The Dress Rehearsal

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Part of the satisfaction I get out of joining a camera club is forcing yourself outside of your comfort zone, and learning new techniques.  The Richmond Hill Camera Club has an annual photoessay competition.  Photoessays are a series of photographs compiled together, usually accompanied by a piece of music.  The goal is to tell a story with these images.  The music is also very important, as this sets the pace, and keeps the viewers interested.

Another thing that I have been interested in is time lapse photography.  A time-lapse is a series of photographs stitched together in a movie format.  There are many technical issues to resolve to accomplish this in a seamless fashion.  Shoot on a tripod, manual settings, manual focus.  That was the easy part... some 1,600 images later, then came the problem of putting it all together, and finding the right piece of music.

Sometimes the planets line up, and it all comes together nicely.

Here is my photoessay, called "The Dress Rehearsal":



As most of you know, Mary Ann has gotten involved with the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra as their Treasurer.  When I was thinking of a subject for a time-lapse, this seemed like a natural.  After asking permission to photograph the rehearsal, I was ready to try it.

I was thrilled with the end result.  In fact, this photoessay won the annual RHCC photoessay competition.  Not only that, the conductor of the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra liked the time-lapse so much, it was added to their website.

I'm sure there will be a few more of these in my future, given the right topic...

If you are reading this blog for the first time, don't forget to review the archives at the right side for earlier entries. And feel free to add a comment, as well as share this blog with your friends. If you have not already done so, please enter your email address in the "Follow my Blog by Email" box on the right hand side. It will be much easier for me to stay in touch with you. If you don't see a signup box on the right side, then click on the blog heading and that should take you to a webpage with better graphics. You should then see the signup box on the right side.  If you have trouble signing up, send me an email at mark.girard@rogers.com.

Thanks for reading...

Mark

Creativity???

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Life of an accountant is tough this time of year.  I should have blogged an entry much sooner than this.  The last entry was our Florida trip back in January!  Sorry about that.

As most of you know, I am active within the Richmond Hill Camera Club, in fact, I'm the President this year.  Maybe that's another reason for not blogging sooner!  One aspect of the camera club that I really enjoy is participating in club competitions.  A perennial favourite is the Creative competition.  Creativity can mean many different things.  In this competitions, however, creative means "altered reality" or something you would not see in real life. And heavy Photoshop processing is a must.

Here are a couple examples of images I have entered in this category over the last few years, and have scored pretty well:

Title: "You did have to buy Big Glass, didn't you?" - special thanks to Mary Ann for being my model on this one.

Title: "The Wings of Man" - yes that's Jeff on Maho Beach, St. Marteen.

And my personal favourite:

Title: "A Dozen Egghead Friends" - see how many of my kids and friends you recognize!

A more common description of creativity is seeing something in a different, or unusual way.  This can happen when you least expect it, and you have to keep an open mind.  Some examples that I have caught are:

Recognize this image?  It is a wooden staircase at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  Very popular with the photography crowd. But the creative aspect is that this was shot from the top, looking downward.  The normal view of this staircase is to shoot it from the bottom looking upward.

 This is a parking garage in Glasgow.  Very interesting lines, curves and patterns.

This one is much more abstract.  A family wedding we attended was the event, the ladies dancing was the focus of the image.  I love the slow shutter speed and the primary colours, nobody else liked it, but that's art...

Now that my busy season is coming to an end (I hope), I will blog more frequently...

If you are reading this blog for the first time, don't forget to review the archives at the right side for earlier entries. And feel free to add a comment, as well as share this blog with your friends. If you have not already done so, please enter your email address in the "Follow my Blog by Email" box on the right hand side. It will be much easier for me to stay in touch with you. If you don't see a signup box on the right side, then click on the blog heading and that should take you to a webpage with better graphics. You should then see the signup box on the right side.  If you have trouble signing up, send me an email at mark.girard@rogers.com.

Thanks for reading...

Mark