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.

Getting support

by Vicki Richard
I got into the habit of bringing my camera nearly everywhere with me, since you never know what will inspire you or, since I live out in the country, what kind of animal you'll see on even a short drive.
Well just yesterday, my boyfriend asked me why I "have" to bring my camera everywhere. Today, I finally got rewarded when we saw two deer on the the side of the road. I took a couple pictures, but we were still a bit too far. Finally had a perfect shot when we got up close, they started running, and just as I press down on the shutter button, my boyfriend steps on the gas and shoots forward, ruining that perfect picture I had in my mind. When I complained, his response was "Well you have a bunch of pictures, so who cares!" (I only had two!)

The result, which could have been a nice picture, had it not been for the sudden movement.

I was seriously insulted by this. Does he not realize that I didn't get an expensive camera just to leave it at home collecting dust, and does he not realize that I'm trying to work hard on my photography because it's my passion? How will I ever be able to be portrayed as a serious photographer when the person closest to me acts as though it's all just a joke?
At least I have the opportunity to shoot a family, next weekend if all goes well. If I do, it will be my first official photoshoot (instead of simply taking my camera and taking pictures)

Looking for perfection?

by Vicki Richard

I just noticed tonight how much I care about getting that perfect shot. A bear came out in the field across from my house tonight, and while trying to capture a great shot, I ended up shooting from several areas both inside and outside the house, and ended up taking nearly 100 shots. In the end, I ended up editing 4 photos from the entire roll.

I definitely had a great time running from spot to spot, trying to find that perfect shooting location, especially since my zoom lens isn’t that strong, and getting too near a bear is not the best idea, especially during springtime.

Since upgrading to a better zoom lens is out of my budget, I need to start working on closer subjects. Although I enjoy nature and wildlife, I’ve been thinking about trying portrait photography once again. Having a 2 year old daughter who, on a good day, loves modeling for me, this should make it easy.

I’ve also been trying about doing a bit of a photo challenge with self-portraits, and working on both shots and post-processing, since I don’t have much experience in that area at this point. Considering I never like any pictures of myself, this would make a perfect project for me.

I’m open to any suggestions, I’m always looking for inspiration, especially with self-portraits.

I know my photography will never be perfect, no one or nothing is, but I definitely want to work on being the best I can be. Then again, aren’t we all our worst critic?

In a Photographer’s Eyes

by Vicki Richard

Before I became interested in photography, I never fully enjoyed the beauty around me that is nature. Snow was just that, snow. I wouldn’t notice the buds on trees when Spring came around. Now that I’m a photographer, that’s the first thing that I notice.

This past winter, while everyone else was complaining about the snow, or the cold, I noticed the beauty of it all for the first time.

Snow on tree branches

Then Spring came around, and I started noticing the greenery becoming green, the birds chirping, trees budding, and all the other wonders of Springtime. I started taking pictures, day after day, of the same tree, the same landscape. The beauty of the daily changes were mesmerizing.

Robin on a blooming tree

Tree blooms

Leaves coming out

I would have never noticed such beauty had I not been a photographer. It’s almost unbelievable how much beauty there is around us that we never notice, either because we are too busy, or simply don’t care.