I was over at a friend's house this weekend when my fiance told me the lights were out. I ran home (thank goodness he lives just a couple doors down) grabbed my camera and went down to the lake to grab these shots of the lights. I love how they're reflected on the water. It's a shame the mosquitoes were devouring me alive, or I might have stayed a little longer before retreating back inside.

A Little Internet Birdie told me that there was going to be some Aurora Activity tonight, so I bundled up, and ventured out onto the frozen Nelson river to try and capture it. Unfortunately, between the almost full moon and the fact that the aurora was really faint, I didn't really get anything worth writing home about. So, Instead, I set the WB to Tungsten (Tungsten or incandescent white balance gives you some beautiful blue skies at night or dusk) opened the aperture on my 35mm f/2.0 all the way up, cranked the shutter speed, (These were all taken at a range between 30 seconds and a minute+) and captured some stars and a little bit of night scenery just to justify the multitude of layers I have to bundle into in order to venture out into the frozen December nights.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Etcetera!

This picture is a HDR created from eight different exposures. I bundled up against the cold winter night, and trekked out into the forest with two strings of Christmas lights and the UPS battery backup from my computer. After setting up the lights, I took a variety of exposures at f/4.0 ranging from 1/8 of a second up to a full 30 seconds. I then combined them using FDR Tools, cloned out the lights leading to the UPS (hidden behind that stump next to the tree) and then did a little contrast/color correction in Lightroom.  I'm pretty pleased with how well it turned out - hope you enjoy it!

Why is it that CSI's seem to be in love with their flashlights and afraid of light switches?

Whatever the reason, their illumination-phobia was my inspiration for Strobist's Lighting 102 Ultra Hard Light/Film Noir assignment.

Crime scene tape is actually a novelty guitar strap that I bought with the intentions of turning into a strap for my camera bag (before I shifted gears and bought a Lowepro backpack instead)

For the flashlight effect on my face I fitted a 12" cardbord snoot to my SB-600 got in nice and cozy and pointed it at my face (1/16 power zoomed to 85mm) Then, to illuminate the crime scene tape, I set a Sunpak 333 at half power parallel to the tape so it skimmed along, lighting it, but not contaminating the rest of the scene.

Afterwards, I discovered a slight glint off my belt buckle, so I burned that out in photoshop. Picture was sharpened and converted to a high contrast black and white in Lightroom. Exposure was 1/500 second @ f/8. Strobes were triggered with cactus radio triggers.

I had this concept in my head for a while now, I was just waiting for the time, energy and a half-decent sunset. Tonight, I was home alone, the sunset was purpling up the clouds nicely and there was nothing good on tv (a perfect combination!)

Originally, my concept was on the rocks in front of my house, but they have a more south facing view, and the light's never quite colorful enough there, So instead, I decided to haul two strobes, three tripods (I don't have light stands) my camera and assorted cables and wireless triggers a couple hundred feet into the forest next to my house. Then, precariously set everything up on the rocks by the shore.

I used the wireless remote (in self-timer mode) to take the pictures. Snap, snap, get up, over to the camera, chimp, rinse, repeat until the sun is gone.