New Posting!

So today I again updated my new blog. I have my own internet address: eeimage.com, so I can do what I like with it. It's not much more complicated to setup a blog from scratch as compared to having one on Blogger. I only wish I did it like this earlier. Now there's no more frustrations with Blogger not allowing me to upload any of my photographs.

Visit it here:
http://www.blog.eeimage.com/

Also make sure to have a look at my photography site:
http://www.eeimage.com/

Welcome, 2007

Sophie

Having slept through the New Year for the first time in about 20 years or so, 2007 is off to a pretty quiet start. (all the more so since it's now 7:30AM on New Year's day)

I don't particularly have any new year's resolutions, but there are some things that are showing on the horizon.

• I have been recently (sort of) promoted at work, and will be starting my new job in earnest tomorrow.


• Kathryn has a new job, and seems to be more positive about work than I have seen her in over a year.


• We plan on moving this year.


• I intend to take out a debt consolodation loan which should actually free up a fair bit of money.


• There's a bit of a plan to go on a vacation around late September, tentatively to Quebec.


• I got a new camera flash for Christmas, so I intend to be taking more stock photographs.

I'm looking forward to what the year brings.

Farewell to 2006

So it is now New Year's eve. Obviously the original intent of this was to post daily pictures for at least the year. Unfortunately for various reasons, (not least was that this new version of Blogger has issues with photo-posting) it didn't happen. I'm certainly not going to worry about it, though.

2006 has been quite a year for Kathryn and I. We managed to survive Vancouver's storm of the century a couple weeks ago. A week without water the month before, when torrential rains raised the turpidity of the water supply to (almost) unhealthy levels. I survived a month of jury duty. Kathryn and I got a kitten we named Sophie. I sold my first photographs. And most significantly, Kathryn and I learned quite a bit about ourselves and each other after a challenging, yet uniquely productive year.

In my personal history it seems every 4 to 6 years I end up experiencing some sort of significant growth, and my view of myself and my world is somehow altered. Even relatively minor shifts can impact my daily living in some way when this does happen. Looking back, 2006 was one such year.

We're not going anywhere nor doing anything tonight. In fact, Kathryn has already been sleeping for the past hour (and it's only 9:30PM). I doubt I'll stay up to midnight myself at this point. It might seem an anti-climactic way to see out 2006 and welcome in 2007, but it's appropriate in a certain je ne sais quoi sort of way.

Grrr..

So I was trying to update this blog of mine, when I was reminded why I stopped posting for a while in the first place... Blogger seems to have broken how easily you can upload photos. I thought it would have been fixed after 2 months, but unfortunately when I was trying to upload today's photo, Blogger came up with error messages. I tried several photos, and even tried resizing them, in case their size was too big, but it still didn't work. This is a pain, since this problem effectively prevents me from being able to keep the theme of this being a photo blog...

Not gone yet!

A bench facing a frozen Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park


OK, so it's been quite awhile since I updated my blog. I guess you could say I was on a bit of a sabattical. It's been quite an eventful 2 months if I do say so myself. I'm not going to get into that right now. I might decide to make a couple retro posts later to catch up a bit.

Today's post later... again!

The post will be tomorrow now...

again, I'll update tomorrow...

Another Duck In Water

A duck. This photo is a little different in that it's a scan from one of my film prints. It's actually one from the first set of film photographs I've had developed. I've had a digital camera for so long that I never owned a film camera before.

A Swan

Nice swan. I like the lighting too. I'm not big on the dirty, murky water, though.

SFU

Simon Fraser University.

My wife at SFU.

A View From The Bridge

The scene from the Burrard Bridge yesterday.

Happy Autumn!

An example of Stanley Park wildlife. This photo was taken by Kathryn.

So today is officially the first day of Autumn. Being a great, near-cloudless day, Kathryn and I went off to enjoy a walk to and around Stanley Park.

Kathryn waiting for the bus home from downtown:

A Face In The Blanket

I thought the folds in this blanket looked interesting.

Beneath The Bridge

A boat sailing under the Burrard Bridge.

Pulling Out The Heater

Cleaning and preparing the space heater.

It's not nearly cold yet, but when you get up at 4:30 in the morning, it's just starting to be a little chilly. So the time has come to take out the space heater again, and put away the fans.

Curtains!

Venetian blinds, to be more specific.

I had my second Photography class yesterday. The instructor went over what the f-stop, shutter speed, and film speed are and how they affect exposure. Nothing new to me, but next week we'll be having our first studio shoot, so that should be fun.

A New Lens

What goes with a new camera? A new lens, of course! Yesterday I bought a really, really nice 50mm prime lens. The quality is very high, considering it also happens to be one of the cheapest lenses you can get. I've been wanting to get this particular lens for a while, and am extremely pleased with it.

Kathryn and I went to my sister Elaine and Paul's place for dinner last night. Shane and his girlfriend were there as well. Elaine made some extraordinary prawns in a garlic sauce, while Paul made some nice bread by scratch. Good company, good food.

Yet Another Camera

Yesterday while Kathryn and I were out for a coffee, I stopped by Kerrisdale Cameras to see what they had. Specifically I was wanting to check the price of a lens hood for my variable zoom lens. By the time we got home, I had bought a used camera!

I sort of wanted to get one since my photography class is geared for film equipment, so it wasn't completely out of the blue. It's a Canon EOS 3000, which was sold in 1999, apparently meant for the Asian market. A film SLR, it's the body of the camera, and lenses attach to it. It looks relatively full-featured, especially considering the price I paid for it - $99. The nice thing is the lenses are interchangeable with my digital SLR.

I also setup a gallery blog for some of my art images. It's meant to be temporary, as I want to have a proper web gallery later on. It's not nearly finished yet, and Blogger cannot upload some images at the moment, but have a look:
http://www.ericsphotography.blogspot.com/. Feel free to check back later, I'm going to continue uploading more.

Saturday Today!

Light on the light

I saw this interesting sunlight pattern a few days ago. It only lasted about 10 minutes before fading away.

Now Something Completely Different

'Water Fountain I'

I completely updated the look of my blog. I got sort of tired of the template it had before. While I like this new format better, I'm not quite 100% convinced. I'll still keep my eye peeled for a template I'll be completely satisfied with. So don't be too surprised to see it change again soon.

The image you see today is one I had been planning to create for a while, and so was really please when I took this photo. I am quite fond of it.

Art

Apart from taking nice pictures for the blog and my personal collection, I have a few dozen pieces I refer to as 'fine art'. Of course Andy Warhol purposely challenged the concept of what constitutes 'fine art' quite some time ago. To some extent it's simply a matter of what I choose to designate as such. My personal criteria is that it meet a certain aesthetic that is meaningful to me. Further, it should evoke or convey either an emotion or concept that hopefully causes the viewer to think about what is being viewed.

This is the sort of thing that gets me truly excited about photography. It's a means to communicate in a way I've never been able to before. I have already posted a LOT of pictures already, this is the first time I posted one of my 'fine art' photographs. The image you see here is simply titled, 'Lilies'.

Sunset

Sunset after a visit to Costco yesterday. (I'm sure we're about the only Costco customers who took the Skytrain there)

School

Yesterday I started my photography class. The program is potentially 2-2 1/2 years if you go all the way for certification. So as a result, each class has its prerequisites, and I'm beginning at the beginning. This first course is pretty basic, aptly named 'Basic Photography'. There wasn't a lot I didn't already know taught in my first class, but I did learn a couple new things.

To start, the first couple classes will be theory, then there will be some time in the studio, working with objects, then with fashion models. There's going to be darkroom (not sure what I'll be doing in that class, seeing I have a digital SLR). And a couple field trips, wrapping up with the term project - a small portfolio of 8 photographs each being an example of different techniques assigned by the teacher. They'll be graded for composition, technical refinement, aesthetic quality, etc. It'll be fun.

Here's the only thing: I wake at 4:45AM to be at work at 7AM. The class runs 7PM - 10PM. By the last 1/2 - 1 hour of the class, I was having a bit of difficulty paying attention, seeing I was quite sleepy. Fortunately I took today off as a vacation day so I can sleep in a bit and not worry about being wiped at work. Next week I'll not have this little luxury. I think I'll be OK, though.

9/11

5 years ago I was living with my parents, and working retail sales with IBM. I was sleeping in as I had an evening shift (1pm-9pm), and was out and about late the previous night. My mom burst into my room (which she never did since I was 14) exclaiming "they attacked New York!" I was working evenings at the time, and was NOT a morning person, so I was groggy and not entirely happy being awakened so abruptly. I stayed in bed.

5 minutes later she bursts in again saying New York was being attacked, and to get up! Then again she closed my door and left. This time my neurons managed to make the proper connections and have some comprehension what she was saying. I tried to make sense what this could mean, and why she was upset by this. I remember what I was thinking as I was dragging myself out of bed. The Soviet Union was no more. Russia and China were the only countries capable of mounting a credible attack. But they would have no reason to to make a pre-emptive strike that would not have gone unanswered. Completely improbable. So I dismissed that line of thinking and thought it must have been some sort of terrorist attack.

After getting dressed and going into the living room, I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted by what I saw on TV: all of Manhattan engulfed with smoke, as the Twin Towers had just collapsed.

I worked at an IBM Store in Metrotown mall, and the big projection TVs that normally display advertising located throughout the mall were all tuned into news of what was happening. people were crowded around each of them, quietly watching as the world was changing before their eyes. The thing is, everybody knew it at the time.

At work, and all the display computers were networked and hooked to broadband Internet. We were all glued to them, reading and watching the video clips. It was a surreal day spent in disbelief I'll never forget.

Below are a couple interesting links to news sites cnn.com and canada.com, archived as they appeared. I remember these sites and how they looked quite well. When I found them archived, they were exactly how I remembered them:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010917011835/www.canada.com/national/

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911200318/http://www.cnn.com/

Monday Morning

An extraordinarily ugly building on Broadway

This is a nightmarishly uninspired medical building on Broadway. It's really quite intimidating by it's blatant disregard for any concept of aesthetics. Typically institutional in its overall feel...

Another thing this photo illustrates is the need to get a lens hood for my wide-angle lens to eliminate sunflares. Every photo I took of this building had the pesky things.