I had a totally awesome day taking pictures on Saturday! There were 3 groups that ended up cancelling on me for the day, but I ended up filling the spots with family and still had a pretty busy day. AND, when the day was over…I raised $470 to help pay for my trip to Africa.

For costs, here is what I’ve paid for so far in order to prepare for Africa:

1. Sleeping bag – bug repellent in the stuffing, special liner for keeping cool in hot climates: $62
2. Water treatment drops: $28
3. Vaccinations – six shots: Hep A&B, Polio, Yellow Fever, Meningitis, Typhoid, Tetanus: $535
4. Flights – I used 8400 airmiles, but still had to pay $1128 for the PG to Vancouver flights (~$415) and taxes on the airmiles flights (~$712).

Anyways, below are some of my favourite shots from Saturday. If you are interested in booking a session, fire me an email andrew (at) bigpicphoto (dot) com.

OK, I know this is last minute, but if anyone would like to come to my house for a family/portrait photoshoot, you can book a time with me for tomorrow – Saturday April 28th 2012.  Give me a call on my cell 250-614-4664

I’m fund raising to go to Africa, so the photoshoot is BY DONATION. You’ll get a CD with all your pictures on it and you can take them wherever you want to get them printed.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Andrew

So, I took a few pictures of the Lakeland Mills fire…and got contacted by The Canadian Press  the same night asking if they could use my photos for their story. Cool. Sounds good.

Next thing I know, they’ve got my photo on the cover of the Globe and Mail (!).

Tragic circumstances, but it was pretty cool to have one of my photos as a cover story.

Well, it’s been quite a while since I posted here on AndrewJohnson.ca but it has been for good reason. I have been making lots of websites, videos, and taking lots of pictures. I’ve been posting my photography related posts on the blog at The Big Picture website, I’ve been updating the Sonic Interactive Solutions facebook page periodically with links to new sites I’ve been creating, and I’ve been recording lots of video projects for Allnorth Consultants Ltd. I have been rather busy, to say the least.

Well, I recently decided to update the theme of the AndrewJohnson.ca blog, so I figured I should at least post something new at the same time. So, this is it. But, expect a bunch of posts to come in the near future. I have lots going on in the next 30 days and I’d like to write about my progress preparing for things. As a teaser, it has to do with the countdown timer on the right hand side of this website.

Anyways, that’s it for now. I’ll be adding more fun stuff shortly.

Cheers,
Andrew

When you are shooting with a wide angle lens or a zoom lens, the amount that you are zoomed in or zoomed out is called the focal length. On a DSLR lens, you can see the focal length you are at when you look on your lens. For point and shoot cameras, the focal range of your lens is written on the front of the lens (my Canon PowerShot SD30 says 6.3-14.9mm). The “mm” numbers on the lens is your focal length range. For my point-and-shoot, when I am at 6.3mm the lens is at its widest focal length….and when it’s at 14.9mm it is at it’s farthest (most zoomed) focal length.

Why is it worth knowing a bit about this? Well, when you are taking a picture of someone you often want them to look as good as possible. You want the picture to look natural and be a good representation of that person. When you are taking a picture of someone at a wide focal length the resulting image ends up being distorted because of the way that the lens captures the image. When you are at a long focal length (for DSLR cameras 70mm or more) you get an image that is much less distorted and more an accurate representation of what that person looks like in real life.

Here is an example.

The left image was shot at 42mm and you can see the shape of Tyler’s head is a bit distorted/egg shaped. This is because the photo was taken at a relatively wide angle for taking pictures of people. Now look at the picture on the right that was shot at 115mm. His face and features look much more natural and are definitely closer to what you would see in real life if you were sitting across the table from Tyler.

I should mention that Tyler is participating in Movember….a month of growing a mustache to help raise awareness of men’s health issues, and in particular prostate cancer. You can go here to check out his Movember page, rate his “Mo”, and maybe even donate some money towards prostate cancer research?

I’ve done my share of traveling. Had lots of fun. I’ve seen a lot of amazing things. But when I think back to the places I’ve been, I can’t help but think about the one place I really want to go back to. I was talking with my friend Peter the other day and I didn’t mention anything about my recent thoughts about traveling and the places I’ve been. I asked him a question, “If you could go back to anywhere you’ve already been, where would it be?” He said, hands down, without a doubt, with now reservations or hesitations – Cinque Terre. And those are my thoughts exactly. I don’t care about anywhere else. I just want to go back.

Vernazza – Cinque Terre © Andrew Johnson

There are so many places that I haven’t seen. Things I haven’t done. But I don’t care about those places or things right now. I just want to go back to Cinque Terre. Why? Is it because it has great shopping? No. Is it a huge city? No. Is there a lot to do there? No. Are the roads fun to drive? No (there are no roads). Is it exciting and busy? No. It is none of those things.

It is, however, an authentic Italian experience with authentic people, food, wine, and landscape. Life slows down, and happiness goes up.

I’ve been debating about a lot of things to do with backing up my digital files from my various computers. I think my main problem is that I have a LOT of data to back up. Pictures and video take up a lot of my hard drive space (especially 1080p video from my Rebel T1i), so I really need an optimum way to manage all that, have access to all of it, and have it backed up in two places as well.

As far as I can tell, the best way to deal with it is to throw a LOT of money at it. Getting something like a Drobo that will house several hard drives and make sure that all data is recoverable if one drive fails seems like a good option….but an expensive option.

Purchasing a whole bunch of external hard drives and backing up everything twice seems like a more affordable option, but I can see myself backing things up on a semi-regular basis at first and then starting to slack off later as time goes on. So then I’ll have some backups of my old stuff, but still be in trouble if my laptop got stolen or damaged and the data on it was not recoverable.

There is some free Microsoft Software (called SyncToy) that can help with that kind of thing. It helps you sync your files to an external drive without having to do much work other than hooking it up and hitting start. It does cut down on the work, but it also requires diligence to do on a regular basis. I often lack diligence when it comes to things like that.

Another option is to build my own computer/server that can have a whole bunch of hard drives in it that are running in a RAID configuration so there is more than one copy of data at any given time. The problem with that is it takes a lot of time to setup and I still am not able to have an off-site copy of my data in case there is a flood or theft of the machine. That being said, I could probably hide the machine somewhere in the house and not have to worry too much about a thief finding it.

So, I’m not really sure what I should do going forward. I guess it’s a balance between cost and effort. Any suggestions for an optimum solution?

Well now, it has been quite the busy couple weeks. I launched of my new website www.BigPicPhoto.com, I created the graphic design for my handouts and business cards, and I prepared some high resolution slideshows for the Bridal Fair last weekend. I’ve been pretty swamped. But it was worth it. The bridal show went very well and I handed out lots of business cards to brides-to-be throughout the day.

I also got a chance to go and take some pictures at the wedding dress fashion show they did in the morning. It was pretty easy to take great photos considering I had pretty ladies in pretty dresses walking down a well lit runway (albeit weirdly lit at some points ~ why did they have the blue lights on so much?). Here is a link to the album on my Facebook page.

The fashion show pictures were taken with a new lens I recently purchased; an 85mm f1.8 prime lens. I’m super happy with it. It’s very sharp and good a focusing….probably better than any of my other lenses. My previous post about my 50mm lens said that it was my favourite lens for parties and hanging out with friends….but the 85mm might join the 50mm in the winners circle after I test it out a bit more.

I’ve added a new slideshow widget to my blog, so I thought I’d drop it in here to show off the bridal fair photos. Enjoy!

When I go to a party, I often like to bring my camera and bring only one lens: my 50mm f1.8 prime lens.

I use that lens for two reasons:

1. When I have a fixed lens at 50mm I am forced to find interesting angles and I am forced to move to get the kind of shot that I might want. The picture ends up being either pretty good or really bad; there’s rarely a so-so picture.
2. It’s often pretty dark at a party, so having a lens that can bring in as much of the ambient light as possible is best. The f1.8 is great for that; it allows me to take great pictures without the need of a flash going off…and when you are trying to take pictures of people when they are acting natural, it’s important that they don’t know you’re taking pictures. Most people are camera shy.

A few weeks ago there was a bit of a reunion of sorts at the Daigles house. Danny, one of my old high school religion teachers, was in town and wanted to get everyone together. Danny is actually the reason I decided to get my Bachelor of Education; he inspired me by his way of teaching and passion for youth and their development. He inspired a lot of people, actually….and he still does while teaching at St. Andrew’s High in Victoria BC.

Here are some shots I took at that party. They really capture some moments and give you an idea about what the party was like.

I was trying to think about what kind of pictures I like to take and it got me thinking. Do I have a  style? Can my friends look at a picture and say, “I bet Andrew took that” ?

When I have time to make a picture the way that I want to, I think I have more of a style than when it is a real-time situation that I need to capture (couple saying their vows, kids playing soccer, baby playing with a toy, etc). When I have time to setup a shot I think I tend to try to make things look epic. Not dreamy, not blown out, not contrasty or moody, but epic. Colourful, vivid, sharp, and epic.

Here is a contrasting example: the first picture is a natural light shot….it’s posed, but it’s the kind of shot I would take if I didn’t have time to setup the shot the way I wanted. The second is a 2 minute setup and some adjustments on my camera to get what I want.

Both pictures are good in their own right, but the second shot is the kind of shot I like to take. It’s just cool.

When I don’t have time to setup a shot exactly how I want it to be, I have to take what I’m given and work with it…and that’s when I take photos that are a bit more “artsy” and stylized because I have to manipulate what I’m given to try and get something cool. I think most of the time when I am taking photos at events, I’m thinking in the back of my mind “you need to get the kind of pictures that other people can’t get”. I still get the safe shots first, but then I try to see things from a different angle, try to find an interesting framing of a subject, or try to capture a moment that others might miss. If I can get the shots that no one else can get, then my pictures are worth something because they are unique.

I’m sure my style will develop more over time, but that’s how it is right now.