Travel Bound

Well, here I sit thinking about where I'm off to in a few short hours. The picture to the left is indeed your clue to where I'm off to.

As I was getting things packed I was trying to make sure I had everything that I needed and wanted. After all was said and done I almost forgot one thing that was very important. My travel journal. As I have written before the travel journal is a very important book to take with you when travelling. Here is where I put everything from who we visited to the weather and then if I've done something really special photography wise I'll also write down camera settings, so I'll have this information for later. I also keep this information in one place so that whether I'm doing a write up in my scrapbook of my journeys or need to look something up I'm not having to hunt around for this information.

The other things I was trying to make sure I had with me was an extra memory card and batteries. It's always a good idea to carry extras just in case. For example batteries are a big thing - without them the camera is about a 5lb dead weight in your backback (at least my digital SLR would be). This can be very frustrating if you run out of power and miss something spectacular. Not to mention when travelling abroad the cost of said batteries can very, but you can be rest assured that they'll most likely be more expensive than from home.

Now when it comes to the extra memory cards you may want to look into having at least one more than you plan on using while travelling. I read somewhere that it was recommended to have a few smaller size cards vs one really large one like a 2GB. The reasoning was that if one card fizzled for some reason you still had another one to fall back on and could still download and burn to a disk and then take more. If you had a large one like said 2GB and it fizzled thats 2GB of unusable memory. This would also depend I think on how far you were traveling as to whether or not it would make a huge difference. Like batteries if you were to buy another card while traveling it could very well be more expensive than home so I guess what I'm recommending is to take the time and have what you need before you leave so you can enjoy your travels to the fullest.

So I'm off on my travels and will of course be bringing back a pocket full of memories as well as some images that will be great of the sites and scenes of England. I'll catch everyone up when I get back. Who knows maybe I'll come back with a good lesson to share too - you never know.

So What's So Special About This Picture??

So what is so special about this photo? Where do I start?

As I have mentioned in a previous post I carry my camera almost everywhere I go. Canada Day at Fort Edmonton Park (they call it Dominion Day down there) was no different. At the park there is always something going on and this day was no different. What made it super special was that it was marking a national holiday; so there were more people visiting than on a normal summer day. This gave me the perfect opportunity to get quite a few exposures of people dressed in period costume doing what people of the day would have been doing. What a great opportunity to practice some of the things learned and to experiment a little too.

I took quite a few photos in the park that day, but what makes this one stand out I think is the contrast of the modes of transportation. Both are from different eras, but found together in this one moment. Then to add to the mood I changed this to a black and white photo and added a slight tint to give it that nostalgic feel.

I really like my picture. The reason I took up photography in the first place was to see if I could produce pictures to display on my wall that looked like ones I saw in books, magazines or maybe even some of the calendars I've looked at and liked. What I didn't realize until I was creating my own images though was how passionate I was about photography. It was something that started off small and grew. Now I can say," I did that..." when someone asks about some of the photos on my wall.

But you know it even gets better for me now. Can you guess why? Let me tell you. About a couple of months ago I entered this very picture into a photography contest with Pictures.com. I didn't think anything would come of it, but thought what the heck lets try. I had almost forgotten about it and I hadn't told Hendrick about it either. Then what comes in the mail this week, but a letter from the International Library of Photography ( the underwriters of Pictures.com) stating that they felt that this photo was "artistically done" and would like to include it for publishing in their up coming coffee table book that they produce every year. I don't have to tell you how excited I was when Hendrick read the letter to me on the phone. It really made my day. Now I can say not only did I produce this photo, but also it is published in a international publication. It is grand to be recognized in this way, and it has helped me with a possible direction to focus more on. But, it has also taught me to continue to pursue and work on improving my art.So today I would like to also encourage you to also keep pursueing and improving on your art too.

Thanks for reading :)

And the Answer is...

If you remember about two weeks ago I said that I would tell you which picture my young friend liked. He liked the frosted mountain ash berries. Something about thinking the frosted look was cool (no pun intended).

This leads me to my topic for this week. The topic is how everything in the artistic world photography included is prone to being liked or disliked depending on who the viewing audience is. It will also depend on the criteria they are looking for (in other words is it typically a subject matter or style that they gravitate to?) or there mood. So were does this leave us? Well for me I'm left with constantly having to make a choice.

Choice 1: Specialize in a specific market and not really take anything else. This option tends to be what a lot of wedding photographers will take. This is because these pictures are literally their bread and butter. So they will take the time to find out what the customer is buying and focus on those types of photos. This can be dangerous as you can eventually get board of taking the same classic shots at every event. But I guess that would be a possible sacrifice some are willing to take if it pays the bills.

Choice 2: Take a variety of different types and styles. Going where your mood takes you can be fun and maybe a bit freeing. However, it sometimes doesn't give a lot of time to get really good at any particular type or style of photography.

Choice 3: To give yourself the stability with choice 1 but give yourself some time to experiment like in choice 2. Who knows maybe you'll find yourself a new style. You see if one doesn't take the time once in a while to try new things they may never know if they can be better in another area or not. Besides choice 1 will only go so far if you don't keep up with the current trends.

So where does this leave someone like me? Well it may sound a little cynical but there will always be someone out there critiquing my work. So I choose regularly to not take the critique too much to heart as there will almost always be someone else down the road who will like something better than my own worst critic... me.