My new d-SLR

Wait! What?? Did she say d-SLR, as in digital SLR?! *Gasp!* But I thought she was a film lover! This blog is supposed to be about Old Technologies! Has she gone to the dark side forever?

No, no, no.. fret not my film loving friends, I still adore my film cameras and plan to continue my love affair with them. But I have always wanted a good digital camera for all that practical stuff, like family dinners, Christmas morning with my little nieces, birthday parties with my friends. The kind of stuff that I don't want to miss out on because I am too busy fussing with shutter speed and aperture settings. When I want to capture a moment in a picture, but I don't want to let the moment slip by without enjoying it in the present. This is what I love about a digital. My new digital is a Canon Rebel XS that has a ton of choices in terms of settings in that it can be fully manual or fully automatic so it is extremely versatile for whatever I need. For just an anytime quick shot or a more complex artistic shot. (Thanks Mom & Dad for the birthday present!)

An added bonus to my new digital camera is the increased learning curve about general photography stuff (like depth of field, aperture, etc.) because I have instant feedback and can compare pictures with different settings immediately. As a beginner photographer, this has been wonderful for learning quickly.

So I will mostly stick to film photos being posted here, but may include some digitals if I get any really great shots. I find in general, very little is gained from exclusivity... so why not apply this rule to my blog as well?

Looks like I am going to need a bigger bag for all my cameras this holiday!!

My first experimental shots from the Vancouver Christmas Market this past weekend.

Take me Home, Country Roads...

Every time I go back to Alberta to visit Jeffrey's family, I can't help but sing that song. They live in a rural prairie area where golden tones rule and the sky seems to go on forever. When we first started dating, we always had the debate: Mountains vs. Prairies (me being from the Rockies, him being from the Flatlands). I could never understand how flat could be beautiful... that is until I visited his hometown. There was a point when we were riding our bikes out of town into the farmlands and I was literally stopped dead in my tracks by the vastness of the sky! I never understood just how small the sky could make you feel and how awe inspiring that openness could be.
Now don't get me wrong, I will still choose mountains over prairies any day of the week, but I certainly have a new found appreciation for the beauty of those prairie skies. These photos were taken on a hike over the Thanksgiving long weekend. Although there aren't any sky shots, they certainly captured those lovely yellow tones. All photos taken with my Olympus Pen F.

Happy Birthday to a wonderful man!

Happy Birthday to my best friend, my future husband, and my favourite photo subject...

I love you! 

P.S. Why are you so darn photogenic?!

Ol' Jack Frost

The snow has long since been washed away by the typical winter rains here in Vancouver, and with it, my Christmas spirit. That one weekend of fresh snow really put me in the Christmas mood, but somewhere between all of my different "to do lists", the mood has faded. But luckily the pictures remain!! (And the to do lists have at least gotten shorter).
These shots were from later in the day on that first snowfall, when the sun came out and began to melt away my winter wonderland. All shots taken with my Olympus Pen F.

P.S. I got a very exciting birthday present yesterday, which I will share more about soon :)

Whimsical Winter

A few weekends ago, I happen to wake up very early on Saturday morning to see that overnight, the first snowfall had covered the city. Now, in Vancouver we don't often get snow this early in the year, and if we do, it doesn't stick around for long. The untouched fresh snow got me all giddy like a kid on Christmas morning... so of course, instead of crawling quietly back into my cozy bed and enjoying a much needed and deserved "gros matin" (sleep-in), I sprang into bed, waking up poor snoozing Jeffrey, chattering all the while about the snow and how I just had the impulse to grab my camera and go for a walk in it before the world woke up and disturbed it. To my surprise, Jeffrey simply laughed and responded "Actually I saw the snow a few hours ago and thought about waking you up to do exactly that" (This is why I love this man!!).
So that is what we did. Threw on some warm clothes, snapped up our cameras (me with my Olympus Pen F and him with his Pentax K1000) and set off to wander this winter wonderland in the darkness of the early morning. It felt so whimsical and magical to be out enjoying the quiet, snow covered streets, while everyone else was warm in their beds.

Eventually our fingers got cold and our bellies began to grumble, so we stopped into a cozy retro 24-hour diner in our neighborhood to warm up and grab some grub (and to snap a few pictures of course).

By the time we left the diner, the sun was coming up and the rest of the world was waking up. Our little secret rendez-vous in the wee hours of the morning had come to an end, and it was our little secret. :)

Sorry about the quality of the interior and early morning shots, I am still figuring out shutter speeds in low lighting.

Look Up!

Amongst my other photographic tendencies (such as berries, reflections and cars), I am also drawn to towers and steeples. I am not sure if it stems from my romantic image of the princess high above in the turret or from growing up in the mountains surrounded by majestic peaks. Or maybe I have taken advice to "keep your chin up" a little too far. Regardless, I find a strange contentment in looking up at those towers.
Do you ever have those things in your life that you just love to look at for no explicable reason?

Birthday Girl!

This weekend is my baby niece's first birthday! Sadly, we don't live close enough for me to see them as often as I would like. Being far from family, and missing watching my nieces grow up are honestly the only things that ever make me want to leave Vancouver. I always hope that, despite the distance, I can be as close to them as I have been with my aunts.

So, Happy First Birthday Bear!! 

I love you (and those adorable little cheeks of yours)!!

Christmas 2009 - Olympus Pen F

Summer 2010 - Olympus Pen F

Summer 2010 - Olympus Pen F

Perfect Perfection

In my life, I have always been drawn to things that stand out, that are different, that "add character". I remember when I was a kid, there was a girl in my dance classes who had a very unique nose. While everyone else was making fun of it, I remember (even then), admiring it. I loved how different it was, how it looked like no one else's nose. It's the same with the type of men that I am attracted to... most would say that I have no clear "type" because I have dated (what seems like) everything under the rainbow; but actually, "my type" is men who have some character to their face... some "imperfection" that makes them unique. I especially hate those Gap ads about getting "Everyone in Cords" or "Everyone in Khaki"... I always think: "Why on earth would I spend that much money to look like everyone else??"

But there is a chink in my armour, an Achilles heel, a soft spot... it is my affinity for teeny, tiny, perfectly round berries! Especially if there is a bunch of them all clustered together, looking exactly like one another, no one standing out from the others. I just can't resist snapping a picture of those little spheres of perfect perfection.
Here, just a few of my favourite berry shots (just a few, trust me, there are more!)

Olympus Pen-f Shots

Pentax K1000 shots

This last shot is one of my absolute favourite photos