The bike trail

I had to drop off some stuff at Andrew's (the designer). When I arrived at his home he was still out doing some errands so I went across the street to the park, sat under a tree to get out of the sun, and took some photos of the neighbourhood pigeons.

Later on my way home I decided to bike along the Mark Goodman trail. It runs along the Toronto waterfront for the most part, then cuts through a bunch of park like green spaces. Somewhere around cherry street there's a beach that has these old barbecue grills that are permanently there for public use. They used to be all over. High Park, the Toronto Islands. Now not so much.


Seed


The Marc Goodman trail marked by the blue green lines


The old barbecue grill...


closer...


and closer still

High Dynamic Range

Drenched from the evenings down pour of rain

My morning started off with me waking up around 4:30am. It's kind of shocking as my alarm clock wasn't on. I just woke up. It was raining a few hours, maybe minutes earlier. The street was still damp. Since I was up I decided to hike over to the park at the end of the street in my slippers with my tripod slung over my shoulder and my camera in my hand.


Catching the sun rise on the petals

I took a few photos of plant life and the sun started coming up. Shot a few more photos and decided to continue my photography back in the back yard of where I live. The condensation of morning dew on the car looked interesting so I set up the tripod to try to shoot a HDR photo. About half way in Pumpkin jumped up onto the hood. I took a few photos of the cat, waited for him to get bored and leave (I didn't have a pork chop dangling around my neck so I figure the cat would get bored quickly). He did and wandered off to sniff some plant life.


Spikey flora


Pumpkin getting in the way of my HDR shoot

I started from the beginning with my reframed shot of the car in the drive way. The results follow...


High Dynamic Range Photos

HDR, or High Dynamic Range is a method of shooting photos that captures just that, a large range of light going from really dark to really light, more so than your eye can detect without adjustment and what your computer display can show

Take a look at the following photos. The first one is exposed for sunlight bouncing the wall. It's really bright compared to the other things in the photo so if it's properly exposed everything else falls to darkness.


The wall properly exposed.


The sky properly exposed

Now let's say we expose from something less bright like the sky. We see more of the car but the wall starts to go to white, it's becoming over exposed.


The car properly exposed

Next we'll try to shoot the car with the proper exposure. Notice now that the sky and the wall are completely washed out.



The resulting HDR file with the light range squished into visible space.

In the converted HDR image you can now see detail in both the wall and the car. I have taken the light values from the HDR file and squished them into a range that the display (in this case computer monitor) can show.

Shooting HDR photos with a normal camera requires that you shoot a number of photos at different exposures from the same angle and that your subject is not moving. Well the subject can be moving but you might have odd results. The photos are then combined (perhaps in photoshop) and viola, a single HDR file is made.

Photography in the rain

Went to High Park today for a singles networky thing with the theme being nature photography. It was rainy but the ad for the event said "rain or shine". By the time I arrived at the meet up point I received a message on my cell phone saying that it was too windy and they were cancelling the event.

I ended up buying a mediocre burger from the Grenadier Cafe. Then looked around for others. Not seeing anyone else I went out and took photos since I was there anyway. If I had been beed prepared I could have gotten some amazing photos of the local robins poking their head into the ground for worms. Alas, I left my 70-200mm lens at home. Trying to shoot the bird with a 105mm scared them off as I had to get to close.

A photographer I met once a while back one said "If it's grey, shoot all day.". Nature photography is great with the grey skies. It's like a giant softbox in the sky. I took a bunch of water droplet photos to make use of the macro lens (micro lens if you're Nikon).
















Our friend the worm.

Proctoring and Fast Food Logic

One of Kyoko's plants taken with extension tubes

Just to change things up a bit I went to the backyard as soon as I got up and took some photos of the plant life. Yes, plant life. As opposed to the furry creatures known as the cats. You might think the blog was being over run by them.

Just in case you weren't caught up on the blog the owners of Pumpkin and Genki (the two cats under my domain and care) are gone away to Japan. So in their owners absence, I've been blogging the cats so the owners can see that the cats are doing well. Okay I'll post a cat photo for consistency...


Genki almost outside

Today I made my way out to York University. It's located on the North West tip of Toronto. I was to help a professor friend proctor an exam (and no Laine, that has nothing to do with proctology - unless you're over seeing an exam of certain med students, then maybe). To proctor an exam is basically to oversee an exam, hand out blank booklets, answer questions, and escort students to the bathroom (so they don't "find" hidden notes or talk to people).

The job of proctoring does not entail much other than observation of the students, however it does get pretty boring sometimes as you're there for the length of the exam not doing too much. In this case it was three hours.


The route map to York U


Professor Woolrich I presume?

Fast Food Logic

After the exam was done and we doubled checked the exams handed in matched the students taking the exam we ended up going to Wendy's. We parked the car and went in to find out that the restaurant (the Wendy's part) was closed. The Tim Horton's side was open. We found a loop hole in that the drive through to Wendy's was still open.

So we hopping back in the car ordered food from the drive through. Parked the car where we were parked before the drive through then walked back into the dinning area which was still open. My question is...

Why doesn't the restaurant just stay open for that extra hour while the drive through is open?

Thinking things through a bit we figured it had something to do with employing people. If you close the dining room earlier you can have someone clean it but you can still sell food at the drive thru. Since the inding room was open for Tim's this idea kind of went through the window.

Does anyone out there know?


Wendy's is closed


Pick up window open until 11pm


Dining room open until 10pm

Back at home the cats greeted me with the usual "Meow", translating to something like "Where's are food burger breath?".


Genki and Pumpkin eat dinner

The Cat Chronicles

"I'm not falling for that old bowl trick."

In an effort to get Genki outside today I placed the bowl of food just outside the door. It was a battle of wills. In the end I caved in and placed the bowl back inside. The cat seemed paranoid of any noise coming from the back yard even after I brought the bowl back in.


Genki still looks spaced out from the bowl being outside


Kyoko's backyard plant life


Genki observes from a safe distance


"eh? What?"


"You still here? Move along. I am bored of you."


"It's not spring until the cars change sides of the street"


See previous photo


Genki is still on alert


Genki is curious as to what is going on outside


"Hey, up there. Let me in."

Snow Day and a Stinky Apartment

Pumpkin tests the coldness of the stair.

With all the snow on the ground I went out to shovel the walk (yet again) and once finished spent some time taking photos of the cat. The cat, Pumpkin, seems to be my main source of photographic opportunities these days. I really must get out more. Being a bit lethargic probably due to lack of sunlight I limited my travels today to the nearby grocery store. I needed to pick up some potatoes for a chicken curry dish I was going to make for dinner.


Pumpkin waiting for me to go back inside.


"I'm not looking at you."


The snow in front of the house.


Meanwhile on the Danforth.


Iced over branches

While the final chicken dish wasn't spicy enough to burn the roof of your mouth off, the whole apartment took on the smell of the curry powder I used. This was apparent from walking out and walking back into the apartment. Whoosh. I wonder if there's a device one can buy to neutralize smells?

When I say neutralize I'm not talking about filling the room with another, more stinky, bunch of particles. I'm talking about a device like a stink vacuum. Something that takes the stinky particles out of the air or emits particles that attach themselves to stinky particles to make them non-stinky.


Making curry potatoes and having a bit a fun with my camera.


Cat in the box.