Long Time

by Vicki Richard

Well it’s been a long time since I posted here. I’ve been busy with work and family life, and barely had time to even take out my camera for the longest time.

Recently, I have been trying to take out my camera at least once a week, even if it’s only for a few shots.

A small mushroom growing in my backyard

I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of photography, but as before, I’ve been concentrating on landscape, nature, and my daughter.

During the past few months, I have noticed how beautiful the scenery can be at different times of day. During the early summer, the sun would rise while I was on my way to work, making every morning a beautiful one. Unfortunately, with the days getting shorter, I no longer get to watch that spectacular view.

Experimenting with exposure to fully capture the beauty of the sun’s rays through the clouds.

I’m planning on going for another look this weekend, but last weekend, we were able to watch (although at a distance) the harvesting of cranberries at the local Ocean Spray fields.

On our way back, I was able to capture the lake on a calm day, finally creating that mirror effect I’ve been longing to find for ages.

It’s not the perfect shot, but still beautiful

Right before driving away, I looked down, and saw this beautiful sight:

All in all, it was a great weekend.

Beach Day

By Vicki Richard

With the weather finally starting to heat up, we don't spend much time at home anymore. This weekend, it was raining on Saturday, so it was a lounge around and do nothing kind of day. Sunday ended up being a beautiful day, so we went to visit my mother, who lives walking distance from a beautiful private beach, so we spent a food part of the day in the water (pictures to come)

I haven't had much time to upload and edit my pictures, so I will edit my post later this week to add in some on my best shots once again.

Today was Canada Day, so I had the day off, we spent most of it with some out of town friends. I would have loved to go see the fireworks, but by the time it would have started, my daughter and I would have been in bed. So we gave up on that idea. 

I'm still hoping for some spare time so I can keep practicing my photography, but with a toddler and a full time job, that definitely isn't easy.

I will be updating this post as quickly as I can to add my new pictures.

Have a great week!

EDIT: Here's a few pictures of our beach day

 

Graduation Weekend

by Vicki Richard

Having a niece who graduated this year made this weekend extremely busy for me, in both aspects. I didn’t get much time to take personal pictures over the weekend, but I did manage to get a few here and there when I had a bit of downtime.

Monument Notre-Dame de l’Assomption, from a short distance

The monument is a local historical landmark, and I personally never get tired of taking pictures, although it doesn’t change year after year.

A closer shot

Flowers on the side of the path, and a statue next to the grotto

Today, while waiting for the next round of grad preparations, I was able to walk around taking a few different pictures as well.

Two different flowers, love the dandelion bokeh on the second one.

As far as I know, next weekend shouldn’t be quite as busy as the last few weekends, and I should be able to apply more time to my personal photography. I still have a few scouted locations I haven’t been able to visit yet because I’ve been overly busy with work and family life. Here’s to hoping for a quiet weekend.

Weekly Posts

by Vicki Richard

Considering I’ve been working long hours during the week, and I don’t even have the time or the energy to pick up my camera until the weekend, I’ve decided that I would officially post weekly, instead of trying to post daily, and failing miserably.

Since we finally had a nice and sunny weekend, I’ve been able to bring my camera outside and run around. By doing so, I was able to find a few good shots.

Picked a beautiful flower

I was a bit busy on Saturday, with some friends from out of town who were visiting for the weekend, but I ended up making up some time lost on Sunday.

Found a little bird hiding in the rhubarb blooms.

A bee landed on a dandelion in my path

Saw a bee flying around these blooms, noticed the bug after I uploaded the picture

Since I don’t get to see my daughter as much now, today was spent almost entirely outside, so it definitely gave me a chance to shoot quite a few different kinds of pictures. Although not all of them were good, or interesting enough to upload, I still thoroughly enjoyed my day.

Somebody else had lots of fun.

I’m hoping that once I’m used to my new job, I’ll have a bit more energy when I get home from work and I’ll be able to apply myself to my photography more often, since I felt a bit out of practice this weekend.

Busy Week

by Vicki Richard

It’s been a very busy and tiring week. Starting to work full time after being off for 7 months is hard, for more reasons than one. I miss spending my days with my daughter, and I miss having the opportunity to run around with my camera, especially since the sun rises as I’m on my way to work, and I’ve seen some amazing “Kodak Moments”.

We ended up getting hit by a post tropical storm over the weekend, so Saturday wasn’t a very good day to take pictures. It rained a bit today, but we’ve had a few clear breaks, so I was able to get out and get a few pictures.

A quick shot of a lake on the way home

Most pictures, I ended up taking as we were driving, so even when it was raining, I was still able to get some clear shots. And the dark clouds made a nice looking sky as well.

A shot from the top of a hill

I noticed dark and rainy days can produce some amazing pictures. I barely need to work on post editing, and the colors still pop. Light greens are especially bright in this kind of light.

Just had to fix the exposure a tiny bit to get this picture fully edited

I had fun just taking pictures without really trying, and ended up with a few good shots, including the first picture I posted, and the next picture.

Through the branches

Of course, I had to straighten out the pictures so they looked normal, handling a heavy camera with one hand can be a bit hard, especially in a moving vehicle.

All in all, today was a great day, and I can’t wait for another day off so I can do it again.

Happy! Happy! Happy!

What A Beautiful Day

by Vicki Richard

Today was a good day to take pictures. The sun was bright, it was warm, and we had a bit of a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, I was still unable to get a shot of a lightning bolt, but I managed to get some good shots of dark clouds.

Storm clouds moving in

It had just started raining when I took this picture. The storm moved in and out so fast, it ended up lasting about 10 minutes. I’m still hoping for another huge thunderstorm like we had Friday so I can try to shoot some lightning bolts.

The sun was out most of the day today, giving me the chance to run around my hard finding some new blooms. My aunt and neighbour has a lilac bush, which I ended up shooting, since I’ve been wanting to find some lilacs for a while now.

Beautiful Lilac flowers

Because it was a warm day, we ended up spending most of the afternoon outside, meaning my daughter became my little model once again.

I know it’s a cliché shot, but it’s just such a beautiful pose.

I try to stay away from cliché props and poses, but I couldn’t resist having her blow on dandelions. Post processing ended up taking longer because I had to take myself out of her sunglasses’ reflection.

I didn’t get a chance to make it to the tall ships this weekend, but hopefully our region will have several events I’ll be able to shoot over the summer months. We do have an air show coming to Miramichi later this summer, and we’re planning a trip to the zoo, so those are two great locations for my photography.

I’ll leave you with a random spider shot, I ended up liking it (I’m usually afraid of spiders) because of the design on its back. It was definitely different, and I can almost call it cute.

Almost looks like a cartoon bear face on its back.

New Job, Less Time

by Vicki Richard

I started a new job on Thursday, so I’ll have less time to dedicate to my photography. I’m not giving up on it though.

Last night, there was a huge thunderstorm in my area. The thunderbolts were amazing. Unfortunately, because of my lack of night time photography practice, I wasn’t able to get a good shot. Because of this, I promised myself to start taking more pictures at dusk, and at night, that way I won’t mess up my next chance for an amazing capture.

There’s a Tall Ships festival in Miramichi this weekend (that’s about 30 minutes from where I live) that I’d like to go see. A photographer friend of mine took some pictures yesterday, and the ships look amazing. Theodore the Tugboat is there as well. If I get a chance to go up in that area over the weekend, I am definitely bringing my camera.

I’d love to have some new pictures to post here, but with my new job, I haven’t had time to even think about my camera. The good thing about it is that I won’t be working shifts, so I’ll never have to worry about schedule conflicts if I do schedule a photoshoot.
------------------------------------
On an (completely) unrelated note, I have recently joined BzzAgent, which allows you to join campaigns and try out new products. I was lucky enough to be chosen in a campaign which will allow me to try out International Delight Iced Coffee. My kit includes 2 International Delight tumblers and 9 FPCs (Free Product Coupon). Due to a packaging error, the kit I received was missing the coupons, so BzzAgent are resending them to me.

After I get a chance to try all three flavours (Vanilla, Mocha & Caramel Macchiato), I’ll be leaving a short review here to let you know what I thought of them.

A Beautiful Day

by Vicki Richard

Today was a better day, I was able to go out and get some pictures, although I had to fight with black flies. I also realized that the reason I’ve been feeling sick the past few days are seasonal allergies. Now that I’m taking medicine, I’m feeling a lot better, even if I’m still not 100%.

Aside from the black flies, today was a great day for pictures. I was able to see a falcon from quite close, nearly above my house, considering they usually hang around farther down the field across the street.

A falcon circling above the road

I also ran across some caterpillars working on their webbing. I normally don’t get to see them at work, so that was another first for me.

Caterpillars working on their webbing

I nearly got a shot of a hummingbird as well, but it flew away right as I lifted my camera to take a picture. Getting a picture of one of those beautiful birds is definitely on my to do list.

Since I ran out of ideas for pictures to take, I decided to take my macro lens out and do some more testing.

Dandelion I shot with my macro lens

Hard to believe dandelions are weeds, they are such pretty flowers. I would love to find a field full of yellow dandelions, that would make a nice looking picture.

I still have to take the time to go to those few locations I have in mind before I start working. I also need to get out of my backyard and find inspiration elsewhere.

Dandelion ready to spread its seeds

My next purchase, or I should say purchases, will be macro extension tubes to work on my macro photography, and a ND filter so I can do waterfall shots over the summer. I can’t wait.

New Visitor

by Vicki Richard

Since I was still feeling sick today, I didn’t move very far from my spot on the couch, but because of my cat’s intuition, I did manage to get a few shots of a new visitor in our backyard.

Our new visitor

Although we see a variety of birds in our yard, american robins and crows are more abundant, with other species hanging out deeper in the woods. I do hear various bird songs in an average day, but very rarely do I get to see that variety. For the record, I don’t know what kind of bird this is, I would love to find out, so if you know, leave me a comment.

I’m hoping for it to come back as close as it was before I was able to get my camera ready, it was on my back porch when I first saw it, and by the time I got my camera, it was halfway down my clothesline, so I missed out on some amazing pictures.

And with this, I’m definitely hoping for some better weather tomorrow (it was cold today) and I hopefully won’t be feeling sick tomorrow.

Scouting Locations

by Vicki Richard

As soon as I decide I’m going to put more time into this blog, I get sick. On top of it, we’d had some heavy rain over the past few days, so between the two, my photography has taken a backseat.

As soon as I feel better and the sun decides to show again, I have scouted a few locations which I’ve been interested in shooting for a while now, the first one being only a few kilometres from my home, one of Ocean Spray’s cranberry fields.

A drive by shot of Ocean’s Spray’s cranberry fields.

The picture above I took while driving by the fields a couple of weeks ago. Although the shot is nice, you have to know what you’re looking at to figure it out.

Since I now have a wide angle lens, I’ve been thinking about getting another picture which would include the company’s sign, that way it would be easier to tell exactly what it is.

Another location I have in mind is a riverside cliff that I truly noticed for the first time early this Spring. Since there were no leaves in the trees then, I skipped on taking pictures then and decided to wait closer to summertime to go back. Now that the leaves are nearly completely out, anytime would be a good time to go.

Aside from those two locations, I’m struggling to find more areas to photograph. I’d like to find something different, but living in a rural area, the only things I see are trees and fields, with the occasional wild animal.

Hopefully I’ll have new content to show by the end of the week. And I haven’t forgotten about my personal photography challenge either, I just haven’t had time to really think about it.

Been busy, and a special memory

by Vicki Richard

Sorry about the lack of posts in the past few days. I’ve been running around like a chicken with no head, I’ve been so busy.

Had a visit from my mom on Tuesday, and visited my nieces with her. And since then, I’ve been doing some spring cleaning, and I’m far from done.

I haven’t had time to take a whole lot of pictures, especially with my daughter around, since she started taking the camera right out of my hands to take her own pictures (she’s 2 1/2 years old)

Starting to follow momma’s footsteps, sorry about the poor quality, I took this on my iPod.

While my mother was visiting, we also had the opportunity to visit a very special lady, Mrs. Thibodeau, who turned 112 years old this past March. She is the second oldest living Canadian resident, and the oldest to be born in Canada.

My grandmother, my daughter, me and my mother with Mrs. Thibodeau

Considering her age, Mrs. Thibodeau is still in great health. We will definitely treasure this memory, and this picture, for years to come.

While running around, we did happen to witness something a bit different: a skydiver who had a propeller attached to his back to control his flight. While I’m used to seeing skydivers in general (I used to date one), this was definitely a first for me.

Skydiver with a propeller

My daughter and my niece

I will try and keep this updated a little more often from now on, even if I don’t have new pictures to share. I am still deciding whether or not I should start a personal photo challenge, and if I do, I still don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing. I’ll keep you updated on this.

 

 

Born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada

New Experiments

by Vicki Richard

Since it was raining today, and I don’t own a waterproof camera cover yet, I decided to try out my macro lens.

After a few different pictures, I decided to try a few shots using my grandmother’s ring instead a rose (a fake flower). After editing a few pictures, I started applied presets in Adobe Lightroom. I was very satisfied by the end result.

A beautiful shot of a vintage ring

I had lots of fun, although I had to keep grabbing the ring back from my daughter, she kept stealing it from the table every time I went to take a picture.

Used a Lightroom preset to achieve this.

I also had fun experimenting with black and white post process. There are several different black and white preset settings in Lightroom, trying to find the perfect one is trial and error.

Dried out flowers with new buds. If you look closely, you can see a few raindrops

This particular preset brings out the flowers and branches, and even, to some extent, the rain drops in this shot.

The same picture as above, with regular edits.

While some people might say that if you’re a great photographer, you don’t need to post process your photos, post processing brings out the beauty of any shot, and also, shooting in RAW mode requires post processing, since the image that’s recorded is bland, and lacks even natural color.

No editing done in this photo

As you can see in the photo above, nothing about it stands out. You can barely see the raindrops, and the flowers and buds seem to simply melt in the background.

There’s truly nothing wrong with experimenting with different post processing techniques. I personally don’t use Photoshop, so I don’t create unnatural pictures with my edits, I’m simply bringing out the colors and details of the shot.