My Ghost of a Past

I promised to show you a photograph of the ghost that's in my family.  This is a real un Photoshopped scan of an old photo of my grandfather's family.  The man in the back is my grandfather's father.  The very old lady in the front row is my grandfathers' grandmother!

Can you see the ghost?  On the far right the namelss apparition facing in the opposite direction from all the rest is our ghost.  While all the others are named on the back of the photo, she is not.  All the others are looking in the direction of the camera - she is looking in the total opposite direction.  I also love that on the the mat is a spiderweb graphic!

Oh those crazy Victorians.

 

See the close up...

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Spooky!

With Halloween right around the corner, there are some superb photo ops in store.  If you're on the trick or treat trail in the great outdoors, keep an eye out for ghostly apparitions and globs of ectoplasm.  These can be hard to catch on film but if your lucky enough to do so, you may just be able to cash out and retire when People Magazine buys your pics!

But if the spirits don't float your way, there are always other delightful things to "shoot" on Halloween. Here's a hot tip for making weird Halloween photos since you'll be roaming around in the dark!  You may even be able to create your own ghosts!

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PRO TIP: "Dragging the Shutter" to create Ghosts.

Normally you don't want ghosts to appear in your pics.  Ghosts usually show up when your shutter is open too long and can no longer "freeze" motion.  But you can purposely make ghosts appear while not ruining your photos, by using a technique called dragging the shutter.

Set your camera to manual.  If you're shooting outside try ISO 400. What you want is the camera shutter speed to be slow enough to capture movement (so less than 1/60 sec - around 1/25 or 1/10 depending on how fast your subject is moving), and to let in some of the ambient light so the atmosphere of the evening is captured too.  But you also want your flash to be fast enough to capture your main subject without "blowing out" the exposure or allowing your camera to capture massive amounts of movement. (lots of movement might scare the ghosts away!).

Next you should...

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For the Weekend

I'll leave you with this thought for the weekend:

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
-- Paul Valery 

Now, go play!

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A little competition never hurt...

This past weekend was the PPOC Image Salon - essentially a big photo contest for "pros."  But I never fail to learn something new, or to be inspired by what my colleagues can dream up.

This year was no exception.  Although I entered 4 images (the max) only one was accepted into the comeptition.  But it was also awarded a Merit (Accepted, Merit or Excellent) AND Judge Cam gave me his Judge's Choice ribbon.  Thanks Cam!

I was also very thrilled to be sitting at the same table at our Banquet, as the keynote speaker celebrity photographer Robert Evans, and his brilliant technical guru Curt Apanovich.  They have an intriguing concept in interactive photography learning that I will be telling you much more about shortly. And they both have a wicked sense of  humour - out table was almost evicted for having too much fun. Seems these California boys can't get enough of the wide open spaces on the praries - Look out Regina!!!!

...But since you asked to see what I entered in the Salon, and even though only one of these images made the cut this year, here are 3 of the four. Can you tell which one was Cam's fav? WHich one got the Merit Award?

READ MORE...

Keywords: awards,ppoc,professional_images

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One Week to Go!

Finally got the Blog thing under control! I hope to officially launch it next week.  But the PPOC Conference is this weekend so nothing will get done here till Tuesday.
Here's one of my entries:

Wish me luck  - I hear the Judges this year are going to be STRICT!

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Updates and Activities

I'm recovering today from turkey a overdose!!! And an election campaign hangover. Thanksgiving followed by voting day - what a combo.

Anyway, if you were celebrating Thanksgiving in the traditional way (friends, family, food) I hope it was as good as it gets!

As for the election...don't get me started. Let's move on more appropriate topics. (smile)

First, don't forget to check out the South Winnipeg Photo Club for their fall speakers line up. For a group of "hobby photographers" they do have quite a roster of activities and speakers. And I'm not talking about me (ha ha). They are bringing in Sarah Johnson / winner of the 2008 Grange award for photography, and (I believe), the only Winnipegger to have their photographs displayed at the Guggenheim.

(Oh, yes, I WILL be there this week chatting about Lightroom 2 and some of the more crazy things that it does!)

Don't forget that this is also the week for the PPOC Manitoba Convention which starts Friday. But the cool stuff is Saturday - print salon judging. And Monday when Robert Evans is speaking. If you he's not a household word to you, he's the celebrity photographer that shot the first photos of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' baby - the ones that "People" etc. paid millions for! Visit the PPOC site for more.

Ok, there you have it! all the photo news you can handle for one week, I hope. Have a great Monday (in disguise as a Tuesday).

Keywords: photoshop_tutorials

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NEWS...

With all the changes that have taken place this past year, I can say that my website updates are well underway, as you can see. So you'll see some more changes very soon. It's such a technical thing for me, because I'm doing it myself and NOT going to be using Blogger or Wordpress. (crazy or what!?)

So if you see some strange behaviour here (from the website not from me! - although you may see some of that as well! ha ha) rest assured that it's very temporary.

Still on the news front, there are some very cool new features after all in Photoshop CS4 - like the ability to "reverse crop" an image - to basically stretch it to improve composition WITHOUT stretching the people or other critical aspects of your scene.

So now I am definitely looking forward to seeing more! I'll keep you posted. And finally,I am conducting a three part workshop on my super panorama and 360 degree photography at the South Winnipeg Photo Club.

1. Part 1: Background & Theory;
2. Part 2: A live shoot in the round;
3. Part 3: Putting it all together.

Contact David at the Club for more details. Also if you cannot be there, I have the full program and self-instruction course on CD that you can order (instructions, screenshots, videos, tricks, recipes and more!). Contact me to get on the priority list to be the first to get this very fun CD!. And that's all she wrote!

And, of course: Have fun with photos!

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A glorious autumn weekend in store

The Manitoba PPOC Convention is coming up, and this time I have 4 images to enter. I am totally not sure that the judges will like them but that's not my goal. You know me - of the School of Oscar Wilde - the only thing worse than being talked about is not talked about!

Yeah, I like to startle them...I admit it. There's something satisfying when the image opens up on that huge monitor, and you hear the very audible gasp of all in attendance. And if the image is really "good", the judges jump up to the monitor to closely inspect every pixel.

THAT'S what I want to achieve this year - 4/4 audible gasps and monitor leaps (Super chimping, as it were!!!).

I'll let you know how I did, better yet, come see for yourself. The Judging is open to all. October 18th at The Casino on McPhillips St, all day.

Have a super weekend.

Keywords: photo_contest

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