WARNING:  As this week is Travel & Leisure Photography week, be forewarned that you are about to be bombarded…

(oh, and the cheating continues this week as I’m already pretty proficient with a DSLR camera)

 

Monday – July 7th:

With my first full day done, I have several assignments under my belt:

• Demonstrating an understanding of Depth of Field with various subjects found at the college

   

• Getting away from auto settings and playing with Aperture Preferred, Shutter Preferred, and Manual camera settings.  My go-to setting is AP so I forced myself to try the others with one decent result with SP – something to work on.

• Depicting the maple leaf lady in motion:  I chose to render her as an ignorant tourist stepping right through the picture I was trying to take of my colleague, who you can no longer see because maple leaf lady is rather Rubinesque

• Capturing the essence of the curvy bench:  I really wanted to lie on the ground and get a good shot from under the bench but we’ve had so much rain I chose to hold my camera just above the ground, pointing up, and hope for the best.  I think it looks a bit like a wooden space ship

• Creating a mood with the sleeping lady:  (one looks peaceful enough, the other looks like she’s about to fall off her rock!)

   

• We didn’t really have any instructions for these guys – we could just do what we wanted and I like these ones

   

I really like the teacher, professional photographer Rob Stimpson, who has shared his “curriculum” with us.  It’s promising to be a very full and rewarding week.  I don’t think I’ll be able to claim boredom or, worse, that I didn’t learn anything!

We unexpectedly ended up being the entertainment back at the B&B.  There are two little sitting areas behind the house and Steve wandered down to one of them with his guitar.  A little later, I joined him with my Uke.  No one was around, or so we thought.  First one guest, then two more came wandering out to see what we were up to.  So we showed them!  One of the ladies, Susan, sat with us and joined in on some singing.  Oh, and Harley had a wee bit of a listen, too.  It was a fun little jam session and we’ve been encouraged to do it again.

    

 

Tuesday – July 8th:

This morning we went on our first of three road trips – to Gull River, where we had a choice between a dam; lots of fast moving rapids and their best friends, eddies; some grassy pools; eroded shores; and forest.  Alas, no kayaks running the rapids.  We had two hours to complete our assignment which was to capture the motion of the river.  As there are 12 of us, I thought I would get away on my own a bit by walking downstream on the hiking path.  I didn’t get too far before I realized it would have been better if I was a goat!  The path narrowed and climbed and became too narrow, too slanty (toward the water’s edge), and too fraught with natural hazards.  I think I would have turned back even if I hadn’t had a knapsack on my back, a camera around my neck, and a tripod in one hand!  (I’m annoyed that I didn’t think to take pictures of that “hiking trail”.)  Settling for the more secure areas where everyone else was, I found lots of vantage points.  After an hour, though, I became bored so headed upstream to the dam and still had to climb over, around and under various foliage to get to a small cement jetty where I got comfy.  If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have scored the “photo of the day” during our critique later that afternoon!!!  No one was more surprised than me…

(wall of water cascading over the dam and, for those who care, here are the technical details:  shot at 1/1000 sec, f/6.3, 220mm, ISO 100 – lens is 18.0- 270.0mm, f/3.5-6.3)

Here are a few other shots I rather liked…

    

         

      

Absolutely everything we see has some kind of line, colour, and texture to it, but do we ever really notice these on their own unless they are visually spectacular in some amazing way?  This afternoon, we were divided into three groups and sent off to capture these qualities.  My group was assigned lines.  By my own admission, I’m not the world’s most observant person so it came as a bit of an epiphany to realize how many wonderful lines there are in the most mundane objects:

               

(a stack of boxes)                       (window at college)                    (two glass divider windows)

    

(vending machine)                                                (woven rug made from plastic strips)

        

(college hallway)                                                    (hallway wall)

   

(inside wall beam)                       (cushions in library window seat)

(plastic floor mat – on a table)

During the summer, Tuesday evenings is reserved for the faculty to display their art at the Rail’s End Gallery in town.  It was cancelled last week because of Canada Day but it was on this week so we headed over for a quick peak.  There was a wire sculpture by Charles O’Neil, the man I took the sculpture class from last year and Steve’s Fundamental Drawing instructor this week, and an intriguing photo by my instructor, Rob, that looked more like a painting it was that good.  All art has something to draw you in but it seems to mean more when you actually know the artist.

Wednesday, July 9th:

We were supposed to meet up at Rails End, the Art Gallery in the park at Head Lake in the centre of Haliburton at 6AM!!! this morning to take advantage of early morning light, but the forecast was not good so that little adventure (getting up way too early) has been postponed to tomorrow.  Instead, we headed over to St. Peter’s Church and graveyard, beside a lake between West Guilford and Carnarvon – in the rain!  Okay, so it was drizzle, but still.  I found a copse of trees to hide under until it was safe (for my camera, of course, not me) to come out.  I did find a few photo ops while loitering there…

       

About 15 minutes later, the rain let up and my subject matter broadened…

         

     

               

         

                                                                

Our afternoon assignment was the most difficult so far, for me.  We had permission to go into three other studios to photograph people while they worked – jewellery casters, potters, painters.  Some of you might be thinking “now this is more like it” but I’m not comfortable getting into the personal space of friends, let alone complete strangers.  I feel it’s a huge invasion of their privacy and that I’m an intruder.  Nevertheless, I had my instructions and I always do as I’m told (just ask Steve).  Although I didn’t take too many pictures, I did get some that I’m happy with.

         

             

Wednesday evening is dedicated to Art Talks – a 60- to 90-minute presentation by one, or some, of that week’s teachers.  Last week, three of the artists formed a panel and discussed how art impacted their lives and how their lives revolve around art.  It was interesting.  This week, we had the pleasure of hearing from our very own photography instructor, Rob, who took us on a journey of his career – as an apprentice in Switzerland, through most of Ontario, and to both Polar Regions.  Not only is he an accomplished and award-winning photographer, he’s a great story-teller, too.

Thursday, July 10th:

What an early morning!!! Although I was dreading climbing out of bed to be at Head Lake Park shortly after 6am, I was rewarded for my efforts, even before I left the parking lot behind the B&B, with these two adorable bambis.

     

    

    

(I was told later by Nicola, our hostess, that momma is usually around, too.  That would have been an even better reward but, upon reflection, I think she might have scurried her youngster away from that evil lady who was sneaking around the field and getting too close.  As it was, after the initial caution, they were curious and ended up approaching within about 8’ – close enough that I had to back off of my zoom.)

So what if I was 20 minutes late???  I enthusiastically participated – once you’re up, you’re up – and found many opportunities to take advantage of the early morning light.  Besides, I think this was the first morning in five days it wasn’t raining or overcast.  And, although it was only 8 degrees C when I arrived, it quickly warmed up and I ended up taking my fleece off and rolling up my sweater sleeves.  Too bad I’m not a morning person – it really was a lovely time of day to be out and about.

       

    

         

     

         

    

Following the critique session of this morning’s work, our last assignment after lunch was portrait photography and guess who the subjects were!!!  We were divided into groups again – thankfully the same groups we’ve been in all week.  Although we were all very apprehensive about this exercise, we were four ladies who had acquired a certain comfort level with each other.  We were to seat ourselves at various locations around the college, using only windows as our light source.  Talk about an excellent photo session!  We laughed so hard, which not only made it huge fun, but also made for some really good pictures (that surprised all of us).  See for yourselves…

   

You might remember from last year’s post that Thursday is Studio Walk-Around and entertainment evening.  During last week’s walk-around, I discovered another course that might be of interest to me in future years – felting!  This course was for wearable felted pieces but all I could see was fabulous wall art, combining various layers of wool fibres with other organic materials (like silk scarves and ties).  This year’s walk-around didn’t reveal anything of interest to me but the products were excellent anyway – pottery, jewellery, paintings.

Rick Fines was the entertainment this week.  We knew him well from last year – Steve took his Finger Picking course last year and we had the pleasure of hearing him perform then, too.  He’s a local Peterborough resident, a singer/songwriter who mesmerizes with his magical finger picking bluesy style.  That hour went by very quickly.

We’re getting down to the end of our vacation and our food supplies are running low.  So this evening we did not drive right past the fish and chip shop but stopped and had a fishy treat at the picnic tables in front, overlooking the main street of Haliburton, the lake across the road, and an antique car show.  That’s right, an antique car show.  Some of those were beauties but, unfortunately, I had left my camera in the car…

Friday, July 11th:

Well, it’s over – this week’s class and our two week vacation.  We pack up and head home tomorrow.

But first, today we each provided Rob with a memory stick of 24 of the photos of our choice.  One by one, he ran our presentations and we shared why we took the course, what we felt we got out of it, and why we chose the photos we did.  Some provided a series of the same photo to demonstrate the effect of changing up their ISO and/or their aperture and/or their shutter speed.  Some provided before and after pictures – how they were shot and how they were able to improve on them through post production.  Some chose what they felt were their best.  It didn’t matter why folks were there, or how accomplished they were, everyone did an amazing job and it was a treat to be able to view and comment on all those images.

So, why did I take this course and what did I get out of it?

Let’s be honest (keeping in mind the title of this blog post).  I took it because:

• I already have a pretty decent comfort level with my camera and my ability to take reasonably nice photos
• I expected it to be stress-free
• I thought it would be easy

Here’s what I got out of it:

• I was gently nudged outside my comfort zone, in which I had become lazy over the years, and tried new techniques, resulting in better raw pictures
• I re-familiarized myself with the bells and whistles of my camera and forced myself to use them, resulting in better raw pictures
• I actively participated in the critique sessions, resulting in my being able to better understand what constitutes better picture composition
• I played around with the processing features in Lightroom, my database for photo management, resulting in better finished pictures
• I learned to look at my surroundings with a more creative “lens”
• I gained more confidence in my photographic abilities as well as my ability to offer critiques to others and reasons for sharing what I did and why

Would I recommend this course?  Absolutely.  I would recommend summer camp at Haliburton School of the Arts, period.  Look them up online.  Find something that intrigues you.  Make a commitment to find a creative outlet or improve upon your creative gifts.  You won’t be disappointed.

Okay, so maybe the weather was a little disappointing.  There was so much rain – more rain than not.  And the first week was so miserably hot; the second week somewhat chilly.  Didn’t matter – we were too busy to care that much.  And tired, too, at the end of the day, so were content to hang out in the evenings and either make music, watch movies, or read.

I’m going home a happy girl!