After hours at the Valley Zoo

Went on an after hours trip to the Edmonton Valley Zoo on July 8, 2008. For $15, they take you a bit more behind the scenes, down the staff access areas and even open up some of the cages for even closer looks at the animals (as was the instance for the Red Pandas).

I’d love to go again, maybe next time I’ll rent a 70-200mm f/2.8L zoom lens, had some good shots but a lot of noise due to shooting at 1600 ISO.

Be sure to check out the set as I add more over the next couple days!

Tags: after hours, alberta, Animals, edmonton, leopard, mammal, panda, red panda, snow leopard, valley zoo, zoo

Dr. Draw

Some of you may recall my post from a couple weeks ago about the opportunity I had to shoot Dr. Draw while they performed at The Works Art & Design Festival here in town. I’ve been talking to their manager and will be sending a CD of some of the shots for them to include in the gallery on their main site.

Much to my delight, I noticed a new comment on one of the images I took at the show.

The comment came from Eugene Draw himself:

I love this photo…
I would love to post it as the profile pic on the Dr. Draw myspace page actually all of the photos look just amazing….
you are truly a real deal photographer
e

Thanks for the comment Eugene, glad you liked the shot and hope to see it gracing your myspace page soon! I’ll chalk this one up to the published column…

Tags: B&W, Black & White, black and white, dr. draw, festival, musician, performance, performer, Portrait, Published, the works, the works art & design festival

The English Gents

The Edmonton International Street Performers Festival is currently on from July 4-13th. Going to be another week of lunch hour photo ops!

Denis Lock and Hamish McCann are The English Gents, two delightfully devilish and cordial English gentlemen who perform inconceivable feats of acrobatic skill, strength and balance, whilst casually sipping tea, reading the newspaper or whatever tickles one’s fancy. The act mixes highly skilled acrobatics with a dry English wit, unexpectedly climaxing with the two hilariously bearing near all for Queen and country. The English Gents. have delighted audiences all over the world, including the likes of Uma Thurman, Shakira, Geoffrey Rush, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Sondheim and Brendan Fraser, to name a few.

These guys were simply outstanding! Will be uploading more throughout the week so be sure to check out the complete set!

Tags: acrobat, acrobatics, acrobats, edmonton, english, gents, international, performer, street, street performers festival

Curtis Santiago at The Works Art & Design Festival

Had the opportunity to shoot Curtis Santiago performing at The Works Street Stage at the annual Works Art & Design Festival in Edmonton, Alberta. Got a few good shots of Curtis and Mike Schlosser, the guitarist.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the set, hope to have the processing done over the next couple days!

I really liked the sound coming out of these two, full of energy and the lyrics and music was great… you could really feel the energy and it was fun to shoot musicians and feeling the transference of some of that energy. What I wouldn’t give to be a full time concert photographer! Be sure to check them out, I really dug TKO and a couple of other tunes.

It’s going to be a good week for lunch shooting…

Tags: curtis santiago, guitar, mike schlosser, musician, singer, Street Photography

Panorama city…

Above is the view from the Hotel Macdonald overlooking the river valley in Edmonton. This consists of 8 images stitched together, no tripod just freehanded it.

I used hugin, Enblend and autopano-sift - worked pretty good in my opinion, and was relatively painless! Didn’t do much post processing (yet) on this either… might run a minor HDR treatment on it to even out the darks/lights.

Of course, make sure you view the Flickr page and view the largest size, uploaded this one a bit bigger to see more of the details.

Just a heads up for you regular visitors, I plan to be doing a few more substantial articles over the next coupe weeks, including one on Street Photography and TtV!

Tags: autopano-sift, enblend, hugin, Panorama, stitch, stitched

“What’s in the van, man?” The right place at the right time?

Had the good fortune of being in the right place at lunch. A local radio station (Sonic 102.9) has a contest on right now called “What’s in the van, man?” - basically someone gets picked from a random draw to choose either the van or a cash envelope. One or the other contains a “good” prize, the other a not so good prize.

Anyways, took a few pictures, called the station and spoke with someone on their web team and she told me to send them on over - here’s hoping they use them on the site!

Check out the rest of the set!

Tags: contest, edmonton, event, garner andrews, radio, radio sonic, sonic intern army, Street Photography, what's in the van man

New project?

So one of the Flickr groups is focused around war memorials and remembrance… so it got me to thinking about my cemetery walk yesterday and all the headstones for veterans that are there. Wondering if it’d be worth my while to go and individually shoot them all for posterity sake. I guess if it helps one person identify or find someone, it’d be worth it. Wouldn’t it?

Maybe I’ll call around and see if the local veterans society/groups have anything already in place.

Tags: cemetery, grave, headstone, tombstone, veterans, war dead, world war i, world war ii

St. Joachim Catholic Cemetery

Visited the St. Joachim Catholic Cemetery in town during lunch… it may sound odd but I really enjoyed this photo walk. I only hit about half the cemetery but I really like the TTV stuff for this.

I know some people think visiting cemeteries for the purpose of a photo shoot is crass and wrong. I don’t. The way I see it, and taking into account some of the tombstones I saw, I’m paying more attention and respect than has been paid since who knows when. I also find it keeps me grounded, makes me think, question my mortality and what I’ve done and where I’m going…

Tags: cemetery, duaflex, duaflex i, graveyard, kodak, st. joachim catholic cemetery, through the viewfinder, tombstone, ttv

Lunchtime walk downtown…

Took a walk downtown today at lunch… here’s some of the shots, I took 159 so I’ll be uploading a few a day so as to prevent overload. Some are HDR, and the rest are pretty much out of the camera with some minor adjustments. Check em out by clicking the links below!

1. Downtown Office Building, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (HDR), 2. Chancery Hall, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (HDR), 3. Chancery Hall, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (HDR), 4. Canada Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (HDR), 5. Inside the hole…, 6. Back door, 7. Wall painting, 8. The Lodge Hotel (Brighton Block), 9. Sign brace, 10. Breakfast, Lunch & Sandwiches… to go!, 11. Jasper House Hotel/Empress Hotel/Hub Hotel (HDR), 12. Parking Meter (HDR), 13. Abandoned Mechanic’s Garage (HDR), 14. Locked and peeling (HDR), 15. Ross Plumbing & Heating Co.

Tags: edmonton, hdr

Edmonton Municipal & St. Joachim’s Cemeteries…

Headed out at lunch yesterday to the Edmonton Municipal Cemetery to snap a few shots… didn’t realize it was actually a couple of cemeteries, and that we had a WWI War Memorial there… turned out well though, took about 75 shots and ended up posting 22. Couple samples below, you can view the entire set on flickr.

Tags: cemetery, edmonton, graveyard