What a difference a day (or two) makes!

The weather around here can be a bit crazy in the spring.  On April 27th, we had snow, and  the few remaining tulips in my front garden had to put up with some cold weather.

Switch to today, the temperature got up to 15C (59F), with bright sun.  The tulips look a lot happier now:

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Orchidophilia -- the Ottawa Orchid Society's Orchid Show

This morning I went out to a local sports arena where an orchid show was being held by the Ottawa Orchid Society. For two hours in the morning, they welcome tripods -- no doubt a way to avoid hassles caused by tripod-carrying photographers during the main hours of the show. I arrived shortly after the show opened, and had a short time with a few other photographers, but the event got much more crowded by mid-morning.

I've been interested in orchids since I started photographing wild orchids in local bogs and wetlands (Pink, Yellow and Showy Ladyslipper, Rose Pagonia, and Grass Pink). This show includes many cultivated varieties, but it's surprising how much most of the orchids resemble our local varieties. The variety of colour and shapes is amazing, and lots of fun to photograph.

The main problem I had was to get a relatively clean background. Most of the displays had some wood to support the orchids, but the backgrounds were still very busy and bright. I had to work quite hard to position my camera so that I had a reasonably dark, plain background. I also moved in for detailed images of the flowers.

The lighting was also challenging if you were not using flash (like me). It's a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent, so I had to do a lot of adjustment after the fact. Despite all of that, the results were quite good.

I want to thank the show organizers for accommodating the photographic crowd -- it was lots of fun.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Abstract clothes

Abstract clothes, originally uploaded by robertwilliams017.

Daily Shoot #138: Make a fashion photo today: a person modeling clothing, the clothes in your closet, an accessory that defines you, etc.

I'm no fashion photographer, nor a portrait photographer, so this assignment is a bit far-fetched for me. Since the assignment suggested clothes in your closet, I decided to try that out, and see what happened.

The closet is lit by a single bare bulb, so the light was really low. The only chance of hand-holding the camera was either to use ASA 1000 or more, which really doesn't look good with a D200. So I just used shutter speeds of 1/4 to 2 seconds, and moved the camera up and down.

This kind of abstract is very hit-and-miss, so you have to take many individual images and hope that something turned out. Before digital became affordable, it really was hit-and-miss, and expensive as well. Thankfully, digital photography has solved those two problems.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Daily Shoot #ds133: Reeds against the sky

Reeds, originally uploaded by robertwilliams017.

Today's Daily Shoot assignment is "Backlighting in a scene can create drama. Make a photo with interesting placement of backlit subjects. "

I must admit that I had some trouble with this assignment. Today's weather in Ottawa was mostly overcast which doesn't make too many backlit opportunities. I went to a field close to my house where there were some reeds that I wanted to photograph. The stems of the reeds are almost glowing in brighter light, but it didn't look that way when it's overcast.

After taking a number of slow-shutter-speed photos of the reeds blowing in the wind, I decided to just get low down and photograph the reeds against the sky. I have a couple of different versions of this image showing the clouds, which are quite interesting themselves. But, I really liked this version where I overexposed quite a bit. The reeds become very ethereal, with only their form showing up against the light.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Daily shoot #ds132: Painting on the side of a building

Painting on the side of a building, originally uploaded by robertwilliams017.

Today's assignment from The Daily Shoot is "Sidewalks are great for people watching. Make a photograph of a sidewalk scene today. " Since I was going out to buy some hiking boots, I brought my Canon S90 along to make some photographs along Richmond Road in Westboro, a neighbourhood of Ottawa.

I was quite surprised to see a number of buildings that had large-scale paintings on their side. It made quite a unique look for this old neighbourhood.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Daily Shoot #ds131

10D-01534BW, originally uploaded by robertwilliams017.

I've just discovered The Daily Shoot (http://dailyshoot.com). Every day, a new photo assignment is posted, and people from all over submit photographs. Today's assignment was "Think of a subject that starts with either the letter "D" or "S". Find it, and make a photo! ".

I found a conch shell, and made some macro photographs of it. This is the one I choose to submit.

I'm going to try this for a while, and see how it goes. I looks like a good way to be thinking about photography on a daily basis, even if I don't get the time to make a photograph.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca