Halloween costume!

Yeah that's right, I went as a double rainbow. And for the many who don't get it, take a look here. But yeah, I was honestly a little disappointed that so few people got it. Apparently 18 million people isn't all that much. And in fact, it's not. It's just that when you hang around the internet for too long, you start to think that you're surrounded by like minded people in real life. Gott watch out for that lol.

Life Saver

We live in a damn convenient world. I'm planning on heading out to Vancouver tomorrow, and I would be completely lost without Google. I mean I first looked up the store location, hours, and phone number form their website. Then I just punched in start and stop locations. Done. Coming from a guy who doesn't venture into Vancouver all that often, this is just magical. I know I sometimes talk about the amazing powers of community, knowledge, and communication that is the internet, but other times it's just really useful.

I'm watching you...

With Halloween coming up, I'm seeing more and more decorations everywhere I go.This little guy was actually on our window, and I only noticed it as I was snooping around the house late at night lol. But yeah, I am looking forward to this weekend. It's one of the few times that everyone can be whatever they want to be. I'm always amazed by the amount of detail and dedication that some people put into their outfits. Just imagine sitttin there in like, July, planning an elaborate Halloween costume. I wish I had that kind of patience lol

After Party

So today I came home from that band concert and had some fun with some visitors from Japan. We talked, ate and had a good time all together. Oh and yeah, the concert was awesome too lol. But yeah, I just love socializing with people after concerts. There's a certain energy and liveliness that comes after any performance. Might as well enjoy it, right?

Baby Steps

So today I got my hands on this storage unit...thingy. I'm very bad at describing it lol. Anyways, it just has these drawers that you can put stuff in. Doesn't sound all that exciting, but my room has been a total mess for the past few weeks, and this is going to save my life. I've still got heaps of work to do, but this is a start. Honestly I've never been so excited about cleaning in my whole life haha.

On a side note, I'm noticing that I haven't really taken any "good" photos recently, but I'm working on that. I'm hoping to do another little project or something real soon, so stay tuned for that :D

Just Crumbs

I had a plate of cookies earlier, and I thought this would be an interesting way to describe what I'm feeling. See, I was eating these cookies, and before I knew it, they were all gone.

Now as much as I'm trying to get out of the habit of wasting my day away on the computer, I still spend a fair amount of time on it. Well this morning I was on Reddit for a couple hours and went downstairs for a bite to eat. Thing is, I couldn't remember a single thing about what I had been looking at over the past few hours. Wtf! I think this is just more reason for me to get away from the computer. Seriously, this is some messed up shit.

Hmmm

I've never been a huge fan of scrambled eggs, but I think it's just cause I never really got all that good at making them. I was recently shown a recipe which included creme fraiche (not gunna bother trying to find the right spelling lol). I did a bit of Google-ing to find out a little about this mysterious substance, and man those scrambled eggs were awesome! I can't say for sure if it was because of the creme fraiche, but I'll definitely going to have to try this on other things too.

Flare-tastic

So as I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to get into the habit of sleeping earlier and waking up earlier. One technique I'm trying is dimming my room before sleeping. Now I can't really dim the lights individually, but I can decrease the number of lights that are on. While I was doing this, I noticed that I could probably get some sweet lens flare using one of these lights, and I was right. So I took the photo, and now I'm here. Anyways, I really should get going to bed lol

Snooze Button: friend or foe?

I am not a morning person, but I'm thinking I'd like to be. For the past 2 months, my life has consisted of work here and there. Thing is that it's not like I work 9-5 everyday, I'm all over the place. Often times, I'll start at 11am, so I'll get up around 9:30 or 10. I'll get ready, and then I'll be off to work. But what if I could get up at say 6 or 7. Imagine all the work that could be done before work. It would greatly expand my day. The only thing I need to worry about it getting to sleep on time in order to get up nice and early. And that's just another bad habit I should break out of. I'll often stay up until 2 or 3 looking at random, pointless crap on the internet. And because of that I'll sleep in until like 10. And then it just repeats over and over.

I'm thinking I wanna stop wasting time at night, and start living my life more in the mornings. So I guess I can't just hit the snooze button and fall back asleep right? lol

Well, I feel out of place

So I've got another photo here from yesterday's adventure to Central Park. I saw that one seagull alone amongst dozens of ducks and geese. But it was kinda cool though, just chillin there like nothing else mattered. I'm thinking it would be nice for one day, to just live life without caring AT ALL about ANYTHING. Now imagine if everyone in the world did that at the same time. At first you'd think that chaos would ensue, but think for a sec. If nobody cares about anything, what's there to be concerned about? Nothing. Nothing happens, and nobody cares. Scary thought eh?

Friendly

So today I went out to Central Park in Burnaby for the first time in years. I gotta say, it was a tid bit chilly, but it was freakin beautiful. All the trees were just so vibrant with colours. Better yet was the ride there on the skytrain. If you consider the amazing view of Vancouver you can get on a ride, it's one heck of a deal. And best of all, the squirrels were all super friendly. I've never been able to get so close to a squirrel before. At some points I thought they were going to just jump all over me lol

Shameless Plug

So yeah, I'm performing with a band next week. I joined this band just this year, and it's been a total blast. My father can be a bit of a lunatic at times, but it's all good. I got a pretty sweet costume so I'm excited about that. I'm hoping to see some really sweet costumes there too. Anyways, if you want something to do on Thursday night next week, come over to Cap and you'll have yourself a fantabulous time lol

Late night jam

So tonight I came downstairs tonight to find my brother jammin out on the keyboard. Mind you this was pretty late so it's just so much more entertaining. Best part of all is that he usually just plays songs he hears throughout the day, like songs from the weather network, video games, etc. I'm far too inexperienced to play the kinds of stuff he does....drunk lol. But yeah, just thought I'd share this photo here. Looking at it just reminds me that some of the most fun times in life are just the random moments late at night

Wooooaaahhh

So tonight I tried out this face scrub stuff, and it's sooooo awesome! My face just feels soooo incredibly smooth and just wow. I can't believe I didn't find this sooner. I'm sure some super macho guy would laugh at me, but I really don't care, like at all. I'm just feeling like nothing can take me down lol

Hells yea

So I was introduced to Banana Nut Cheerios recently by a good friend of mine. They are absolutely amazing! It's been a while since I've been this excited about a kind of cereal. I think the best part of all is that they remind me of the taste of Banana flavored Quaker granola bars. I loved those as a kid, and I haven't had them in years. I've been looking, but I'm thinking that they were discontinued :(

But yeah, I just thought it was really cool how eating this cereal brought back such a vivid memory. Funny how our brains work eh?

Idea!

So I've been thinking, and where do ideas come from? I mean think about it, very few things in our world are truly original. Most things are just combinations of things we've seen in our own lives. Sure, eventually we will find progress through new ideas, but it takes a lot of time. I'm just thinking about how much more advanced we could be if we could all come up with original ideas. I don't think I can say that I've ever come up with anything fully original. There's always that inspiration or relatedness to something else.

Now with that in mind, think about all the people who have come up with original ideas. They've all been regarded very highly for the most part. I'm not saying that we should strive to innovate for the sake of fame and recognition. I'm just saying that innovative thinking brings about great results.

So get out there, and think crazy things. Don't listen to anyone who says otherwise. If we don't, we'll never have hoverboards lol

Gaaaaaa colours!!!

So first off, this image has not been manipulated in any way. I just used my wide angle lens to exaggerate certain features. But yeah, when I look at this photo I just feel this overwhelming wall of colour towering over me. I don't really know how else to describe it...should've sent a poet hahaha. Nah but in all seriousness, it was freakin beautiful. Though I had to work for most of the day, it made me very happy to be able to see all of this in the morning.

Light tent!

Wooooo! So today I put together that light tent I talked about before. Honestly it wasn't all that difficult to put together. I mean, I did have a little help from my mother though lol. But yeah, it works pretty well. I'm still working on finding the absolute best combination of lights, camera angles, use lol

From lime to...?

So I took this photo a few days ago at a friend's house and never had the chance to upload it here. Although they all differ in colour, they are all limes. Yea, limes. Pretty crazy stuff. I just thought it was kinda neat how they all seemed gradually show the change from green to yellow. We actually ended up opening one of them up and it tasted just like a lime lol

Guppie!

So a little while back I got myself this little multi tool, and it has been very useful thus far. It's got a knife, wrench, screwdriver, carabiner, and bottle opener. I could go on and on about the knife, but more importantly I wanna talk about the photo. Looking through the photos I've posted on this blog, I'm noticing a lot of little things. You know, phones, keys, food, etc. I'd really like to put together a light box for shooting these kinds of things. I'll be sure to post some photos if I ever get around to doing it haha

Personal Style vs Routine

So today I shot a few photos for a good friend. The weather wasn't fantastic, but in the end I came up with a few usable photos. What surprised me today was how little time it took to edit the photos. Usually it takes me quite some time to figure out what'll make the photo look the best that it can. But today I just did stuff without thinking too much. I guess I must be getting used to this. But it also made me realize that I think I need some more techniques when it comes to editing. I'm very satisfied with the end results today, but I'm thinking I need to expand my repertoire of editing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So today I had to work from 4-9 so I thought that I was going to miss out on Thanksgiving dinner, Wrong. Turns out the family was cool with moving the dinner back to the late evening. It was freakin awesome! The turkey was done perfectly, and all the veggies were just excellent too. Everyone remembers in elementary school where you had to write about what you're thankful for. Well today, I am legitimately thankful for everything in my life. For family, friends, my job, just everything.

Woah

This is a shot I've wanted to do for quite some time, but I wasn't quite sure about how I was gunna do it. See, our medicine cabinet has these mirrors that move around. I stuck my camera in between the mirrors with my wide angle lens and came up with some crazy results. I'd almost consider this to be somewhat abstract, but I like that there are still relatable elements to it. There's just something so intriguing about that symmetry

Bring the rain

I had a great day today. Having the day off from work allowed me to run some random errands here and there. On my way home from a friend's house tonight, it was absolutely pouring. But you what, it really didn't bother me. Sure, it was a tad inconvenient but at the same time it was just really refreshing. This just feels like North Vancouver now.

Up and Down

Perspective is an interesting thing. A lot of the time, it's just an afterthought. I mean, you just hold your camera up and shoot. So today I decided to make it the main focus. If you look at the photo on the bottom, that's close to how a child may see the world. And then if you look at the top photo, that's how a super duper tall person may see the world. I'm sure both must have their advantages and such. But yeah, just thought that it was kinda neat lol

Content vs composition

This is something that I've been looking into recently. That book I'm reading continues to inspire and teach me things I would've never considered. I've also been reading through many photography threads on Reddit. Overall, it seems like if the subject matter is interesting enough by itself, it won't matter how the shot is taken. If you see something really cool happening and you take a quick pic with your iPhone, that's fine. You then show your friends and they're all amazed and impressed. That's fine.

Where difficulty arises is when a photographer tries to capture interest in boring subject matter. This is where composition becomes absolutely critical. This is also where photography becomes an art, not just a record of events. The photographer must create an image, not just shoot something. Can't believe how long it took me to finally start to understand how this all works lol

Portals

So this evening I tried experimenting with mirrors and my Macbook. See, I had my camera set up on a tripod, which was connected to my Macbook. The only thing that would've made this a little easier would be some more light. But other than that, it was quite fun lol. I'll hafta try out some more if I wanna get some self portraits going

Details

I've never been very much into this style of editing but I thought I'd give it a try. I figured that since my composition was very simple and straight forward, I might as well excentuate it in post. As I mentioned before, I started reading this book and it is just absolutely fascinating. In all honesty, I've gone through some photography books without remembering a single line. But this one just keeps me interested the whole time. It's pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. I've got the day off tomorrow so I'll be sure to get a lot more reading done :D

Wooooaaaahhh

Not gunna lie, I didn't do much today. Came home from church, had lunch, then worked from 1-9. So I decided to put up a photo I took recently. Everything about this photo is done in the initial exposure, not in post processing. Basically I just turned the camera during a long exposure in order to get that circular kinda look. It almost reminds me of like a double exposure in terms of film.

Group shot!

Lately I've found that group shots are my favourite kinds of photos to take. The whole process from start to finish is just tons of fun. You gotta have your basics of exposure all set. Then you gotta place everybody in the right place, so that the whole frame is filled. Next you gotta plan out where you're gunna go in the photo. Next you need to find a way to keep your camera steady (for this shot, I wrapped the neck strap around some coat hangers lol). And lastly, you must get to your destination within the given time limit. In this case, I kinda failed since my pocket got caught on one of the coat hangers on my way there. This resulted in a head to head collision with a certain someone writhing in pain. I just managed to force a smile haha

Waterskimmer

You may want to click the photo to get a better look at this little guy. It feels unusual to have this much nice weather around this time of year. It's awesome, but I feel like it should be raining. Anyways, I started thinking while I was editing this photo. I feel like I'm more experienced with shooting in landscape orientation, i.e. shooting normally, not sideways. As a photographer, one should always be considering things like the rule of thirds or the golden ratio. But I find it harder to compose my photos in portrait orientation. Even in editing, I wasn't quite sure if/how much I should crop this photo.

I've been reading this photography book recently, and one thing that stood out to me was that everything in your frame is there or not there on purpose. Basically he said that all aspects of the photo should have purpose. When it comes to nature photography, you basically have all the time in the world to compose your shot. In contrast to event/sport photography, this is a good thing. However, it also means that there's no excuse for poor composition in a nature/still life photo.