In Canada there are so many wonderful winter experiences sports fans can enjoy. You can ski for almost 6 months of the year, snowmobile, snowshoe and one of the most popular games for people of all ages is hockey. We love our national sport so much and you can bet that on any given day of the week the arenas are busy with people from sunrise to sunset, playing or watching a game.

 Outdoor rinks are also popular and the one in our neighbourhood is always filled with kids and adults skating or playing hockey. This photo was taken this past weekend and I processed it with a vintage feel because it reminded me of when I was a kid…. just a few years ago. ( : 

For the past few weeks I’ve been putting together more of my food photography shots. The project I’m working on is growing and I still need so much more to get it to where it has to be. This is a little sample of the what I’ve been doing and trust me, it’s really hard not to want to eat everything before it’s done!

The more I photograph the food I make the more in love with the process I fall but I’m always SO tempted to eat everything before I get to photograph it!

These are my families favourite G Free appetizers at the moment which are definitely some of the best I’ve ever had.

They never last very long that’s for sure.

The Flickr site I started a year and a half ago is one forum where I’ve been sharing my pictures and making new contacts in the photo world. It’s been a great site for me to grow as a photographer and get feedback on the pictures I post.

One goal I’ve had is to show improvement so that I would hopefully get my photo selected as the daily Explore. This is one of 500 great shots chosen as ‘most interesting of the day’ from thousands and thousands (and thousands!) uploaded daily by Flickr members.

This week I MUST be doing something right because not only did I get my first Explore ever, I got my second and third!!

Now…on to my next challenge!

You can follow my Flickr postings at http://www.flickr.com/photos/52244266@N02/

Sooooo it’s back to school time for the kids and it’s back to work time for me. September is such a great time to do a proper clean-up of  all your pictures (I’m sure you don’t ALL do this on a daily basis!) and free up storage space.

I took the opportunity yesterday to clean up some of the ‘junk’ I’ve saved for far too long. Junk= pictures I’ve downloaded but have no reason why they didn’t get deleted in camera!!

So that’s my project for the week.

I’m sad to say I have more than a couple of these gems. Ugh!

There have been so few updates to my blog recently I [almost] forgot that people do look at it. I’ve posted regular updates to my Flickr and Facebook pages as mentioned in my last post but my poor blog was left with no attention. Tsk! Tsk! Well that’ll have to change right now.

There are several things I’ve been busy with. As an official photographer for Roger’s House www.rogershouse.ca I’ve been able to help families that may not have the time or means to hire a photographer on their own because of more pressing family situations. It’s been very rewarding for me to do family portraits for these families! I’ve also been involved with photographing the events hosted by Roger’s House as well, which is always fun. They have such a great staff and group of volunteers, I’m thrilled to be a part of it all.

Besides that, I’ve been working on another project that I’ll tell you all about later in the fall. It’s still in the works and needs more time until it’s more developed.

Then there’s the usual day to day adventures of having my daughter at home for the summer and a puppy who wants all my attention that keep me busy & I’ve also been very lucky to have golfed with my husband and friends  ALOT this summer.

Throw my other jobs in there and  the days are full. Here are just a few pictures taken from the summer and I’ll be back more regularly in September.

I really MUST try harder to update to my blog! I’ve been much better at updating my Facebook page.  You can follow my Facebook posts and my Flickr page here. The blog HAS to get more attention this week.

So that’s it! It’s on the list.

The season is unfolding and we’ve spent time fixing up the house, golfing, camping & cottaging, J having sleepovers with her friends and the comings and goings that summer offers… with holidays soon to follow. Horray! I guess there is work in there too but that’s not fun to talk about!

During the summer months I get very inspired by the beautiful bright colors in the gardens. I tend to cook more and love going to fresh fruit stands to shop. Here are a few recent shots I’ve taken showing rich reds, greens and yellows. I hope you like them. It takes time to come up with a concept, get all the pieces together, find the best lighting and get a great shot. But the result is so worth it.

This is my first attempt at creating a panorama shot. The day & time was not as interesting as I’d hoped but I thought I’d practice and start scouting new locations.

For the past two weekends I’ve spent my days in a Creative Lighting course with Blair Gable hosted by Harry Nowell and Ottawa Studio Works.

Blair is an Ottawa Photographer who shoots for Reuters, Getty Images and MacLean’s magazine and has been invited to photograph everyone from Prime Ministers to the British monarchy to celebrities, sports figures including full time with the Ottawa Senators and many corporate officials to name a few. He also operates a successful wedding photography business. WHEW!

This course was so different from anything I’ve taken in the past and I wanted to learn more about external flash and diffusers.

Blair showed us how he used off camera flash to create his amazing images and then sent us off to capture some of our own using his model Chrystal and his lighting paraphernalia. It was very closed quarters so coming up with a location where I could create a photo was challenging given the 30 minute time frame. Finding a suitable location, lighting it and positioning the model to come up with a shot to be critiqued by Blair and judged by peers was slightly nerve wracking to say the least.

As difficult as it was given the constraints, I was happy with my first attempt at lighting a subject in this manner.

For this shot I used a beauty dish with flash and a second flash with a home made diffuser. I was pleased that I was able to create a shot similar to what I had envisioned.

Thanks to Blair & Harry for the great experience and opportunity.

To see Blair’s work check his website at www.blairgable.com

Other resources for the weekend included: www.harrynowell.com

Ottawa Studio Works www.Ottawastudioworks.com

3 Cheers! This week I’ll complete the Photoshop course I’m taking at Algonquin College. It’s been the most difficult of all my courses by far and I’m so happy to [finally] be nearing the finish line!

I’ve learned some great techniques that I didn’t really expect to; one of them being the process of photo restoration and colorization for repairing old photos and giving them a new look.

This is one of the projects I had to complete for marking. The first was the photo the prof  supplied and the second was my edited version.

I was happy with the results given that it was first attempt and I hope to do more work like this in the future.