We're not in Kansas anymore Toto!!!

The other night, I sat down in Cow-town, and after rather painless red-eye, I stood up and walked out of the doors into Fish-town.  We're definitely not in Kansas anymore...  I'm here in St. John's, Newfoundland with Opera on the Avalon rehearsing for some shows in Mid July.  

So, back to the red-eye flight...  Needless to say, the combination of overnight flights and time differences, jet lag and sleeping patterns are in a state of flux.  So, I decided to take advantage of my alert state of mind and went up to Signal Hill to take in the sunrise as it rises on the easternmost part of Canada.   Photographers always talk about how perfect the light is at dawn and/or dusk, and combine that with  a clear day, it made for a nice morning.

From Cabot Tower, atop Signal Hill (Where Signor Marconi played out his fascination with Ben Franklin Kites) I descended the "Hill" and walked along Duckworth Street which is famous for its brightly coloured houses.  All in all, about a 500 metre descent and 3.5 kms...

Family gatherings provide lots of unknowing and willing subjects...

Wow... taking photos of people is so much more difficult than it looks, so I take my hat off to friends such as Lana Gurevich who take really good, professional photos of people. 

I drove up to Red Deer for a gathering with my extended family today, and we were lucky enough to have an amazing day with great weather.   With 30 or 40 people in attendance, it gave me the opportunity to start pointing my lens at real people instead of flowers or nature or buildings.  I'm pretty sure that I prefer catching people in the moment, rather than having formal posed portraits or groupings, so it was interesting (and frustrating) to watch these people and groupings appear out of nowhere and disappear as quickly as they appeared. 

I had some difficulties with the settings in the bright sun, so many pictures didn't turn out as I would have liked them to, but I was happy with about 10% of what I did take.

You really didn't expect me to just take pictures of people did you?

What do they say about working with Children and Animals?

his morning, the clouds decided to part for a couple hours and hundreds of canines dragged their owners and families to Fish Creek Park for the 10th annual Calgary Humane Society Dog Jog Fundraiser.   I was asked to come take photos of my friend Christie and her "A Walk With Whippets" crew (China, Toby, Casey & Abbey.)

I've been trying to take more pictures of actual people, so I guess that dogs are a stepping stone along that path.  I think that part of the trick of taking good canine photos is taking a lot of photos, and taking the photos quickly, before the subjects get distracted and start sniffing and/or licking other subject's butts (this may be a problem with human subjects as well, but time will only tell.)

I've been trying to find new and different perspectives, which as a 6'5" man, usually means getting down and rolling around in the dirt.  I also used some natural topography to get below the subjects (a little ravine, fallen tree trunks).

In honour of a friend's new website...

My friend Christie loves urban trekking and she loves her whippets, so the dreamer collided with with entrepreneur and "A Walk With Whippets" was born.  She's just launched a new website, so I thought I would share.

A Walk With Whippets

Here are some pictures of her pack that I've taken over the past year or so.

  

CTV National News did a segment on them this past year.

After the promise and before the party...

I was asked to take some pictures of the decor at a wedding reception, which is something that I haven't done before, so I thought that I'd give it a try.  Most weddings that I've been at, I'm singing, so I don't get to see the full show.  In fact, the last wedding that I've actually been invited to was just over five years ago. 

Lighting was problematic, as in there wasn't much of it.  Of course, it didn't help that its been overcast and raining and/or snowing all weekend.  Probably, the solution to this would be to use a flash, but I'm not at that stage yet, so I tried to use lower F-stops and longer shutter speeds.  The most difference is seen in editing the raw pics into final photos.  Lots of playing around with fill lighting, highlights and shadows.

The Wedding was organized and designed by Cathy MacRae of Creative Weddings and Occasions.

 

Where the Road Less Travelled Takes You...

As you leave the parking lot, you follow the asphalt trail until you come to a red gravel trail. Then you follow the red gravel trail until you come to a dirt trail. Then you follow the dirt trail until you come to a hidden path through the brush. And on and on until you either fall down a rabbit hole or stumble out of the brush onto one of the dirt, red gravel or asphalt trails before finding your way back to your car.  Today's trek was at Fish Creek Park, one of the largest Provincial parks in Canada which falls completely within city limits. 

It's on these urban treks that I've been testing the waters with photography. Today I was playing around with depth of field, while still getting a hang of shooting with manual settings.  I think I'm still getting lucky in getting some nice pictures, so as I continue on my current path I somehow have to learn how to manufacture good photos instead of discovering mistakes.  Oh well, for now I'll call my mistakes "artistic choices" and continue on...

 

The Greeks might not be good at economics, but they might have been onto something...

Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music at the Boston Conservatory gave a welcome address to the freshman class which included the following excerpt:

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks.  And it is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin.  Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects.  Music has a way of finding the big invisible moving pieces inside out hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us.

Mozart, even though he was an absolute jerk to tenors (another post for another time), either consciously or subconsciously understood that music had the power to move the hearts and souls of people.  His two masterpieces from the church repertoire are the Requiem Mass, and the Great Mass in C-Minor.  The Great Mass in C-Minor is great, but its not brilliant...  Maybe if the tenor had more than a trio and a quartet, it could the the Brilliant Mass in C-Minor, but I guess that was not meant to be. 

This weekend, I sang the tenor solos in Mozart's Great Mass in C-Minor as part of the Bow Valley Chorus' 10th Anniversary Celebrations.  Aside from the sore back and sore feet, from standing throughout the entire word, the music can be refreshing for your soul.  The little harmonic twists and turns that Mozart writes into his music give a depth of genius to words that have been set a thousand times by a thousand other men (and women.) 

One more performance to go, next weekend in Banff, at the Banff Centre...