Postcards from the Mothership

Nice weather this week, eh? Nice if you’re a skier, not so much if you’re pining for green grass and tulips. Sorry, you can totally blame me. I started BBQing last weekend, and I think the Universe wanted to remind me that it’s not quite spring yet.

The good news is, the weather has been giving me lots of time to practice photographing snow. If you can control the exposure on your camera, you’ll probably need to compensate for the bright whiteness of snow by overexposing your shots a little bit. Your camera tries to balance all the lights and darks in a shot to a nice middle grey tone, so it will darken a shot that is primarily bright white (like a snowy landscape) by underexposing, and brighten a dark scene to a muddy grey by overexposing. (And for some reason, my camera also underexposes wildly with the Lensbaby, so I had to torque the exposure slider on this one almost all the way to the right to get the exposure right on this one.)

I thought this snow-covered sign was pretty representative of the week!

And throughout the week, there was a lot of this going on.

It was my Mom’s birthday last weekend, and Lucas helped to decorate the envelope for one of her gifts. 🙂

I follow a handful of people on Flickr that take really amazing self-portraits. They’re beautiful, artistic, dramatic, insightful portraits and I admire them so much. I *hate* taking self-portraits. Much as I admire the selfies of others, I find my own foolish and indulgent and wonder why you would want to see me instead of any of the other minutiae I photograph every day. (You’d rather see pictures of a snowplow than me, right?) But they say you should challenge yourself in order to grow, so I’m trying to take more self-portraits. I’ll never be able to do an entire year of self-portraits, but here’s one. It’s an okay picture, but even posting it makes me squirm. I do like the caption I posted with it on Flickr, though: “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Na na na na na na na na – BAT CAT!

I love this picture of the landlocked lighthouse at the Museum of Science and Technology. I love how the colours pop and how the wispy bits of cirrus clouds balance the lighthouse in the composition. It was so bitterly cold as I was taking this that my eyes were watering and my iPhone was hurting my fingers. Brrr!

Growing boys earn growing freedoms. I said they could walk to school by themselves, but I did not say that I wouldn’t stalk them on the route to make sure they were well on their way after I dropped Lucas off at daycare.

I’m pretty sure they noticed me. 🙂

Wow, I wish I’d realized a year or three ago how much easier it is to take a photograph each day when you’re relying on your iPhone instead of your camera! There’s something a little bit more playful about the pictures I’m finding with my iPhone, and the fact that I’m using a lot of the Hipstamatic app means that I’m not spending a lot of time cropping or editing photos — I’ve discovered extra HOURS in each day. Hours that I could have used to do housework, or play with my kids, or find the cure for cancer, or follow more people on Pinterest. And what have I done with all those extra hours? Played in Photoshop, of course! I finally got around to building a timeline cover for my Facebook profile. What do you think?

Here’s the week in pictures. This was the Rideau Canal earlier in the week — before it got soggy and was closed just in time for the last weekend of Winterlude. I like how the arches of the Laurier Avenue bridge and its shadow create a frame that draws your eye right to the skaters.

A colleague left these out on Valentine’s Day. I really should go over and say thanks for the cookies, and let her know that they’re now for sale on Getty Images! 🙂

This picture makes me laugh because I thought it was okay when I first took it, but I didn’t love it. It was too green, thanks to the Hipstamatic filter I’d chosen, but I liked it a lot more when I pulled it into Photoshop and warmed it up to a nicer hue. It was really just a throw-away picture, though, and if I’d had anything else for the day I would have never posted it. Not only did jump right into Flickr’s Explore, but it won me the second round of a little competition I like to play in on Flickr as well. Lesson learned: one person’s throw-away is another person’s art!

The melty season can be such an unlovely time of year, as the snow compacts and condenses but doesn’t quite disappear entirely. That’s the wet, icy feel I had in mind with this one. (I don’t know why I’m fixated on ditches with weeds in them, but I do seem to be.) I lined up the composition so the bullrushes moved on a diagonal, which is more dynamic than a straight line, and held my phone at a higher angle so the stalks were against the uncluttered snowy background to make them stand out more. And, to crop out the garbage in the half-melted snow.

The gas station at the corner has been out of use since we moved in, but these pumps are still standing, getting rustier and more vintage-looking by the day. I’ve looked at them dozens of times, thinking of photographing them, but the bleak day and the melting snow finally seemed like the right conditions to capture them.

I haven’t abandoned my Nikon entirely, though! In fact, I’ve spent WAY too much time last weekend reading my (gasp!) camera manual and a couple of books about using flash on and off camera. In fact, for Valentine’s Day Beloved got me the reflector kit and stand I was going to buy for myself, so instead I bought one of those Gary Fong diffusers. I have to say, I’m delighted with the reflector kit and completely underwhelmed by the diffuser — so much so that I’m thinking of taking it back.

The idea behind the diffusers is that direct flash light is harsh and unflattering, but by diffusing it and making the light come from a larger and more disperse area, you make the light softer and more flattering. You can achieve similar effects by bouncing the light off the ceiling or a wall, but I’d heard about the Gary Fong diffusers for years and thought I’d try one. The darn thing was hard to put together and difficult to put on, and when I used it I found the light was still as flat as it would have been with the pop-up flash on my camera.

See how Lucas’s face looks a little bit plastic? The straight-on light, even with the diffuser, takes out all the nuanced shadows that give his skin its texture. I converted it to black and white, which made it mildly better, but I’m still not thrilled with it. I do, however, like the big smile and the sparkle in his eyes. 🙂

This was the same. This is a cute picture and the expression on the cat’s face makes me chortle every time I look at it, but it looks like a snapshot to me, like something you’d take with a point and shoot.

So clearly, my spring project is more portrait strobe work. Kids, consider yourselves warned! 🙂 Lucky for me, they’re willing subjects.

Speaking of willing subjects, this is kind of funny. Yesterday, I got my monthly sales statement from Getty Images, and that darn cat has made his fourth straight appearance! Each month I’ve been with Getty, I’ve sold a different picture of Willie. This time, it was this picture of Katie and Willie sort of cuddling. It sold to a company in Great Britain, and someone in Chile bought a picture of our decorated Christmas tree from 2010.

And here I thought the pictures of the cute kids would be the big sellers. Maybe instead of more kids, I need more pets?