Westview Dog Park (and Grasslands Park)

Last night Jody and I took the boys, Ferdinand and Enzo, to Westview Park to watch the sunset.  There weren't any clouds in the sky so the sunset itself wasn't anything special, but the light it sent over the grass and hills was so magical!!  By the way, I say "hills" because this is, as far as I know, the highest point in Winnipeg - it used to be a garbage dump years ago and the city made it into a park.  It's really, really pretty up there, so green and with kind of rolling hills, and the edges of the big hill are covered in long beautiful wild grasses - I was enchanted!

The park is also an off-leash dog park, and Ferd and Enzo were soooooo excited to be running all around!  I get such a wonderful kick out of watching dogs meet and greet each other by sniffing each others' butts, it absolutely cracks me up!  The other dog owners up there were really nice, and all the dogs were really nice and cute, too.  We saw two dogs who looked so similar to Ferdinand that I kept thinking they were him.  

We'll definitely be going back to this park, and especially when we see a good sunset coming!  I can't wait until one perfect day when we see the sky all gorgeous red and pink!

Here are a few photos, just for fun.  :)

Dog owners and happy dogs!

Ferd getting a bum scratch

A girl and her dog, Nina

Adorable Nina (and a little fun flair!)

I sooooooo love this photo!!!

Ferd and Enzo posing on the way back to the car

Very blurry but I love the action of Ferd and Enzo being so happy and having so much fun!

MPAX Workshop at the Railway Museum

This past weekend, from Thursday, June 19 through Sunday, June 22, there was a photography exhibition at The Forks (called MPAX - Manitoba Photographic Arts Expo).  Every day there were various workshops and keynote speakers, and some photographers had display booths of their work, and there was also a main stage with various presentations.  The whole thing was really, really cool.  I attended four workshops and one keynote speaker, and I met a bunch of photographers and connected with some very cool people.  I'm so happy with everything about the event.  And it also gave me a reason to visit The Forks and especially The Forks Market, which is such a cool place!  

I posted in backwards order of the events I attended, so that the last event would be the lowest on the blog and thus would actually be in order.  So this is my final post on the MPAX events.  On Thursday, the first day of the Expo, I attended a workshop where we got to shoot at the Railway Museum.  There were so so so many cool things there, such cool light, so many textures and wonderful peeling paint and old wood, and they also had some old cars there (some in fabulous condition, some in pretty bad condition) and old bicycles, and of course lots of old trains.  I can't say that I learned anything from the workshop, but I did find inspiration in the museum with all the textures and wonderful details, so it was very worthwhile.  

Here are some photos from the museum.  Some of them don't look very sharp resized and saved for the web, and I'm not sure why because they're very sharp in the originals.  However, I'm not going to go back and try to redo them all, so just know that the originals of all of these look wonderful!

 

This train looks alive - I can see why children's books had trains as characters!

MPAX Child Portraiture Workshop & Birthday Love

This past Friday I attended the Child Portraiture Workshop with Rodney Braun, who I'm quickly hearing is one of the most well-known and well-respected photographers in Winnipeg (he's especially known for his mastery of light, which is of course SO IMPORTANT), and what was so cool when I met him is that he's so young, for sure in his 30's, and so cool and almost kid-like.  I would so love to get to know him better and learn more from him.  

He has three children of his own and showed us some wonderful photos of them, and also told how he discovered various lighting techniques just from photographing them all the time.  I can't even tell you how helpful and informative his talk and the subsequent photo shoot was, because he showed us how we can get great photographs of children even in the harsh light of the middle of the day.  And he told us so many little tricks, and what lens he usually uses, and what focal length and aperture, and just so many little things.  And the best part was that he was such a fun speaker and seems so so cool, and just like such a fun and good person.  

I have all his lessons in my head so much and I'm very excited about trying them all out.  And he's also made me really want a second lens (Craig Koshyk from the next day also uses the same lens, and Rob Bye from two days later uses the same as well (although the more expensive, lower aperture version)).  I created my "photography wishlist" on Sunday night and priced out all the various things I'd love on Amazon and also at a local photo store (WAY more expensive at the local store).  I do know that the next lens I'll be getting will be the Canon 70-200, f/4.0 image stabilization lens.  It's just over $1,000 on Amazon.  Holy crap.  The non-image-stabilization version is only $560 on Amazon.  But I think the image stabilization would be a really good thing.  

Anyway, I absolutely loved this workshop.  I learned so much.  And of course I really want to photograph children so this was so relevant for me.  We had two little girls, sisters Kayla and Samantha, who were our models when we went outside.  They were adorable, and I especially completely fell in love with the younger one, Samantha.  She was both soooooo adorable and at the same time looked almost mature sometimes.  And she liked me, too, and kept looking at me and smiling (not just for the camera), so of course I loved that as well!!!  Here are a few photos from that morning:

After the workshop I headed home to start getting ready for Jody's birthday dinner!! The night before I had made an apple pie from scratch, and for dinner I made a baked brie appetizer, roasted potatos & onions, sauteed mushrooms, and Jody's favorite steak - rib eye (I actually had him grill the steaks but I at least picked them out and put the Lawry's seasoning salt on them!)! It all turned out pretty good! The apples in the pie were a bit too crisp, I'm not sure why, but they tasted good and the homemade pie crust was fabulous!!! :) I also bought some new little flowers for our kitchen cause the old ones were looking a little, well, old. It was a good night, and Jody had a happily full stomach, and I was so happy to cook a whole complete meal for him!! Happy Birthday, honey!!!

I put a heart in the middle of the pie! :)

MPAX Studio Lighting Keynote and Pet Portraiture Workshop

This past Saturday, I went to hear a keynote speaker on an Introduction to Studio Lighting.  It was fabulous.  Before this I knew very, very basic things, like what a backdrop was and that you could have softboxes or umbrellas reflecting your light.  I'd heard terms like ringlights (or is it rimlights?), and strobes (I still don't quite understand those because I know they're a different breed than the studio lights we talked about).  But I didn't know how you got the lights to work together, I didn't know what wattage you should have or how many lights you should have, and it was basically all foreign territory to me.  

It's still pretty foreign, but now I feel like I have a basic understanding of all the various pieces and how they work together, and the lecturer, Dan Harper, went through all the basics from even camera equipment we should have to the minimum lights we should buy, to what types of backdrop material he prefers.  He gave us a handout with it all written out, too, which was wonderful and I have tons of extra notes written in the margins and between paragraphs.  

I don't have the money yet to set up a proper studio in our house, but it's also summer so I can happily shoot outside.  But this was the perfect introduction mini-course to let me know what I'll need to get eventually.

We all were able to hook our cameras up to the lights and take a few shots of the model, I was so in love with how the light turned out!  Here are one in color and one in a tinted monotone:

After the Studio Lighting lecture, I walked back to the main area with two women I met at the lecture, Sharon and Marian, and the three of us had lunch together. It was fun and of course we had tons of photography stuff to talk about! Also, both of them grew up on farms and I was so interested to hear and imagine what daily life was like for them.

After lunch, I went to a Pet Portraiture Workshop, taught by Craig Koshyk (who also started and runs the Prairie View School of Photography). I took tons of notes as he was talking about getting good dog portraits, good dog action shots, and also ways of getting dogs' attention. I loved that he told us exactly what settings he generally uses, I like hearing what seasoned photographers do for their own photos. And I also discovered some new settings on my camera that I need to learn how to use much better. It started raining during class, but the rain thankfully let up for just a little while so we could go outside and shoot photos of our model dog, the sweetest black & white Border Collie!! I need to review my notes from this class, practice with my new settings, and then get Ferd and Enzo outside to practice with them! And I'll try using some of the same tricks and techniques with James and Emma, too!

Here are a few photos from that afternoon:

MPAX Sports/Action Photography Workshop

(I'm writing these backwards, from last workshop to first, so they'll be in proper order when reading my blog.  So this is the first post I'm writing but it'll be last on the blog since it was the last workshop!)

This past Sunday I went to a workshop on sports & action photography, taught by Winnipeg sports photographer Rob Bye.  It was a great workshop, first in the classroom because Rob talked so much and gave us so many tips and pointers and information, and I was being a big dork and writing down everything he said!  :)  But that's how I can remember it!  Second, it was great because I loved being outside at the skate park at The Forks watching and trying to photograph the skateboarders and bikers.  It's amazing what they can do and I was always to much of a scaredy-cat to even ride on straight flat ground on a skateboard (and I have terrible balance, too), so watching what these guys (and girls - I didn't see any girls doing it, but I know some can!) can do was incredible.  I also talked quite a bit with Rob and with some of the other people in the class and it was really cool getting to know them, and hearing stories, and learning more.  

So, I also discovered that it can be pretty hard to get a perfect action shot!  These guys move so fast so it's hard to get a well-composed shot, and I liked to try to get shots when they were really close to me but then I had the problem of part of them being out of the photo.  Still, I'm happy with a few of my photos, and especially of this one hard-core-looking skateboarder who had such an intense look, so I loved editing the photos of him even though none of them are technically perfect.  

I definitely want to go back because now I so want to get some really cool skateboarding photos, and when I do I'll be so excited!!!  :)  Also, I know we can post any photos on the Winnipeg skateboarding site and the guys all go to look, so I'd love to be able to give them some great shots of themselves in action!

And this was a REALLY cool thing - these three older Amish couples came walking by and stopped to watch this biker, and they were all smiling and clapped for him afterward, and the lady to the far left in the picture turned to us and said she wouldn't be trying that. It was so cute!!! I won't forget that cuteness and sweetness for a very long time!

Pictures from my parents' visit

My parents were here visiting us last weekend, and I had SUCH a wonderful time with them!!! They got here on Friday evening and left on Tuesday afternoon so we had a lot of time together. While they were here, we drove all over the city, took a drive up to Winnipeg Beach on Lake Winnipeg, played with the dogs in our backyard, went out for a wonderful dinner, and Jody and I cooked three dinners at home. My parents also came along on a family photo shoot I did on Saturday (I'll be posting a few pictures on here very soon!) and we walked all through the Legislative building and the grounds, which were so beautiful!!! I loved having them here, and I cried a little when they left and then it also took a couple days for me to get back to normal.

Here are some photos, and most were taken with my new Canon 40D!!! :) I LOVE the new camera - the feel of it, how fast it takes photos, the amazing depth of field on the 50mm f1.4 lens, it's all so exciting!! I still have a lot to learn about the camera, and I'm so excited to get to know it so much better so it's an extension of me and I'm completely comfortable with it (I'm not there yet, clearly!).

I also have my new MacBook Pro now - yay!!!!!! I love it but it also still seems so foreign to me. I've installed Lightroom and the Adobe CS3 programs, but I'm still in the early stages of learning how to use them. I'm in the middle of reading the pdf file about Lightroom, and last night I figured out a couple things that made me very happy. Today I'll finish reading it all, because so far I don't know how to take the photos in Lightroom and put them on this blog or anywhere else. So the photos I posted below were edited very quickly on my old computer. I also want to start learning Photoshop today because I am SO RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED about using all these new actions and I really want to use them on the photos I have left to edit from a baby dedication, and also on the new family photos from last Saturday.

Okay, I'm going to get to work with learning now!! I'll hopefully be able to post some more pictures either today or tomorrow as I learn!

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My parents, so cute!!

I had my dad take this photo of Jody and I, I love it!

Little Enzo happy with a new toy from my mom.

And Ferdinand was busy with a toy duck my mom bought for them. :)

My parents in our backyard.

At the end of our Scrabble game. Jody won, I came in second (yay!), my mom third, and my dad was at the bottom, poor him! :)

Jody during the Scrabble game.

My dad concentrating hard.

A footbridge across the river, we walked across it after getting ice cream.

My parents and I on our back deck! They're so wonderful!! And I had such a good time with them during their visit!!!