Hi Folks, thanks for stopping by the fancy new site! I have been posting my photography in various ways for the past several years but have never really had a one-stop spot for all of my photo adventures. I have used mostlythecoast.com as a photoblog for the last 5 years or so. I started just posting daily photos out into the internet for all to see. It was great as a way to keep a photo-stream-of-consciousness and it really got me thinking more about improving my photography.
What a camera. I have been looking for a tiny pocket-sized camera ever since I started getting into street photography. It started after watching BBC's The Genius of Photography series. I was blown away after hearing Joel Meyerowitz talk about his relationship with street photography. After that, I started following along with the adventures of Eric Kim, reading about Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. I was really getting into this whole idea of capturing the candid moments that are happening out there - in the cities, towns and communities around me. After realizing that taking photos in the street is a fairly obvious activity when you are hauling around a big DSLR and pointing it at people, I decided to do my research and invest in a pocket-sized point and shoot that had some agility, subtlety and most importantly, great glass.
Angelica Choc is a Mayan Q'eqchi' woman from El Estor, Guatemala. She is seeking justice as a plaintiff in one of three lawsuits against HudBay Minerals Inc, a Canadian mining company. Her husband Adolfo Ich Chamán was killed by security personnel of the Guatemalan mine which, at that time, was owned by HudBay Minerals. These same security personnel are also alleged to have been involved in the shooting of another man, German Chub who is now paralyzed and has lost the use of his right lung. The third lawsuit involves the alleged gang rape of 11 women by security personnel police and army personnel during the forced eviction of the Q'eqchi' people from their ancestral home. For the first time, a lawsuit against a Canadian mining company over human rights atrocities abroad will be heard by a Canadian court.
This tutorial is aimed at photographers who are just getting their feet wet with photo editing software. TONS of photographers are drawn to the classic sunset landscape photo. It is easily one of my favorite things to photograph. Since the sun is typically somewhere in front of you, it can be hard to get the right exposure with a single shot. It is easy to wind up with a shot that has a nice sky above the horizon but everything below the horizon is black (or vice versa). This is where I would like to offer some words of post-production wisdom.
In this tutorial, I will try to outline one of the tricks I use all the time to make the portions above and below the horizon match better exposure-wise. Back in the day (before digital photography) you would probably need to invest in a graduated neutral density filter that would put on your lens and then go shooting but this is not only pricey, but you need a camera like an SLR or similar professional sort of camera to use these filters. Nowadays you can use any digital camera and some software to produce the same effect as the filters. For this tutorial, I am using photos shot with my trusty Nikon D90.
My girlfriend Shawnee and I took last week off to go to Cape Breton for two purposes: To visit family and to go on a road-trip around the Cabot Trail. I had a third not-so-secret purpose that we joked about even while in the planning stages of our trip. I wanted to make a stop in Mabou to up my chances of randomly running into Robert Frank who has lived there since the 1970's - As if that would happen....
More exhibition news this month! I have four photos up in The Bread Gallery in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. This group exhibition features paintings by Mary Garoutte & Kelly Mitchelmore, photographs by yours truly & Jane Rovers, screen prints by Geordan Moore & Kat Frick Miller, folk art carvings by Jim Tracey, sculptures by Kristie Sheehy and fibre art by Tacha Reed & Blythe Church. The show was organized and curated by Tacha Reed as well. She runs the wonderful Flying Cloud Boutique in Ellershouse (just outside of Windsor, NS) and has rounded up some great work from the artists whose work she sells from this converted Airstream trailer.
