Ordinary Things

A cold day project, I shot a handful of ordinary things around my home.



This is just a lamp, but the colour combination did catch my eye..



An ordinary gold mesh coffee filter...



A paper coffee filter ... Did some mention COFFEE!!!



perhaps another beverage will be more suitable?



Time to sign off, for now with one of my pens.



All photos were photographed with my old manual focus SMC Pentax-M 50mm Macro lens.

Darrell

Yet another walk downtown

I was out and about on a sunny afternoon. Enjoying the warm out of season weather. Again I had my 14mm lens, and I again was playing with buildings.



I liked the geometrics of this one.



Oblique angles are fun to work with.



Ottawa is full or glass box buildings, all have angular faces that can be worked with.



Maybe next time I'll wonder over to Douglas Cardinal's Museum of Civilization, with it's organic curves.

Darrell

New Angles

Always interesting to look at common scenes from a different vantage point. I was on the balcony, enjoying the early summer-like weather we had over the Easter weekend. When I grabbed my camera.



I liked the simple lines of this shot.



Same vantage point, I waited for the car to enter the scene.



This one I tried in Black and White. Probably not award winners, but it is a fun project.

Darrell

What do you do when you have no model?

You do a self-portrait!

On Sunday night back in April 1988, I decided I was going to submit some work to Tuesday's Camera Club of Ottawa annual Portrait Competition. OK, short notice and no model. But I had an idea in mind. I set up my lights in my apartment hallway (about 6x6') The main light had a silver honeycomb and was just inside the living room, at the 45º 45º traditional position.



I hung a small slaved  shoe mount flash on the ceiling as a hair light. My second studio strobe (key light) this was set to skim across my skin to pick up texture (ala Mr. Karsh) this was in the hall closet. My frame had just the edges of the door frame at the frame edges. I had a mirror behind my camera for composition. masking tape on the door frame marked where the top of my head would be in the frame.

Pentax LX, SMC Pentax-M 85mm f:2 lens. 35mm Ilford FP-4, printed on Agfa Portriga Fibre Based paper. Selenium toned for archival. Processed and printed Monday evening, mounted at lunch time Tuesday. Entered into the Competition Tuesday, won Best B&W Portrait of 1988.



Darrell

Black and White Portraiture

This is old school, a sample of my pre-digital era B&W portraits.



I worked with Barb, and thought she would have potential for a shoot. Ilford FP-4 120, Mamiya 645, 150mm lens.



This was actually a colour negative (Kodak VPSIII), but instead of using a panchromatic paper like Panalure, I used Ilford Muligrade with an 80B filter to neutralize the orange mask. This gave Barb pan skin and pale eyes that I like in this study.



Debby was shot with the Mamiya 645, and 150mm lens combination onto Ilford FP-4 which is my favourite B&W emulsion. The print was printed 11x14" onto Kodak Ektalure paper, and selenium toned for the warm look.



Jennifer was a 35mm Kodak VPSIII negative, Pentax LX, 85mm f:2 lens converted to monochrome with Photoshop CS2.

Finally Nancy is the most Photoshopped portrait in this set. Lovely girl nice look. But she was wearing a tank top, that didn't really work in the photograph.



This caused a hot bare shoulder. So I added the textured black shoulder and sleeve to the photo. I also did a little smoothing out of her skintones.

Darrell

Nature Images

With the arrival of spring I look forward to walking along to river and seeing what presents itself to my lens.

There are a few areas locally that Great Blue Herons permit a close approach.



Same heron a little later the same day.





Taken with my Pentax * ist D and SMC Pentax-M* 300mm f:4 lens. Ottawa River midway between Tunney's Pasture and Island Park Dr.

Sometimes I get a treat, like this Mallard hen doing a little dance for the camera.



It's pretty hard to go anywhere near the river without seeing  gulls, here we have a Ring-billed Gull in winter plumage.



Not exactly National Geographic coverage, but I will look into shooting some more nature this year.

Darrell

Another nice day for a walk downtown

One camera body, one lens... 14mm f:2.8

It was a beautiful afternoon, so I decided to grab a camera body with my 14mm lens. So I took a 10 minute walk downtown to see what graphic design I could capture. The Export Development Corporation HQ has some interest lines and curves. This stainless steel clad curved building always presents interesting opportunities.





A few blocks north I shot 55 Metcalfe Street, well I think it's 55



I saw the bright highlights on the "55" so I exposed for the number, and let the rest fall into place. Digital to me is very much like shooting slide film, as you always expose for the highlights, and in this case I let the shadows fend for themselves. In the studio I expose for the main light, and fill the shadows as needed.

The clouds rolled on in, so I grabbed an Italian sausage from Terry' s cart at Bank & Laurier and walked back home.

Darrell