LATE POSTING

It has been a long time since my last posting. This week has been quite busy, so I did not get a chance to go out and take pictures. I am working on a few other projects. I made this image a few weeks ago and I love the rhythm of the red and green patterns. It reminded me of Paul Klee's theories on music and abstract art.

FIRST SNOW

Today we received our first big snowfall of the Winter season. We made a little tour but at times the snow squalls made driving quite tricky especially on the country roads. I did manage to get this picture which looked like an old pen and ink drawing.

TWO BARNS

I took this picture a little earlier in the week. The two barns show character,so I immediately thought of black and white. Mind you it will work in colour but I will have to explore this landscape further after a first snowfall. So I will be going back there to hopefully get some more interesting images.

EARLY WINTER LANDSCAPE, BONFIELD

This morning I made alittle trip to the Bonfield area. We received a dusting of snow but actually not enough to get some nice early Winter images. The sky was overcast but later in the morning the sun started to appear and just when I passed this landscape the sun put a "spotlight" on the birches and fields. Again I preferred the black and white interpretation over the original colour rendition.

QUARRY

Another picture of my photo excursion to the quary. I like this image because its quite dramatic especially the black and white rendition.

QUARRY NEAR ASTORVILLE, ONTARIO

Yesterday, it was a beautiful warm late Fall day. So I went on a little photo tour to a stone quarry near Astorville. The strong textured shapes of the boulders, which reminded me of the prehistoric stone circles in Europe but also of the great sculptures of Henry Moore. I did get a few excellent images from this trip, which I will post the next time.

CURVES, WATERFRONT, NORTH BAY

This morning I downloaded the beta version of the new onOne software Normally I don't like to advertise products on my blog but I know that people are interested what software I used. The final result of this picture reminds me of the black and white photographs of the British photographer Bill Brand, who is one of my favourite photographers.

REMEMBERING HITCHCOCK

Last week, walking past this house, I thought about the Film Noir movies of the forties and fifties. I especially enjoy the films made by Alfred Hitchcock, even though he was not strictly a Film Noir director. Anyway when I reviewed my pictures I took last week, I remembered the old Film Noir movies and felt that the image reflected the photographic style of these very popular movies.

ABSTRACT, McINTYRE STREET

Today was a typical grey November day, so I decided to post a picture I took a few days ago of some graffiti on McIntyre Street here in North bay. I liked the bright red painted line contrasting with the crack in the wall. In this series of abstract images I concentrated on photographing closeups rather than the full graffiti.

NOVEMBER, LAKE NIPISSING

Another image from yesterdays photo walk. I like very almost minimalist composition but pictures which reflect the mood and atmosphere of the season.

FIRST SNOWFALL, NOVEMBER 2013

All the renovations are finally done. So today I took some time to take some early Winter pictures. Here is an image of one of my favourite spots along the shores of Lake Nipissing. I was quite happy with some of the images I made early this afternoon.

MILLER BLOCK POSTCARD

A few weeks ago I looked at a book of vintage postcards of North Bay and communities in the Nipissing district. It is a beautifully produced book, which at the same time, gave a great overview of the history of this city. The book was compiled and written by Jack de la Vergne, who is a collector of vintage postcards. I tried to buy a copy but Jack informed me that the book was a limited edition of twenyt five copies, which he had made for friends and family. I hope he will publish it in a larger edition but it is a very large book and I think might be too costly for this limited market. Anyway I decided to recreate an old vintage postcard with a modern scene, taken yesterday afternoon.

MAN WITH DOG

We are having some renovations down in the house so not much time to go and take photographs, but by the end of this week everything should be back to normal. Yesterday I noticed this composition of light, shadows and forms, which made me think of images of the photography movement in the nineteen twenties called Neues Sehen or New Vision. The ideas of this movement originated in Europe and the USA. It was also closely tied to the Bauhaus in Germany.

NOVEMBER RAIN

It rain for two days. It was not a great time for going out and take pictures. Actually I do enjoy the dark days of November because of the wonderful moody landscapes. This bright yellow school bus contrasted beautifully with the dark wet landscape.

LOADING DOCK

A miserable grey, wet day, but I did get afew interesting images when I passed an abandoned warehouse. The building itself was not very interesting but it had some very interesting details. I just happened to be reading some poetry by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachman and I almost titled this picture after one of her poems "Always Living in Words"

MORNING FROST

It was quite cold this morning but I had to go out in the garden to photograph the frost covered leaves. the original colour image looked fine but I simply preferred the black and white picture, which looked very much like a fine etching.

CLOUDS, NORTH BAY CITY HALL

Yesterday I made this image of the cloudy sky reflected in the glass facade of the city hall. It brought back memories of a modern fairytale by the Dutch writer Godfried Bomans. It was a very good story but a little too much to repeat it in this posting.

OCTOBER, GOVERNMENT DOCK, NORTH BAY

No, this time I did not use my iPad but Perfect Effects from onOne. The drawback with the iPad is the smaller size files. I like to work with larger images and also I want to see if I can copy similar effects using my main computer. I can get some of the effects but others are definitely easier to accomplish on a tablet or iPhone.

AT THE WATERFRONT

Yesterday Bob and Cathy asked me what apps I use to manipulate my pictures on the iPad. Well I use a few of the  many apps I downloaded. So lets start with my most favourite, which is Snapseed, which was developed by Nik's Software. The next one has to be Filterstorm, this is another must have. It allows for very intuitive editing of your images. For black and white I use onOne's app Perfect B&W. A great app but alas not available anymore for iPad or iPhone. You can still get it but only for the Mac computer. What a pity because this is a terrific app. I wont make this post too long, so tomorrow I will talk about some apps I use for some special effects. Two apps I highly recommend, especially if you are seriously interested in this branch of photography is AppAlchemy by Dan Marcolina and his app Mobile Masters Let me know what you think.Maybe I should start a new blog just on Mobile photography.

LAKE NIPISSING, SUNSET PARK, NORTH BAY

As I mentioned before in one of my postings, computers have freed  photographers from the technical restrictions of traditional silver based photography. Lately, the new trend in mobile photography and iphoneography has created an enormous surge in the creation of very interesting directions directions of photographic art. I like to experiment with the new apps to explore new directions in my photography.