My Coffee Shop Display

For quite awhile, I had looked at photos lining the walls of our local, independent coffee shop, Under Pressure, and thought, mine are just as good. Well, in truth, I thought that for the most part, mine were better.

What I don't have is that super large scale printer that can produce images of spectacular size, but on the other hand, those images don't tend to sell because most people don't have space for them, assuming of course that they like them well enough in the first place. There is also the fact that most people don't walk into a coffee shop prepared to spend a few hundred dollars. They also cost a lot to print and to leave them hanging there for a very long time, while constantly having to reduce the price, is not optimum.

When a space became available, Sue and I decided to hang 6 prints of local scenes and to sell them relatively cheaply. The images are approximately 16x10.5 on 19x13 paper in 19x13 frames.

From top left to right around to bottom left: sunrise on our river near our house; autumn in the town's main park; the townhall as mentioned below; a rusty boathouse across the river from the park; sunset over the park; sunset from under that special tree in summer.

The frames are inexpensive, less than $20, and that's with those rather imposing Canadian taxes included. Having experimented with cheaper options (on cardboard) that didn't quite work out, they are mainly a way to present the photos in a viable but still inexpensive way.

Thus framed, I offer the photos for sale at $75 but don't expect to sell many for the reasons mentioned above. But the shop owner tells me that they draw some admiration and comments, and that pleases me, for my main motivation is to show them and have people appreciate them.

And I have sold one: the winter photo of our townhall from across the river, top right.

I swear that photo on the bottom left didn't look that crooked to me at the time.

I have recently updated my other display at Sue's hairdresser's and may post of that soon as well.

Moving on to Tulips

Alrighty then, the hyacinth is done, so I bought a tulip. we often have a flower on the table, but I now have a more selfish interest.

Still in bud with just a hint of the colour that will emerge.

I like the simple composition of this shot.

A few days later, the colour became clearer even though the buds aren't yet open.

I think this is my favourite macro shot yet.

Meanwhile, the poor hyacinth had been put outside, but when I noticed snow I decided to open the patio door and get on my belly to squeeze off a shot. It was handheld, so not the sharpest, but I'm glad that I tried.

Animal Clips 4

A parrot gets Alexa to turn the lights on.

Only a matter of time before he's ordering his own bird seed deliveryhttps://t.co/f0A3ZuZn6P pic.twitter.com/f4QhPh8op2

— HUMOROUS ANIMALS (@CUTEFUNNYANIMAL) February 25, 2018

A cat catching a snowball

Cat catching snowballs. pic.twitter.com/Ez07Q2Dog0

— Katie Brown (@KatieVEBrown) February 27, 2018

A Murmuration of Starlings and Off They Go to Bed

This is how 40,000 starlings get to bed in less than a minute.@RSPBMinsmere pic.twitter.com/8RxfUen5RT

— Simon Waters (@SuffolkSi) February 17, 2018

This can't be a Canadian cat.

Snow idea why I did that. pic.twitter.com/345IZV2J2n

— Nathan Kraemer (@kraen0044) March 3, 2018

A cockatiel that imitates a phone ringing.





Finally, for now at least, a man with a caracal cat, first roughhousing and then snuggling. I don't know if I'll keep up with these animal clips, but they have constituted a somewhat pleasant diversion for me.

Have a nice week twitterworld 🌐
Thanks so much everyone 😊#peaceandlove ♡ #happyday ッ

    🐈  #arielcaracat   📹 🐱 pic.twitter.com/UvDmVAJa26

— Burak Cantürk 🎧〽 (@brcanburak) March 6, 2018

Squeezing the Aperture

As I suspected I would, I did a few more hyacinth macros after I made the previous post. (Maybe I'm too self-centred because there were 4 I's in that little sentence.  :)

I wanted to get the two blooms in focus plus the buds at the top. But with depth of field (DoF) being very small with macro shots, I decided to squeeze the aperture down to f32. For those who don't speak photoglese, that's a very tiny opening.

That small aperture meant that the shutter had to stay open longer. In this case it was 5 seconds, which didn't matter because I was indoors on a tripod, and all was calm.

I had put white cardboard behind the plant to remove any background distractions, but later wondered if I could replace it in photoshop. And I did just that.

I have one more to show you before they cart either me or my lens or both of us away. In this one I wanted to look down to the buds and catch some petals below. But I wanted the petals to be way out of focus.

So I took two shots. In both cases, I focussed on the buds, but the first one was at a fairly small aperture, so they looked pretty much in focus. The problem was that the petals were too distinct for the effect that I was trying to achieve. So, I opened the aperture as wide as I could (f2.8) which blurred the petals nicely.

Using layer masks, I then combined to two photos in photoshop, keeping the buds from the one photo and the background from the other. The result was at least somewhat close to that I had in mind.

My First Macro Photos

I never thought that I would buy a macro lens, but after seeing one at a good price (relatively speaking) on Amazon, I took the plunge, and it came late last week.

In the past I had never even wanted a macro lens because even though I would take some flower photos,they were not a particular interest. While I could be pleased enough with some of my flower shots, I was more interested in photographing the wider world.

However, upon recently printing a number of flower photos for a display, I realized what lovely images they could make, especially when printed.

It's not that one can't make nice flower photos with normal lenses, which is what I have done up until now, but I wanted to see where a macro lens might take me. So, after considerable cogitation accompanied by hand wringing and deep gulps, I took the plunge.

For those who don't know, a macro lens allows you to get very close to your subject. When it is in full macro mode, it grabs a close subject at it's exact dimensions. If the subject measures 1 inch in actual size, it will also be 1 inch on the camera's sensor. Therefore, when  you expand the sensor image to photographic size, it becomes impressively large,.

My first attempts after some random play, like photographing my smart phone screen, were to head through the snow on the lawn to photograph snow clinging to little seed pods on our silk lilac tree. They are quite tiny but fill the frame in these handheld shots.

We have a hyacinth indoors giving us an early taste, or at least early fragrance, of spring. I took this one using my tripod, which seems to be the default for macro photography. It's tough to get everything in focus and sometimes you just don't want to because a soft focus can also be attractive. In fact, I wanted a very soft background on this photo although it also would have been nice to have the centre of the flower in focus.

There you have, or at least there I have, my first attempts at macro photography, and it is somewhat more involved than normal shooting because setting up the tripod and finding the focus can take some care.

A Playoff Game

JJ is out of town at a hockey tournament this week, but these pics are from his third playoff game last week. His team won all three games and will advance to the next round.

Two action shots, neither of which included Jonathan. I just like the shots.

Here's he is chasing down a puck.

Two shots of the same play. Unfortunately, he got skated around, and the other team scored. It happens.

Just JJ.

Mats Matter

You may or may not recall from some time ago that I display a few photos at Sue's hairdresser's. Although that's my primary purpose — just to show them — they are also for sale. While not many people go to a hair salon to purchase photos, I do sell prints time to time.

I also change the display periodically. From December on into the beginning of March, I had displayed winter scenes, but it being time for a change, I decided to display flower photos for the next few months.

With 5 photos already framed and matted, I had wall space for one more, and I had a 18x12 frame on hand, which I wanted to use. But there was a problem. My sheets are 19x13. Now one could just trim the paper down if the printed image were 18x12 because there would be a definite edge to cut along.

But I didn't want to do that. I like to leave a border between the image and the frame, like a mat even though it is just a white border.

So then, how could I print, let's say something like a 15x10 image on a 19x13 sheet and then accurately trim a half inch off on all sides to keep the image centered correctly?

The solution was to make a faux mat as it were. I could make the mat exactly 18x12, which would give great lines for accurate trimming. I even applied a canvas finish to the mat to make it look a bit more genuine.

Here is the result. Although I actually framed this image for hanging, rather that take a picture of the picture, this frame is as fake as the mat — just done in Photoshop.

I was pleased enough with the outcome that I purchased two more 18x12 frames and experimented with more faux mats. But how to do the mats; I mean what colour? One tries to pick up a complementary colour from the image, but what colour?

So, here is a trillium matted with two different colours. People that I ask seem to favour the pink mat over the green by a 2-1 ratio. But I see a problem. First, I will show you the two versions and let you form you own opinions before I reveal what I perceive.

Note: if you click on the first image, it will pop up on a new screen, and you will eliminate distractions. From there you can click on the next one.

I like the pink as a colour, and agree with one observer who said that it gives more life to the photo. But in the end I think I must choose green, and maybe you see why.

When you view a photo, your eye is drawn to the brightest part, and when I look at the pink photo, I actually find it difficult to focus on the flower. But when I look at the green version, my eye goes right to the trillium without being pulled away.

Here is another attempt at faux matting with lady slipper blooms. I am left with the same visual result: my eye seems to focus better on the image with the duller mat, even though, once again, I prefer the brighter colour on its own.

What sayest thou?


Edit: I have since redone matted the lady slipper photo like the green trillium photo: same green with an identical small white trim.