Bee Macro Goodness

Man, have I been inactive on here? Well, here's some new photos I shot last week. I'm honestly not much of a bee person, so when I was invited to shoot them I was definitely not expecting to see such a huge diversity of bees from here in Saskatchewan. Still, you learn something new every day! Enjoy!

June 24 Photo Excursion

Two weekends ago a friend and I went on another photo excursion though, unlike previous excursions this one actually had something of a purpose. Mostly of excursions are purely for the fun of photography and while this one was still with the same intent it was also to get photos of his local neighbourhood. And to get photos of powerlines. Yes, powerlines. So, invariably, we had some very inspiring shots emerge!





Anyweather, with the powerline photos out of the way, we moved onto the more standard RixelStudios fare... Flowers, landscapes and the (different) stuctures indicative of civilization!







A few photos I fiddled with to make them more pleasing (in my minds eye) and the above bench is one of the more glaring examples of this. Believe it or not I didn't initially take that photo in black and white. Though I'm sure I could have if I actually wanted to go get a film camera, black and white film, develop it manually, then scan the resulting image. Fortunately things like Photoshop exist today which eliminates a lot of those steps for me!

Now, simplistically, the photographers job always remains the same: to take amazing images. In the current digital age this goal is still the same. The difference is that now we have the ability to take an average image, remove the ugly aspects easily, and make it a good, great or amazing image through digital processing. However, everyone and their dog knows you can do this (even if they don't know how) so the trick then becomes to do so in such a subtle way that, for the average layman, they either don't question the authenticity of the photo or don't do so openly. Or, alternatively, if they do they are completely wrong and it wasn't manipulated to get that result. The latter is what we all aim for but only the fool doesn't take advantage of the tools he has in his arsenal.













And that's that for now, so we'll see you next time!

Photo Phriday!

Unfortunately when you're not home six days out of seven for more then enough time to cook dinner and go to bed you don't get a lot of photo editing done.. here's a Flower Macro to (hopefully) tide you over!

SLAGG Saskatoon Blitz

I went to an anime convention this past weekend and, not too coincedentally, I brought my camera with me. The result was a lot more fun photos then seriously artistic or professional quality ones but that was perfectly fine with me because I had a great time while there!

Anyweather, below are a small sampling of the photos I took while there.

Photo Excursion Week (II) - Photo Phriday!

Nature Week - Day Five

Photo Phriday!

I honestly could've posted more women's soccer photos for Photo Phriday but I figured you had seen enough of those for the moment. We'll see what happens next week but, for the moment, enjoy this lovely macro of what my wife is sure is a weed!

Urban Week - Day Four

Chess Week - Photo Phriday!

The Knight.

Chess Week - Day Five

Oh noes! Ze King is under threat from an opposing knight! Woe unto him!

Photo Phriday!

I've really been deviating from my weekly themes in Photo Phriday haven't I? Eh, that's alright. No one I know has ever complained at seeing photos of flowers!

Macro Week (II) - Day Thirteen

In the Top Five for my favourite photos (that I've taken) at the moment. Also really deserves a colour label, doesn't it?

Macro Week (II) - Day Twelve

This lovely photo falls into the category of "I like this photo but I'm not happy with it". It was a lamp post out by an old abandoned farm that Corey and I went out scouting a while back and I felt strong potential for this photo. I still do feel strong potential for it, actually, which is part of the reason I like it but looking at it I know in my gut it hasn't reached that full potential yet. Of course, if my gut instinct was always right then I'd probably be uber-rich in the stock markets.. so who knows!

Macro Week (II) - Day Eleven

Macro Week (II) - Day Ten

Ah, Risk. Has there ever been a better multiplayer game?

Macro Week (II) - Day Nine

Dare I start labelling by major identifying colours? 'Cause this photo is pretty darned red...

Macro Week (II) - Day Eight

Flora Week (II) - Day Thirteen

Just a flower, how droll.

Flora Week (II) - Day Eleven

Lo, the beginning of November! And what better way to mark this occasion then with another lovely reminder of spring, a period many months off from now. Geez, if this is the entry you first get introduced to my blog with, you'll probably never come back because of my horrible reminder eh? Well, we'll just hope the rest of you stay despite my evil-ness.

Random Inanimate Object Week - Day Four

The thing with random inanimate objects is, at least for me, a lot of them tend to be boring at least on the large scale. Ergo, as luck would have it, this is also practically a macro week except not quite as not all of these shots are macro. They're random after all. Well, even then not random because then I would have to be random and, let's face it, I'm pretty predictable. But the heart of the idea is there, even if it doesn't work in practice. And besides, who doesn't like looking at more macro photo anyweather?

Oh... just for clarification, yes at one point this wasn't inanimate but, judging by the rust on it, it is very much inanimate now. So YAY for technicalities!