Its still Cold.

After being in Australia around this time last year, and not seeing snow for a year and a half, I'm having a hard go with it. So heres one I was thinking of this morning that more or less shows how I feel.

Oh the snow!

Well that was a fun day . . . drove the Malahat during a snowstorm . . . twice. I really wanted to get out and get photos of the road next to our place, its snowy, but the trees still have green and yellow leaves on them. Instead I pussied out, cause its cold, and shot in the house. . .

My lightroom isn't set up right now though, new comp, so I have an older photo today that I found from when I did a shoot with a friend last year. I have it as my desktop right now, and everytime I come to the computer I like it a little more, so I share . . .

Shot with the Sigma 50mm @ f/2.8 and at ISO 320, which was probably a mistake on my part, I don't typically shoot at half stop incriments on anything. Something like this I'd typically want my lowest ISO to maximize the natural colour uptake on my sensor. My editing would only have focused on my shadows and maybe some highlights in the whites, make my curve a little steeper.

I love this lens of mine though, I bought it on a cold, weird night in Edmonton, I met a guy outside of a Tim Hortons that ended up being closed, and didn't really get to test it because of severly low light. I went for it though. I asked the guy why he was selling the lens, and I love the answer, "I bought this 18-105mm lens, and I do everything with it. I've only taken this one out of the box twice." I wonder if he ever figured out his error in that decision. The 18-105mm has poorer glass, is plastic, and is the generic lens you typically buy in a kit with a nikon body. It'll do the trick, and most people say you can take good photos with anything, but if you've made the decision to step it up with the body, you shouldn't shoot yourself in the foot with your lens.

Oh yeah, heres a new one I just edited of my bro from earlier this summer.

He looks a little awkward when he tries to pose, so I had to compromise him. I think I made weird noises, I know, we're mature. This one is also with the Sigma 50mm, shot with me standing on the couch, free-hand, no tripod. Unfortunately a few of the photos we're a little fuzzy because of this, and I only got 4 I liked enough out of this shoot.

Anyways, I'm cold, word out.

Slightly pitiful. But thats why we're here.

I still kinda like it though. But the only time I've picked up my camera in recent times has  been to snap shots of moving in, and when the light was too good to pass up.

I crawled out of the shower one morning and made myself some tea, and the steam caught the light so well I was compelled to pull the camera out. I edit in lightroom, and I only barely touched this one, just a bit to turn up the shadows to draw the eye to the lightest part of the photo and remove the distracting background. I shot this with my sigma 50mm at f/2.8 in aperture priority.

I'm thinking that due to crappy weather I may either do some in-house macro, or see what guinea pigs I can find, and get back into portraiture.

I have to admit, so far this isn't doing a thing for me, not mentally or otherwise. I was pretty impressed with myself for getting out of the apartment and taking a bike ride yesterday, but the fact of the matter is I've just moved to a city I'm not used to, and winter is coming. I feel old.

Look Ma', I gots me a blog.

Oy vey. So I don't know yet how this will work out for me, I've decided to try something new though to hopefully jumpstart my photography motivation. So if anyone reads this, feedback would be fantastic. One thing I've always struggled with since starting off into photography has been a medium to view my photos, especially online. I did flickr, didn't care for it so much though, so then I thought, what the hey, a blog.

My goals here are to hopefully bring a few awesome photos a week to the table, with a little explanation of how and what, followed by some technical talk. I have learned everything I know today with the help of other photographers*, and I'd like to continue this trend onto others.

I don't know that I'll ever use my photography as a major source of income (or income at all), but I enjoy it, and I take pictures of whatever the deuce I want (much to some peoples chagrin). I am only looking to create a forum for discussion if possible, or at the very least, to have something more satisfying than flickr to post to.

And so there was GreenFeet. I got the idea for the name from a photo taken last summer . . . of my feet. I'd like to think of it as reflecting my still intermediate photography, as well as my love of nature and having grown up in such a beautiful green place as Vancouver Island. So I suppose as a christening of sorts, I'll start with that photo.

Slightly over-tweeked on purpose. I was just having fun with it. I shoot with a Nikon D90, and this one was with my 16-85mm. I let Nena touch my camera when we stopped at the big spruce tree feature along the twisty, scary road to Port Renfrew last summer.

Next time I'll probably go ahead with one of my Australia photos, or actually get my ass out the door and shoot something new.

That'll do'r for now.

*Photographers of note; Matthew Saville, Zack Arias, Aaron Pedersen and Dave Blackey.