This is a stainglass window in a gallery running between Thames Hall and Sommerville House at the University of Western Ontario. The picture is an HDR composite from three images.

This architectural detail featuring maple leaves forms the bottom of a moulding that frames a window arch on a building at the University of Western Ontario. It is a recurring feature on all the buildings at the university built in the neogothic style. This is an HDR composite from three images.

Picture of the gorgeous, Gothic stain glass windows of Conron Hall in University College, the oldest building at the University of Western Ontario. Conron Hall is without a doubt the most beautiful lecture theatre on campus; for a second, you will be forgiven for thinking you have walked into Hogwarts. The picture is an HDR composite from three different images.

Middlesex College at the University of Western Ontario.

Another picture from my little adventure in Senegal: the Goree Island art market. If you happen to be going to Dakar, do your art purchasing here, or at least the paintings (don’t forget to buy wood carvings on the mainland as well). Canvases hung everywhere, framed paintings littered the ground, all very bright and colourful, contemporary, decorated with stylistic figures doing traditional chores, or splashes of paint (though nicely done, not just any five-year-old with a paintbrush could have done it). The canvases were almost mass-produced, but as far as I could see, no two were alike, and there is no doubt the artists were accomplished. I don’t know what you would have to pay for the bigger ones, but I got three little paintings for (according to my wonky recollection) CFA 8,000 ($16 or so), but I miscalculated (handy excuse) so I offered more than I should. The guide was very anxious to move on.

I soon found out why we were in such a hurry: our guide also had a nice little tit-for-tat going on with a guy making sand paintings on top of the hill, and didn’t want us to miss the opportunity. What guided tour in the world does not end in the gift shop, or drop you by one? The paintings were quite nice (can’t show you, actually forgot to take a picture of the other paintings hanging there), thpugh, so I bought three small, rectangular ones (making a nice triptych); they had a more traditional “feel” (can’t you tell I’m an art expert already?) with stylistic figures (again) doing traditional chores (though quite different than the first three). I did better here, relatively speaking: half off the asking price (CFA 12,000, $24).

I left the island as quite the accomplished marathon-art-purchaser.

The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 2006. I should have posted more of my pictures from DC before. The ceiling in the vestibule of the LoC is one of the most stunning I have ever seen. Here’s a great tip: beat the crowds and go early, early in the morning. You won’t regret it, the tranquility and beauty of the place is fantastic.

With this custom bokeh experiment — which turned out pretty well — I wish you Happy 2010, may it be better than 2009!

The lights in the picture are on the Christmas tree, but the picture has not been manipulated — the stars were achieved using a home made filter.

We went to Kalamazoo for Canadian Thanksgiving (as usual), and Ray, Jenna’s dad, had press passes to a motocross event as a part of a class in sports photography he is taking. So I got to go see and take pictures of something I would otherwise never have seen. This is the second of two posts.

This is the first time I’ve actually the first time I’ve successfully panned a subject, which means moving the camera with the subject in order to create a blurred background (with motion streaks), which captures the effect of movement. These motorcyclists are definitively not standing still, as a high shutter speed might make you think. The shutter speed here was 1/160th of a second. Lower shutter speeds are possible but it’s harder to make the subject sharp.

We went to Kalamazoo for Canadian Thanksgiving (as usual), and Ray, Jenna’s dad, had press passes to a motocross event as a part of a class in sports photography he is taking. So I got to go see and take pictures of something I would otherwise never have seen.

I’m not normally a fan of motor sports — I have too many other things to do and be concerned about. And it’s not the most sustainable sport out there, to put it mildly, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Plus, seeing people do crazy stunts on motorcycles is undeniably cool… The acrobatics and level of physical control human beings are capable of never ceases to amaze me. And it makes great pictures and great fun taking them.

I don’t really have the equipment for this kind of photography, though. Sports photography is typically very fast-paced, and my zoom lens is anything but fast. It’s a bargain basement Nikon 300mm f/4-5.6. Under bright conditions (like the day I took this picture) it keeps up — barely. But a faster lens — say a fixed f/2.8 — is sure to give you sharper pictures even under conditions where my f/4-5.6 can cope. That said, I’m very happy with the results of my 300mm, which far exceeded expectations. Maybe it’s not all in the equipment. My biggest gripe is probably the horribly slow auto-focus, driven by a motor in the camera body. But considering the $200 I paid for it, however, it’s doing very well.

Manitoba has a fair amount of Icelandic influence, owing to a bunch of settlers that came over in the 19th century and founded a town called Gimli. Naturally, Gimli has to have an Icelandic festival every year, the highlight of which is a viking camp put together by various “living history” groups.I went there with a couple of colleagues form work; it was really cool, very well done. Sadly, we missed the highlight — the fighting demos. But we did get to try archery, that was fun.