Shots from Last Year (Going Thru The Stack)

I do find that I have to do some major clearing out of my shots that I took last year. There are a few that were keepers. There's a lot that weren't. Yet going through them, I do find a few shots that I have missed in the course of shooting almost a thousand frames through my D300s this past year.


Now he's a happy crow.


Unfortunately the top of the rock is probably not the greatest place for foraging for food.


A shy mallard trying to tuck its head under its wing.


Now, I do the occasional landscape image. This is a rather photogenic barn that I've shot numerous times already. Each time I try to shoot it in a way that I haven't tried before, or I try to get a good light. This one seemed boring until I put it into black & white. I hope to try my hand at other locations throughout the Lower Mainland, one of these days. Rent a car (don't own one at the present time) and go out for a drive to some interesting locations and shoot.


I've always said that if you don't have your DSLR with you. Grab whatever camera you have at the time. Who says you can't get great photos with a Nikon Coolpix L11? Certainly having a RAW format (which the L11) doesn't allows you to do a lot with the contrast and the colors of the image so that it will stand out. For me, this JPG image took 5-10 minutes to adjust the white-balance and the contrast...to the point where I liked it.

Never allow yourself to think that "I don't have my good camera...I can't get the shot." You know what? Use what you have on you. Get the shot compositionally, then worry about how to make it stand out. If we all started using that rationale, then how many more outstanding shots would we have. Of course that rationale doesn't work when you're selling photos (so hence the reason why I admonish people to keep your good camera with you, so that you won't be banging your head off the photo-editing desk when you get home after missing a terrific shot).

There are times when I just don't want to lug that D300s and 70-200mm f/2.8 with me so that's when I pull out my trusty little L11 (which I hope to one day upgrade to the P7100 with all the shutterspeed, aperture and ISO controls, RAW format and other nice bells and whistles) but until then, I'll use what I have.