Nutcracker 2009

Judy Russell produces the Nutcracker every second year ...this is a Nutcracker Year.  Hard to believe it is eight years since my daughter, Ashley, performed the Clara roll.  Anyway, here are some shots from this years production.  These shots are from the dress rehearsal Thursday evening, on Saturday December 19th, I just sit and watch without a camera stuck to my face  ...and I can enjoy the show.  If you live in Prince George, the show is a must see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunny but cold

Woke up this morning to a sunny but cold day ...that didn't seem to slow this fellow down at all. We have an Azure Maple right out our front door and this fellow and some friends were there to say good morning and were enjoying their breakfast courtesy of my wife's bird feeders.

 

 

Pentax K-7 a winner....

As we approach the year end, there are numerous "camera of the year" awards being announced and the Pentax K-7 is showing up a winner in many of these. For instance, here is one headline:

Pentax K-7 voted Readers Choice Camera 2009 by Adorama Leaning Center Readers.  Adorama is one of the largest photography retailers in the USA, they had 2746 respondents and  here is the results of that poll:

And here is what they said:  "While we're not particularly surprised that the K-7 won, the margin of victory bowled us over. Apparently, even though it's not made by one of the "Big Two" camera companies, the K-7's combination of groundbreaking features, lower price, and legacy of high-quality optics put it over the top. In other words, price/performance trumped the money's-no-object technical wonders on one end of the spectrum, and price-busters on the other."

Before and After...

My daughter, Ashley, just returned from a gig with Carnival where she works as a dancer. There was a photo workshop on one cruise and she modeled for one of the photographers and received the digital files of the head shots he took. It is always best to start any post processing with a good "in camera" shot, but post processing is a big part of the final look you get. This isn't photoshop manipulation as often criticized, just basic clean up and correcting of the image.  Personally, I always shoot in RAW, which is like a digital negative and gives you the widest latitude for correcting and adjusting the image in post process.  This image was shot in JPEG, where the camera does the conversion from the RAW data as captured by the camera's sensor, so limited in what could be done in post process.  Anyway, her is a before version (left) and after I did some work in photoshop to try and improve the look. Make sure you click on the image to see the larger version.

Vancouver

Made a trip to Vancouver to see an off Broadway production of A Chorus Line and made a three day trip out of it.  Rented a car so we could behave like tourists and did three walk abouts:  Granville Island, Steveston Village and Queen Elizabeth park, including the Blodel Conservatory. Here are some images from that trip ..the one image of the statue taken through the store window, is included at Faye's request.  She would like to have had that for her garden but (or should that be butt?) I could not afford it.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cottonwood Park with the Limited's

Left the office a bit early and took a stroll around Cottonwood Park to check out my new Limited lenses reported in the previous post.  I was shocked to see the damage from last winters ice jams, the bridges over the creek that runs in from the river were totally destroyed.  The metal supports looked like pretzels and the trails have been closed.  There is work taking place to make new trails that appear to stretch the route somewhat over what it was previously, but some new bridges will still be required.

Here are some shots employing all three of the limiteds, it may be difficult to tell the difference between the 35 and 77 in these shots, but there is no mistaking the perspective of the 15mm lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I might add, the reason for all those images of leaves is that I am trying to find an image to enter in an online competition (just the glory, no prizes) where the subject is "Leaves".  Here is one taken previously with my 105 macro lens.