Spirit Day

In honour of Spirit Day today, and in the hopes that the irrational hatred and violence will stop, here is my purple...

Getting back to what matters...

I am facing some tough stuff right now at work that is taking time and energy away from what is really important and meaningful to me... teaching children. So when I am feeling like bureaucratic top-down decisions are taking away from my passion for my work, I need to take a moment to get back to what really matters... me and my students.
These photos were taken during a field trip last year that had no other purpose than to let us play and be together as a community. It was a spectacular day of laughter, learning, and discovery.
This group of photos also reminds me how this whole photography thing can be about more than just  learning to take good pictures, but also helping to stay grounded in reflection on myself and the world around me.

** This first photo was actually taken by a student who saw me playing around with my big old Pentax and started asking me questions (it looks so different than the mini digitals they are used to), so I gave him a quick lesson and this is what came out. Not bad at all actually :)

 All photos taken with my Pentax K1000

It's a small world after all...

Who doesn't love miniature things? They're cute, they can fit in your pocket, and they make for such great photo subjects! 

Dinosaurs in Portland! ~ Pentax K1000

Ghandi's mini-house ~ Pentax K1000

Public Art House ~ Olympus Pen F

Christmas Village ~ Olympus Pen F

The Secret Garden

This summer, I had the privilege of visiting the most amazing garden. A garden where flowers grow wild, and tower over you creating arches and secret passages. A garden where a crystal chandelier hangs inside an old wooden shed. A garden where gargoyles and Buddhas hide nestled among the bushes. A garden where cozy couches and over sized cushions create dens of conversation. A garden where it seems that, at any moment, a fairy tale may unfold before your eyes. A garden simply known as "Sue's Garden".

All photos taken with my Olympus Pen F

Beep Beep Ya!

Although I am not a car buff or even in the slightest way versed on the subject, I do love the look of vintage cars and trucks. And apparently from looking through my pictures, I also have an affinity for their headlights and tires. 

All photos taken with my Olympus Pen F (except that last one, which was taken with my Pentax K100 and also features a car and a reflection! I really need to start thinking outside the box!)

The new addition to the family...

... my camera family that is. This summer on one of our usual garage sale ventures I came across a Canonet 28. I carried it around with me for a while, checking out the focus, etc. but decided not to get it when I realized that it used a viewfinder format instead of SLR, though I was intrigued by the light meter (which I don't have on either of my other cameras). The woman watched  me walk around with it, then put it down and so she came over to talk to me about it. Well the long of the short of it is that I managed to get her down from $20 to $10 for the camera (case included!). And I figured $10 for a new toy that might teach me a bit more about film photography, and if nothing else will look great on my shelf, was a pretty good deal.
I didn't get to try it out until a few weeks later on vacation at our family cabin for a week. I only dared to take one roll of film before I got a chance to have it developed and check out if the camera even worked. Well it works, but with very unpredictable results.
The interesting (and also frustrating) thing about this camera is that it is primarily meant as an automatic camera, in which the light meter determines whether the light is too high or too low and will not take the picture if it is not happy. However, it seems that the light meter requires extremely bright light to register sufficient light (though this may be a result of an old battery, something that I will need to look into).
You can however take it off of automatic which will turn off the light meter control and allow you to adjust the aperture, but not the shutter speed! The shutter speed is always set at 1/30 sec, which means that I have to use the aperture setting to adjust for light. On my other cameras, in changing the shutter speed to account for light, it allows me to use the aperture to vary depth and focus in my pictures. This limitation of the Canonet 28 means that I have less control over my pictures.
One benefit of the Canonet 28 is that the leaf-shutter format allows for flash synchronization whic I do not have on either of my other cameras. Currently the flash I am using doesn't allow me to use the automatic setting, but I can use it on the manual setting which means that I now need to learn to adjust the aperture for a flash. I am not usually a fan of using a flash, but I think that I might have some fun exploring with it in indoor or night/dark settings (where I am normally very limited with my other cameras).
As with my other cameras, this one has it's pros and cons and although I don't think it will become a camera that I depend on on a regular basis, I do think it will be fun to play with and to learn from.
Variety is the spice of life after all.

Both pictures had exact same lighting, yet turned out quite different

Focusing is unpredictable. Sometimes it focuses on the foreground, other times the background

Both of these were taken on the manual setting with the same aperture. Notice the difference in focus.

Having a flash will open up a whole new world (and learning curve) for me!

I actually kind of like the "studio portrait" look the flash gives

You're so vain

Actually, I'm not... I just can't resist snapping pictures of reflections. Not because I necessarily want to take my own picture, but just because I love the layers and contrast that it creates in a photo. It also means I get some shots of my  beautiful cameras :) Here are some of my favourite reflection shots.

World Reflection - Pentax K100

Christmas Reflection - Olympus Pen F

Broken Rearview Mirror - Olympus Pen F

Wine Glass Reflection - Olympus Pen F

Mirror Couple - Olympus Pen F