What’s Chris Doing?

My 30th birthday came and went on the 21st of June. I got a couple of toys including a new Canon G10 Camera. I have been carrying it with me everywhere and have a few pictures up already. Most are from trips to the park. But there are also a couple from Amara’s end of school year pageant (look for the pictures in the church). Unfortunately for the pageant shots there were a lot of pushy parents trying to get pictures, so there are no shots of Amara singing.

The camera is taking some getting used to. The controls are very different from my 300D (Digital Rebel) but I think I am starting to get the hang of them. My main problem is that I am not as fast with the G10 as I am with the SLR. The zoom reacts much slower that I can with the manual zoom on the SLR so composition takes longer with that. I also am still getting the hang of changing the auto focus location.

The G10 does, however, have a snappy start up and I have yet to see it have a problem keeping up with the speed I want to take pictures at, a problem that has been plaguing me with the 300D. One of the reasons I wanted the G10 was that I can capture in RAW. My big disappointment so far has been that Bibble, the software I use for my photo work does not yet have G10 support as they are between major releases. For the time being I am making due with the software that comes with the Camera, but it certainly does not have an optimized work flow. I don’t want to have to shell out for something like Adobe Lightroom but if Bibble does not get their act together soon, that might be the way I am headed.

We hosted a little Christmas party for our friend’s kids and Amara today. The youngest of the bunch is pictured on the right. Click the picture to see all the pictures I took.

The last couple of weeks I have been taking a lot of pictures. Two weeks ago I took some pictures of some of my wife’s new mommy friends and their kids (see right). This is the first of 3 get-togethers this group will have that we will attend before we move back to Burlington. The second set, from last Wednesday is already up and we are supposed to meet up with this group again tomorrow, which will hopefully also yield some good pictures.

All the get-togethers are supposed to happen outside at a park, but it was too cold for the first one and we headed over to Bayshore Mall. The temperature issue sorted itself out for last week’s get-together and so all of the pictures are outside. Each environment proved to have tricky lighting conditions. The mall had a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting that was sometimes too dim. I punched some of the pictures up with a flash bounced off the ceiling, but found the children did not cooperate with being in the good light.

The second shoot, was supposedly at the wrong time of day to be shooting. Best light is closest to dawn or dusk which provides a nice soft light, but we were shooting under the harsh mid day sun. I think the fact that everyone was sitting under a shady tree worked out well. There was plenty of light and the washed out sunny backgrounds look really good (above left).

In between those two photographic opportunities I went to my wife’s sister-in-law to be (Tara)’s bridal shower. Again the available light made things a bit challenging. The pictures were taken between 3:30 and 5:30 which does not mean harsh mid day sun, but is still not the subdued soft lighting of dusk. There was a lot of shots half in, half out of shade, as well as some with full on sun and a couple in door. Even so, I think there were quite a number of good shots. As kids tend to do, this little guy and his grandma (left) to the left provided the standout shots. I’ll have to corner Tara and Christian at their wedding and make sure they get to be in a picture with some kids :)

On Saturday Kate and I visited with Mike and Maria and their kids for a BBQ. I think I am getting the child photography thing down. It helps that Jaan (left) and Aisha (below right) are too cute for words. Between wanting to be photographed and being shy, they proved to be almost perfect photographic subjects.

Here again I was contending with what is supposed to not be ideal light, but I think the lighting really enhances the mood of these two photos. Some of my success here is happy accident, but I have been getting more and more keeper shots, so I think some degree of my success is that I really am getting better at figuring out where to point the camera, what to keep in frame, when to take the picture and what to do about bad (and good) lighting.

I don’t just take pictures of other people’s kids. If you have looked though the galleries linked above, you may have found one or two of Amara. She of course also has her own section in the gallery.

Sunday was father’s day so I got a bit of a day off, both from picture taking and looking after Amara. Kate took a couple of pictures with Amara and I in Strathcona Park to commemorate my first father’s day. I think they turned out pretty well. I didn’t totally stop taking pictures that day, I took this picture of Kate and Amara (left) at Strathcona Park also.

Some of the mothers from the get-togethers that did not know much about me, assumed from my comfort with the camera and the resulting pictures that I am a pro photographer. I have also been getting more and more comments that my pictures look like they were taken by a professional. Maybe I missed my calling. In any case, I am seriously thinking about selling my services, at least as a child photographer, to help supplement the camera equipment lust that has developed over the last couple of years. What do you think? Would you pay me to photograph your child. I am sure that I would be cheaper than Canadian Baby Photographers and I would’t make you buy your prints through me :)

Probably the aspect of being a father I am most looking forward to is the endless supply of photographic subjects. I am not just talking about the child herself, but also her toys. We already bought a bunch of toys, in part to entertain Xavier when he was here, and in part because they were cool and on major sale. Last weekend I got Kate to set something up to shoot and she decided to play with stacking the Peek-A-Blocks. Our child won’t get much out of the Peek-A-Blocks for a while, since they are for 6months+, but at least someone is having fun with them :)

We got a visit from Sarah and Will and Xavier this weekend. That means I got an opportunity to practice taking baby pictures before my own little one arrives. The ones here were taken at Major’s Hill Park.

Yesterday we saw Stanley park and the Aquarium. We had previously seen many of the species from the tropical section, like the jelly fish to the right, while diving. They also have a section of species from the BC coast. It really showed that no matter where in the ocean you go, there is some really interesting form of life. It’s not the fact that lakes are cold that makes lake life uninteresting, it’s just the lakes themselves.

The best part were the big water mamals like the dolphins, the sea otters, baluga whales and sea lion. The sea lion was huge! You can get a bit of an idea of the size from the picture, but it still pales in comparison to standing beside it popping out the water like that.

There was also a Amazon rain forest section. Apparently there are about 200 species of fish that feed on fruit and seeds when the Amazon rain forest floods. In North America there are none. As part of the Amazon section there was a little aviary that had ibis and butterflies(left).

After the aquarium we took the free Stanley Park bus which circles the 5.5 mile perimeter of the park. A stop at Prospect Point finally gave me an opportunity to take a half way decent picture of the Lionsgate Bridge. A very tasty dinner at Joe Fortes finished the day for us. Exhausted we returned to the hotel room for our final night before our 11pm flight tonight.

We are having a bit of a lazy morning since we have to give up the hotel room soon, and will not have the option of returning for a rest. This afternoon the plan is to head to Gastown, Chinatown and Canada Place. I don’t know if we are going to make it to Granville Island. At the end of what is sure to be a full day, we will have to make our way to the airport for our 5 hour flight. I have to go pretty much directly from the flight to work, at which I am sure to be well rested and alert :)

Kate and I are in Vancouver. It’s a business trip for Kate and I am along for the ride. We arrived on Sunday in time to spend our anniversary here and on Monday night we went out for a fancy anniversary dinner at Provence Marinaside.

While Kate worked the last two days, I was out taking pictures. I have been walking all over downtown but have yet to make it to the North-East part, which means I havn’t yet been to Gastown, Chinatown or Canada Place. I also haven’t been to Granville Island yet.

Starting today I have Kate with me for the whole day. We’re off to see more of Stanley Park, including the Aquarium, and then it is off to dinner, probably at Joe Fortes. We passed by Joe Fortes last night and it smelled really good.

Tomorrow we are going to see Gastown, Chinatown and Granville Island.

Last weekend I got to spend a lot of time with my camera. On Saturday Marc and a bunch of other motorcycle enthusiasts headed down to Cayuga to ride the track at Toronto Motorsports Park. I tagged along to take some pictures. The one to the right shows Marc’s new cobbled together bike. It has been dubbed MOB, which may stand for Marc’s Own Bike, or Made of Bits. No one could give me a definative answer on what the name means. I had some fun taking pictures and got to try out a few techniques. For the picture on the right I kneeled down at the side of the track, set the shutter to a slow speed and panned the camera to to keep the rider and the bike stationary while the background blurs in a fast action motion kind of way. I think my execution of the technique was generally ok, but the grey day and very green background left something to be desired from the result. I do like how the pavement makes it look like I took the picture riding beside the subject. I also took a bunch of pictures of bikes leaning into the corners of the turns. Ultimately the pictures are probably most intersting to people who know Marc, or who were participants in the track day themselves, but I still had a lot of fun taking them and learned a lot in the process.

On Sunday Kate and I went to Sarah and Will’s. We try and see them as much as possible and Kate often berates me for not taking my camera so that I can take pictures of Xavier. I still sometimes feel uncomfortable about bringing my camera with me when I go places. This is mostly because I am concerned that wherever I am going with the camera people will feel uncomfortable about it, or that taking pictures will become the focus of the event. I am much more interested in candid pictures, so I of course don’t want picture taking to be the focus. I want everyone to go about their normal business while I photograph it. Sunday however turned into quite the photo shoot. When I showed up I imediately started taking pictures of Xavier. He was kinda cranky and it was a struggle to get a smile out of him. After a while I gave up and put the camera away. That is when the food came out. The camera came out again shortly after. I think some of the best pictures from that day are of the feeding. After the little guy (maybe little is a stretch) finished eating and I had put my camera away once again, it was changing time. Again Xavier started being all cute and I had to take my camera out. The result of the last session is on the right. The thing I like most about the pictures over all, is that they show a great range of emotion from Xavier. I think they capture his expresiveness.
Of course I can’t have a photographic weekend without learning something. On Saturday I learned that I can have fun taking pictures even if I am less than satisfied with the result. On Sunday I learned two things: don’t put the camera away and give your subject time to relax. If you keep your camera with you, turn it off, put the lens cap on, but don’t put it back in your bag you won’t have far to go when that great shot comes along and you won’t have to regret missing it. A relaxed subject is not worried about what you are doing with the camera and will provide you with the oportunity for the great candid shot.

Chrysanthemum

Originally uploaded by Chris Lambacher.

Kate loves plants. This means we tend to have a fair number of them around which means that I end up taking pictures of them. I buy her flowers every now and then and have taken to picking ones that I think will photograph well.

These mums are from Valentines day. They are potted so they have lasted a while. I took this picture last weekend using the sunlight streaming through our porch door. This weekend it looks like the plant isn’t going to last much longer.