32 million

For some reason I did not post this last year (April 2015). I must have been pulled away...

Needless to say, in Tokyo, there are people everywhere. I believe you'd be hard pressed to have any alone time if you were outside, ever.

I was in Tokyo to visit my cousin who I had not seen since I was 11 & she was 8 years old (or so we think). So.... a long time ago. It was great to visit with her & it was great to meet her husband.

We did quite a bit in a week, there's no question. I know there is so much more to see. Aside from Tokyo, we spent time in Kyoto & I went to Kamakura  on my own one day. They don't actually live in Tokyo proper but in Kawasaki.

This image is of Shibuya crossing in Tokyo. My cousin and I were looking at it from Starbucks (which is on the second level of the building). It was the oddest thing, one of the employees there kept insisting that it was somehow illegal to take photos from there since we didn't have anyone's consent. You've got to be kidding! Of course, the Aries in me won't have any of that, and told him it was totally "legal" since you cannot make out anyone's face - especially the photo I took. (Okay, that may be wrong but I'm not selling the image, so who cares?!)

I set my camera to a long exposure to get the blur. It was a fun experiment. I don't do it very often.

this will be quick

A recent work project is complete. Since I was there in the evening for a lighting meeting, I used it as my photo of the day. I will have more of this space in future posts.

The client is very happy with this space. Can you believe it's a bank? 

looking around

Since I was at home and had no plans to go anywhere to take my photo (this may be a common occurrence in the future, I'm thinking...) and I still had some flowers I hadn't shot yet, I chose the tulips.

As most people know who buy tulips for their home, tulips droop - pretty much always. Well there is a very cool way to prevent this behaviour in your tulips. As soon as you get them, use a sharp needle and push it through the stem, approximately an inch below the flower bloom. Apparently it works for gerberas also. Do not leave the needle in the stem! The holes allow air to escape.

With all this being said, I clearly waited too long and my tulips drooped, not all of them but some did. In the image below, I have captured the downward facing tulip and its vase in the background, out of focus - which I like.

This next image is the same tulip, closer. I do love my macro lens...

this may take awhile

I was out for a bite to eat with a friend of mine who mentioned he needed a current photo of himself for LinkedIn and Facebook. Perfect! My photo of the day.
We took a few shots (all outside the restaurant). I hope he was happy with them.

I'm not sure which one I like better... the black background?

colour!

My favourite flowers are gerbera daisies - as I'm sure I've mentioned in my past posts. I had some people over for Easter dinner and instead of wine, I casually suggested they bring flowers, you know, to brighten up the place.

I ended up receiving both gerbera daisies and tulips! Flowers are perfect photograph subjects, they don't move. 

I started taking images of the gerberas.

Since I liked the composition, I moved on to the tulips.

THEN, I realized that the first image was not in focus. Maybe I will learn to stop hand holding my camera...

Then, yellow! We all know how much I love yellow.

This last image is on my desk top at the office. I put it up because we (in Calgary) were having a rather bleak week, weather-wise. We were all looking for sunshine and it was perfect way to brighten things up.

rock

Okay, so day two and I wasn't anywhere interesting so I start to look around my house...

When I was in Thunder Bay last, I went to the amethyst mine. I considered taking my macro lens with me but then I realized I can take the photos when I get home - travel light, for goodness sakes!

I bought two amethysts gem stones and this is the the one that rests on my coffee table. It has white, pink and purple tones in it. It truly is beautiful.

"the time has come" the walrus said...

It seems I need a project every year and it's been quite sometime since I have taken on a creative one. Now is that time.
Back in 2010, I chose to be creative everyday for a year. All around, it turned out rather well but, I have to admit, that there were times that I simply did not know what to do. Obviously I managed but I cannot say it was an easy task.
This time, I made it simpler for myself - take photograph everyday for a year. That sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Someone said I can take an image of basically anything I want during this project and that may be true, to a certain extent, but I do not see that as the point of this project. Although, since I started taking photos Easter weekend this year (2016), I have definitely used that point a few times already. Ultimately though, I want to learn something from this journey. What? Time will tell.

This first post of 2016 will be of my images of Easter weekend.
I was with a friend of mine downtown Calgary. We initially started at the Devonian Gardens but there wasn't anything interesting to shoot there so we moved on.
Where I had the most fun was at the "The Family of Man" as well as The Bow (the building not the river), downtown Calgary. We started at The Bow so I will post those first.

This is really the classic shot in many ways - looking up the nose (if you will).


This is likely another classic shot - one that has been taken a million times...

This one is from a different point of view and to be honest, I like it!

From here I moved on and my friend left. I walked over the the Family of Man (which is a block away from the Bow). The first one is as though this fellow is giving the Bow a hug.


It is surprising what you see when you LOOK.

And of course, because I saw this, I went back to the Bow....

I believe that is enough for my first photo (singular) of the year. It was a fun afternoon! Great to have my camera out.

PS I'm going to do my best to limit the number of photos I post; this may be tough on days when I have a subject I like yet easy on days when I'm constantly looking around for inspiration.