Birds

Mike and I seem to have created a bit of a breadline for birds. These guys were just waiting for us to put out some seed first thing this morning.

Summerland Ornamental Gardens

The Summerland Ornamental Gardens were absolutely alive yesterday! It was sunny and warm enough to bring out the bee's in droves. Things were just a humming. All photos were taken with the Canon EOS 7D and the 100mm f/2.8 macro lens.

Sculpture in Progress

I had to experiment a little to find the best lens to take pictures of this huge sculpture. I ended up using the 50mm f/1.2 lens. It gave me the least amount of distortion.

This Magic Moment

Finally I have some fantastic pictures of this sculpture of Michaels. It's been one of those pieces that is a little on the difficult side to shoot. You always have to find the balance what you can see and what you can't see and yet get an honest perception of the piece as a whole. It's very hard to capture the face and facial expression without going to odd angels with this work. The photos were taken with the D1 Mark III and the 16-35mm f/2.8 lens. It's the first time I've used this lens and I know it's going to be a great lens for shooting sculpture!

More of Ernie Bundschuh's Sculpture

Today Karen brought by a couple more of Ernie's sculptures for photographing. The rust colored Lion Fish is also one of Ernie's but it's from quite a few years ago. It was an interesting shoot and these were just a couple of quick choices from the Canon EOS 1D Mark III

"Getting To Know You"

Mike's been hard at work on a new large scale sculpture. "Getting to Know You", the small ceramic version sold to a client of the Alicia Armstrong Gallery last month. In this version the figures are already over 6 feet. If I am not mistaken there is still a bird to go on top of each head. There is still quite a bit of work to do. The base will be about 2 feet high so the finished sculpture will be well into the 8 foot range. It's a mobile and each figure will be able to turn.

Panoramas

Today I stood in the middle of the soccer field at the corner of Rosedale and Jubilee and took some photos for experimental panoramas. The first panorama was created out of 5 photos taken with the camera horizontal. The second panorama was taken with 6 shots and the camera held vertically. The last one was a 360 degree panorama consisting of 77 photos with the camera held vertically. (I think I got a little bit carried away with that one). I used the 24-105mm lens with a UV Filter and a circular polarizing filter. If you click on the pictures you can get a better view of them.

Lucky Dragon Discovered All Over Summerland!

Everywhere we walked today we ran in to Ernie Bunschuh and his Lucky Dragon Sculpture. We passed at least 4 Western Newpaper boxes and there they were peeking out of each one of them.

24-105mm lens and manual focus

Mike and I walked a slightly different route today so I had to pick on some new material. The object for me today was manual focus again. I am beginning to trust myself a little more with it now and am quite happy with the shots I took today. These are some of the better ones compositionally. I also added some more shots of "Lucky Dragon" on my other blog yesterday. If you want to check them out click here.

Manual Focus and the 100mm lens

I didn't take too many photos today but did grab a few in manual focus. Practice makes perfect and eventually I will feel more secure with it.

"Lucky"

It's not often that I get to do a photo shoot with someone else's sculpture but today was different. Mikes good friend Ernie Bundschuh from Bent and Beaten Metalcraft in Penticton stopped by with "Lucky". This dragon stand about 58 inches tall and is made entirely out of metal. These are the first official sculpture photos that I have taken with my Canon EOS 1D Mark III. I used the 24-105mm lens. This is just the first quick roll through of my shots today. I am still somewhat under the weather with this darn cold. I know I can process these photos up a little better yet. Just not up to it today.

Canon 1D Mark III and the 24-105mm lens

Today was the first time I took the 1D for a walk. It's a heavy camera and I found my fingers getting numb from holding onto it. I never use the neck straps because they tend to pull my neck out of alignment.  I've uploaded three photos and then cropped them so that I can get a feel for the detail that seems to be the difference between the 7D and the 1D.