va-va-va-vancouver!

it’s been awhile!

my sister and i have went on two photowalks around the city of vancouver recently, so i thought i’d take the time to post some more photos. there are from the first day (which got cut very short due to rain):

diagon alley

black, black locks

doors and bricks, can’t go wrong

peekaboo! a photo of my sister

barbed silhouette

and here are the photos from the second photowalk, which dave also joined us for.

we found these lovely fishes and leaf bokeh at a downtown school

autumn is here!

some more leaf bokeh, tryin’ out my macro lens for a couple landscape shots

my sister was alllllways steppin’ in my way! this time, it worked!

a portrait of autumn joy!

tree depth

and last but not least, an mc escher painting, in an alley! this was a long exposure night shot, i desaturated the reds, oranges, and yellows to get this effect

skateboarding!

so a little while back a friend told us to come on down to the skate park for a bit, and so we did. didn’t know there was going to be a competition happening, but anyways. here is my attempt at photos. i took almost 300, and these are the only 5 that i actually liked.

i’m not huge on weird effects, but for some reason this seemed kinda cool:

lily’s garden, again

we had just bought my sister a nikon D60 for her birthday, and a friend of mine had her boyfriend come over from the island, and we all went out shooting. we decided to go to lily’s garden since it’s both close, and scenic.

we found this fine piece of grafitti on the way.

and this is the “view” from the underpass that goes under the sea to sky highway.

why this chair is here, i do not know but, it made for a good photo!

something strange hanging from a tree; i thought they were apples but they have strange little dointies attached to them.

thirsty?

turn this.

the tiger lilies were AMAZING! their leaves were all curled up like that because it’s so dry here, they need a drink! and drink, they will get, as it is absolutely POURING here today.

a pink lady. just kidding. pink lady is a type of apple, i don’t know my flowers. a rose, maybe?

and last but not least, a birdhouse! there used to be a different, much older one at lily’s garden, but i guess they replaced it. i can’t wait til this one gets older and more weathered!

kiteboarding at the spit

dave (my wonderful, tripod toting/setting up boyfriend) and i took a quick jaunt on the ATV the other day to photograph the kiteboarders/windsurfers. i took many, many shots, but these are the ones i was most happy with. there were a few levels/saturation adjustments to these photos. i did not, however, capture the one money shot that i really, really wanted, but hey with my hometown being the windsurfing capital, i’m sure i have lots more opportunity for that!

for all of these photos the ISO was set to 800 (I KNOW, super NOOB move but) it enabled me to use a shutter speed of over 1/1000, which made it INCREDIBLY easy to handhold (auto-focus) shots on my 300mm lens while fully zoomed in. and i must say, my sigma 300mm zoom was a FANTASTIC used buy! it cost me under $100 CAD and i’ve used it for many occasions. one thing i’m wondering, is high ISO noise worse/more noticeable in night shots? because i can’t really see much noise in these kiteboarding shots, but again like i said i’m a pretty big noob to all these things. anyways, here goes nothing;

they don’t call it the sea to sky corridor for nothin!

thanks for looking

canada day/shedding corn snake/squamish hike

haven’t posted anything in awhile…that’s cause i haven’t taken many pictures lately! unfortunately. the first one is a shot of me that i got my sister to take with my nikon

and here’s a few macros of a GIANT dragonfly that i saw up at the cabin. i took over 30 photos of this lil guy, it kept posing for me, and then flying away and meeting up with another dragonfly in the air, and then coming back. it was very still and patient, never getting spooked even though i was up to my waist in the lake and shoving a giant macro lens in its face

and here are some from canada day evening, FIREWORKS! this was my first attempt at fireworks. it didn’t work out as well as i had hoped because a) i was extremely intoxicated (surprised i even managed to setup my tripod without knocking it over) and b) there was NO WIND whatsoever to carry the smoke away. but alas, here are my first tries at fireworks (no post processing):

a kitchen fly, guess where it was sitting during this photo? on the lip of the garbage can. imagine that.

a photo of ryan and carla

and one of dave and i (funny you can really tell who knows the rules of composition here )

and last but not least, this panorama was stitched together using Hugin. this is 21 shots alltogether, a few adjustments in photoshop to make the colors pop a little, as the pano looked a little washed out originally. this one is really, REALLY worth looking at in full size, you can zoom in on every little part of my town, from 800ft up!

thanks for lookin!

weekend in vancouver

my boyfriend and i spent the weekend in vancouver, and it was delightful! we went on a giant photowalk around the city, he set up my tripod for me and helped me pick spots to take shots from. the only unfortunate thing, is i forgot my ISO on about 300-320, which unfortunatley made some of the shots a teeny bit noisier than they should have been, though honestly it’s not a huge deal. i’m still getting a grip on all the different settings and features that i can work with simultaneously, and sometimes i forget about EV or ISO or both. but, alas, the photowalk was amazing. i was THRILLED to see the moon popping out here:

and this was my first time doing a long-exposure with moving people in the shot (though not intentionally)

a colorful shot down granville street

this was a fun shot, as we were at some high-class hotel/residence taking shots of the LED lights (none of which were good, so they will not appear here) and one of the security guards/valets came over and basically told us to skedaddle, or else the residence will think we are peeping toms and confiscate our film (haha, i had a chuckle about the film part). so we told them we would leave quickly. then a guy in a lamborghini rolled up, so i asked to take a photo of his car. and he was all like, “yeah whateva!” like a snobby ass rich boy. so i did, and this is what came of it, one of my favorites (and my boyfriends favorite) shots of the night

and here’s some of the burrard street bridge

and a few of the granville street bridge, the first one has the moon high up above

and another of the burrard street bridge

ahhhh what a trek from our hotel room to pacific central. i also intended on getting a shot of science world, but APPARENTLY science world, AND IT’S LIGHTS go to bed at nightnoon. very disappointing. but this shot of pacific central made me so so so happy, my super-wideangle also makes me happy

the next day we decided to do a tandem-bike tour of the seawall. side-note, tandem bikes are SCARY!! if you’re on the back, that is. you can’t see what’s going on around you until it’s already behind you. plus they hurt your bum, but it was soooo worth it, i had tons of fun. here is a mallard, i believe, with a mallardling (teehee)

a goosey!

and some of this oh-so-adorable raccoon that we met as prospect point, right above the lion’s gate bridge. he was begging for an ice cream cone in the last one, sooo friendly, i just wanted to pet him!

i love crows so much, i may even get a half-sleeve tattoo of a crow and whatnot

leaving prospect point

aaaaaaand 2nd beach in stanley park, strangest place for a pool!

marina adventure, carnival!

a walk in the garden, and some night-time long exposures

so this one time, i got up early before work to go take some shots. i walked across the highway to a place called Lily’s Garden, which backs right onto some water. here are a few shots from the garden.

it’s hard to believe that this garden is so close to a rip-roarin’ highway! it’s so beautiful.

and here is a picture of a fire we had down at the beach. not sure why i like it so much, i think it’s the detail of the logs in the foreground.

these next few are a couple night-time, long exposure shots. i had a lot of fun getting these, as the first 2 (the one of my town, and the one of the marina) required me to hike up some large bluffs for about an hour. i dragged my boyfriend (who dragged my tripod) up the mountainside too.

and last but not least, some fun little snapshots taken while my sister, my friend/roomie and i were chillin’ on some grass, havin’ a chai tea latte! the bike’s name is Ruby!

and that’s it, that’s all kidlets!

decided to start a photo blog…

what better time than now? i’ve had my Nikon D90 (first DSLR EVER!) for about 7 months now, and lately i’ve actually been really motivated to go out shooting. and i actually feel as though i’m getting the hang of things now! i’m not so overwhelmed by all the settings and dials and doodads! so, this is me slowly figuring things out. i feel i have improved muchly over the last few months.

these are some pictures of my boyfriends spider ball python, who weighs a whopping 808 grams as of now! these are some of the first photos that i am really, really proud of. Arthas (the snake) is a FANTASTIC model! this is also my first attempt at a little bit of post-processing. the reason i don’t post-process is because i always feel like i over-do it. anyone? if there’s anyone out there, comments and critique is much welcomed!