a built-in flash unit. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – March

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Hi Folks: March was a pretty busy month for us, creatively, and in more ways than one! More details on that in an upcoming blog post. Between the two of us we made over 750 images in March. To some that’s not a lot, but to someone who still thinks in 36-exposure (and 12-exposure) rolls, it’s quite a bit. Mike’s Fuji camera died in February, so in the moment we’re both using our cell phone cameras and Marcia’s little Olympus point and shoot camera.

We selected two images for the photo of the month – one from each of us. On the left is an image of one of Victoria’s cherry trees in full bloom, made by Marcia. Our cherry and plum blossoms usually start in late January or early February, and there are still a few varieties in bloom now. It’s a wonderful treat every year. On the right is an abstract image of sorts made in nearby Beacon Hill Park. Mike captured this because it was the patterns of the leaves that caught his interest.

Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms – photo by Marcia

Leaf Patterns

Leaf Patterns – photo by Mike

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

Hugs,
M&M

Photo of the Month – Telling Stories

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Hi Folks:

As a creative challenge our local photography group undertook the following:

“Make photos of a place where something has happened. Then, in one or two sentences, tell us what happened there (even if it only happened in your imagination).

Go to places and pay attention. What does it feel like there? How is the energy? What kind of thing may have happened in that place?

Take the photo, post it, and in the caption, write one or two sentences that tells the viewer what happened.”

The image below was one of ours. You can see the rest here.

Want Ad
WANTED: One Girl. Toddler-size. Must believe in fairies and love sparkles and dancing. Lackadaisical approach to footwear a bonus. Special consideration given to those with matching shoe. No experience required.

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

Hugs,
M&M

Soon to be History: A Collaboration

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Hi Folks:

In the James Bay neighbourhood of Victoria, just behind the Legislative buildings, is a roughly six-acre site that is partly parking lot and partly occupied by a combination of heritage houses and unused/underutilized mid-century modern steel office buildings. On the southwest corner is the Michigan Street Community Garden, an icon in the community since 1999.

The landscape of this area, bordered by Menzies, Superior, Government and Michigan Streets will soon be changing dramatically with the beginning of the Capital Park Victoria project. Two of the heritage houses will remain on their existing sites, three others will be moved to new locations on site and the building containing the Queen’s Printer will remain. The rest will be replaced by a mix of business and residential units, courtyards and pedestrian walkways. The developers are seeking LEED Gold or better in all new construction, and hopefully the builders will do their best to reuse/recycle as much of the existing material as possible. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – December

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Hi Folks:

The subtitle for this post should be ‘The Evolution of G.L.I.T.T.E.R.’ She’s our Christmas tree and has been for the past six years. You can read more about GLITTER, FREIDRICH, FREDERICA, FREDDY and FRED here if you like: Being Green – Celebrating the Holidays.

GLITTER was a little sprout of a thing when we first brought her home, but she’s certainly spread her branches since then, as you can see here (NB: we were away for Christmas in 2013 and so GLITTER didn’t get decorated). That’s the same salt crystal lamp, so you can use it to gauge her growth. With her pot on the floor she comes up to about waist height on Mike, a little higher on Marcia. No need to cut a hole in the ceiling (yet), but she is heading in FRED’s direction. Continue Reading →

2015 Photo Calendars

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Update: If you’re looking for our 2016 calendar templates, please click here!

Hi Folks:

This is the fifth year now that we’ve made our MS Word photo calendar templates available, and as with the past couple of years, we’ve also created a series of templates and calendar images you can use with Lightroom or other graphics software. I created a template in MS Word that allows people who don’t have Photoshop, Lightroom or the equivalent to make their own photo calendars, so we’ll cover that first; the Lightroom stuff is at the bottom of this post. I used MS Word 2007 to make the template, but saved it as both a Word 2007 file and a Word 97-2003 compatible file. Basically it’s a series of tables, one for each month, that look something like this:
Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – November

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Hi Folks:

We’ve been working on our 2015 photo calendar templates here at Chez M&M and they’re almost ready, but we wanted to take a short break to include our favourite image(s) for November. It came down to two and we couldn’t decide, so we uploaded them both. As with October’s Photo of the Month post, we’re using the NextGen gallery plugin to display them. Both images were captured with our (Samsung Galaxy S4) cell phones. The one is an image Marcia captured in Beacon Hill Park on her morning ‘commute’. It was a perfect morning, and very little Lightroom work has been done with this image. The second image is of ‘someone’ we pass often. It’s an example of pareidolia (with thanks to Wikipedia – do remember to support them!) but the wisdom in that ancient eye is unmistakable.

[Show thumbnails]

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

Hugs,
M&M

Creative Commons Licenses

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Hi Folks:

I shared this on the message board for our local photography group and thought I’d post it here as well. I received this link (Yahoo Starts Selling Flickr Users’ Photos) from a family member the other day, and since it’s likely to kick up a lot of controversy I thought I’d add a few notes here. Sometimes companies try really hard to shoot themselves in the foot, and sometimes they seem to prefer to go for the head shot… Be that as they may.

First of all, Yahoo is not doing anything (technically) illegal, nor have they changed their Terms of Service or anything to get people to give up their copyright. Rather they’re using permissions some people have already given them (and everyone else), perhaps without realizing it. We come back to Copyright vs. Usage Rights. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – October in Florida

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Hi Folks:

We have more than one image for our photo of the month for October, for two reasons. First and foremost, Marcia was able to join her dad and her siblings in Florida, an event that has been a long time in coming. Second, we’re experimenting with using the NextGEN gallery plugin as a way of showcasing images on our blog. This is our first attempt, so be gentle!

Continue Reading →