Junior Associate Director

Junior Associate Director - #354/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

It was Take Our Kids to Work Day today in Ontario for grade 9 students. I embraced the idea and had quite a full day planned for my son and I. We had a few conference calls, a technical and company primer, a PowerPoint review to prepare for a meeting, a business lunch with customers, a visit to one of my customer's offices, lots of emails, a prospecting phone call, some travel arrangements and of course, after-work drinks. My son said he really enjoyed the day and liked my work environment. He now says he's interested in marketing !

I had my son try a few different poses and I centered him in the frame on most shots. I liked the casual pose the best as it seemed more natural, but I did crop and straighten a little to omit the dull wall on the right, but wanted to include one wall to provide some context. As he's looking left, I thought a little off centre to the right worked. I liked having the big city print (a shot I took about 25 years ago) in the frame and I like the continued reflection. I used slow sync flash to keep some of the late afternoon natural light.

But what makes the shot for me is the confident pose and the look on his face. He's becoming quite a good model for my endless family and creative personal shots. I think he learnt something today.

Ryerson flowers and garbage

Ryerson flowers and garbage - wrecked landscape #21 and daily photo #353/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

I created a small project called Wrecked Landscapes a while ago and when I saw this today at Ryerson University I thought it would be a good addition. So, the groundskeepers go to all this trouble to make the campus look nice with flowers and shrubs, so which department decided to put the big garbage can right next to the flowers ? And like so many garbage cans downtown, are overflowing garbage cans a sign of our wasteful ways or an understaffed or lazy maintenance department ?

I took a few shots, flip-flopping on whether to have the garbage in focus or not and a student walks into the frame and is talking on his cell phone and looking at the same scene. He there's long enough for me to frame the shot and before he leaves he uses his phone to take a picture of the same scene ! Was he thinking the same as me or just curious what I was so interested in ? He then turned and entered the building so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.

I recently read on Digital Photography School about multi-layered photography and thought this was a great example. There is the foreground image, it's connection to the garbage and then you have the student's story.

Grosvenor after work glow

Grosvenor after work glow - #352/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

I took a little detour on the way home as the November early evening light was quickly fading. I haven't shot much architecture recently, and I hadn't noticed this building before. I thought the trees and the interior curved lighting was a nice mix with the architecture perspective and symmetry formula. I used the in-camera vivid image optimization setting to give the contrast, sharpness and colour and good boost.

First ultimate point

First real ultimate point - #351/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

My son catches the winning point in his first real ultimate game - I'm not handing over the reins just yet, but thrilled I got to play our first father-son ultimate game. If you look closely you can see the disk is upside down  - catching a hammer, even better !

As my 18-200mm VR lens is with Nikon service at the moment, I had to pull out the my old 70-300mm G lens. Focusing is a slower, but in bright conditions it still can capture a good shot now and again. I trimmed the shot in-camera to frame the shot better which also did a perfect job of cropping out some distracting objects from the shot, leaving the nice fall foliage as a background.

Hey man, I didn't touch that record !

Hey man, I didn't touch that record ! - #350/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

Kooper has been a little bit of a handful recently and has taken a strong liking to my old outdoor speaker for the last few days. Well the speaker really didn't have any business being exposed to the elements for all these years, but it definitely wasn't ready for a canine attack. Although speakers haven't changed much over the years (this home-assembled one I bought from a friend over 15 years ago), many people don't have traditional speakers in their home anymore - that's a long way of saying the beat up speaker looked a little retro. So I thought an old record would be a nice prop for the shot.

I was using treats to get Kooper to work a few different poses (you can see a treat on top of the speaker) and decided the annoyed face shot was pretty funny and a contrast to his calm look. I almost captured a shot with the record in his mouth, but he was losing his patience.

I had the camera on a tripod set for multi-zone focusing and used f6.3 have a reasonable depth-of-field. I had a remote release in my hand. The only thing I kept forgetting was waiting for the flash to charge before firing another test shot.

Fire and ashes

Fire and ashes - #349/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

The weather has been turning a little cold this weekend, but we're resisting turning on the heat, so I thought a wood fire would add some festive heat for our Saturday night dinner. I've tried to take shots of fire a few times in the past and it is quite difficult to capture the colours and dynamics of the flames. This was much later in the evening when a lot of ash had formed undisturbed on the grate which I think adds some unusual texture.

I shot this hand held at 1/30th second and was pretty close to the fire (enough to feel my cheeks burning). The shot looks a little closer because I trimmed the shot in-camera. I also used a grey card to set the white balance properly (careful not to burn the card!).

What the big secret, Victoria ?

What the big secret, Victoria ? - #348/365, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

I heard yesterday that a couple of Angel models from Victoria Secret would be making an appearance today. So I came to the office armed with my best camera gear hoping to look like a pro photog worthy of a smile. The show has moved inside from yesterday and security and photo policies are pretty strict. The ladies will be in person from 5-7pm tonight, but there's a strict no photo policy, so it's highly unlikely you'll see a shot of the Angels here. I'm not exactly certain what all these line ups are for, but I thought I'd grab a shot from the third floor. I managed to snap this one before security told me there was no photography for the event - wow, that's strict - one floor up and outside the store !

As I only had time to grab this one shot, I took the liberty of straightening it a little and making a slight crop to bring the poster into the centre.