Thanksgiving Smiles

This past Thanksgiving we did a little semi-impromptu family portrait session. It took some coaxing but we eventually got some great smiles out of little Jackson.

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Lean on Me

I mentioned the other day that I had done a shoot with Dave and his sister Jessica – it was for their parent’s Christmas present and the above photo is possibly my favourite from the day. I am sure there will be more to come from this shoot.

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Wonderful Man

This is actually a shot of Dave from the recent shoot I did with him and his sister. Today is our 7 year anniversary and I just wanted to let the whole world know how much I love him.

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Cousin Tag Team

Last night I had a photo shoot with Jenn and her cousin Alli and it was fantastic! I have so many great shots I didn’t know where to start in terms of editing them so I just went to the beginning of the night. The above shot was one of the first ones we took after getting warmed up and watching another set of models go through our lighting setup. The rest of the night only got better from here on but you will have to wait to see them all --- t

o see the sets as they are completed visit the following Flickr albums;

Jenn, Alli,

Jenn and Alli.

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Smell the Rose

Trent Convocation, July 2009.

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I ♥ Faces: Family

This is one of the family portraits I took of the Konings and I at Christmas. It didn't come out exactly how I had intended, but it still works.

It also happens to be my entry for this week's I Heart Faces contest entitled We Are Family. Though not the most original portrait setting, it captures the acceptance of myself into the Dave's immediate family which is something that is very important to me.

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Multiple Musics

Another shot from the shoot I am calling the 'guitar shoot' with Jess.

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Jess' Photo Shoot

Over Christmas Dave's sister, Jess, asked me to take some shots of her playing the guitar for a class assignment she has. Essentially she wanted some shots of her playing, some of her writing some chords/music and some closeup shots of the guitar, etc.My setup was pretty basic, but I was able to use almost all of my new lighting equipment; the Gary Fong diffuser for my on-camera flash, Nikon umbrella kit and SB-600. I took about 500 shots and quickly edited that down to 300 and then later down to 25 or so edited ones (+40 when you include the fact that I converted some into black and white). I am really happy with the outcome of the photo shoot and I will obviously be uploading a select few shots to this blog, but I have uploaded all the edited and signed photos to Flickr, if you would like to view them all now.

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Aunt Carol

The second assignment was due this evening for my Photoshop course at Algonquin College. I was so happy with my image, my restoration work and my colourizing but not so pleased with my grades. I got an A- in restoration and only a B+ in my colourizing.The original image I used, my Aunt Carol on a pinto pony, can be seen above and the restoration work I did prior to colourizing can be seen below.And the final image is below. I think it is worth more than an A- and B+ but apparently the instructor did not.
Once again I must console myself with the fact that no one in the course really did any better and most of them got lower marks. But I strive for perfection, especially when it comes to my photography.
There are only three more classes left once tonight is complete and then I get two months off from night courses which will be a really nice treat. I am still looking forward to taking something more photography based again though in the fall.

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Damage Found

I went to my parents' house on Saturday and went through their old photo albums. They were primarily photos of my dad and his siblings - a few of his ancestors (parents, grandparents and further back). I picked out three that were pretty damaged and I think would be challenging to fix (and therefore give me a good grade in my class).
Damaged Photograph #1: My grandparents (Beach) on their wedding day. This is literally the only photo of their wedding according to my Dad. It has some rips along the right side and a great noise from dust and scratches. There are no significant markings on their facings however which would make this image pretty easy to restore. It is pretty much my safety restoration photograph for this assignment.
Damaged Photograph #2: Beach children with dog. This photograph has tons of noise from dust and minor scratches. It also has some pretty significant damage to the edges of the photograph and has multiple large tears in the central area of the photograph. There is some damage to the face of Aunt Diana, Tom and my Dad. This one would be a challenge, but I believe it is doable.Damaged Photograph #3: Aunt Carol on a horse. This is a photograph of my Dad's eldest sister, Carol. I am not entirely sure how old she is, but she is on a pinto pony. My mom says these horse would come around to the houses (even in Timmins where she was at the time) and you could put your kids on them to have their picture taken. The photograph is in pretty good shape in terms of dust and scratches. It has two large fold marks down and across the image one of which runs straight through Aunt Carol's eye while the other goes across the horse. I believe this image is fixable (by myself) but it will also be a challenge.I am going to restore all three of these images and then pick the best on to submit for my class. Hopefully it will be hard to chose which one should be submitted as that will mean I did an excellent job on all three of them. I am definitely looking forward to working on these images - I think it is going to be challenging, fun and rewarding.

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Sibling Rivalry

Dave and his sister Jessica are both incredibly talented when it comes to the piano despite the fact that they play quite differently - David learns songs that appeal to him while Jessica plays chords and harmonizes with the songs she likes (I don't actually know what this means, I have just heard others say it). This photograph was taken during the holidays during one of the few times they were able to play together.

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