WTF #8

It baffles me that there are so many people in Nova Scotia who complain about how high taxes are; and then actively choose to avoid engaging in a vote to decide who gets to direct that money...

I might have personally found the provincial election results dissapointing, but the lack of a voter turnout truly feels like a slap in the face.

It's looking like there were more people who 'could' vote, and 'chose' not to; than there were people who elected a ruling party into another 'majority' government.

That's so crazy that I feel like I need to repeat it again = there were 'more' people who avoided voting, than the number who voted 'for' the "majority" government... Seriously?!?!?

I can live here, work here, buy a house here, and pay taxes here - but I can't be involved in making a decision about the direction of those tax-dollars?

Yet people who endlessly complain about how those in power are ruining everything, can choose to not vote, and continue to complain about the results?

Citizenship can't come quick enough!

...I mean it LITEREALLY can't come quick enough.

speed recap #19

I broke my one rule...

WTF #7

as seen on an electrical transformer box... (there were two stickers side by side - and they were identical, so I don't think it was modified by graffiti artists)

WTF is up with the seagull? in the backwards red cap?!? why is the sillhouetted guy's head so big?!? who designed this amazing piece of avant garde art?

WTF PEI:  traffic cone edition

"this is the worst cone ever seen on the planet"

speed recap #18

new photo #19

reaching out, May 27th 2017, Charlottetown waterfront, PEI

Sony a6000/n35mm, f1.7-ish for 1/1250sec, ISO 100

speed recap #17

Speed Recap in reverse order...

new photo #18

25th May 2017, Garden, Chester NS

Sony a6000/n35mm, f5.6-ish for 1/800sec, ISO 160

single word post #17

enervated

old photo #21

BEAR!!! - 24th May 2011 - somewhere on the way back to Vancouver, BC

While driving home from a weekend touring wineries with friends in the Okanagan, we noticed a bunch of cars pulled off to the side of the highway.

Curiosity got the better of us, and we quickly joined the large group once we saw the reason.

This guy looked like he'd just woken up and was stretching out on his "front porch".

Amazing to see in the flesh, and slightly humbling to get even the smallest inkling of how powerful and potentially damaging a bear could be if they felt threatened.


Taken with the Nikon D3100/18-200 (@200mm), f5.6 for 1/30sec handheld, ISO 200

single word post #16

syzygy

speed recap #16

The famous lighthouse at Peggy's Cove, NS

Keep off the black-rocks...

Swiss-air memorial 

old photo #20

Stampede! - 21st August 2007 - Salt flats El Questro, WA

2nd Unit filming of the stampede sequence in 'Australia' involved a small helicopter mustering our cattle into a safe group to the side of our lead actor (galloping along the line of cones), captured by both the 'flying' cable camera system, and a steadicam operated off the quad-bike.

As both the heli, and the camera cable rig were insanely noisy, my duties were essentially to observe the awesomeness of mega-budget filmmaking unfolding infront of me.

Nikon D50+kit, 155mm, f8.0 for 1/3000, ISO unknown - B+W post-processing in picasa

speed recap #15

Waterfront

Chester

The Devil

single word post #15

sangfroid

speed recap #14

Work. 
iPhone 5s, f2.2, 1/20sec, ISO 320

new photo #17

Lawrencetown provincial park - 16 may 2017 - lawrencetown NS

iPhone 5s, f2.2 for 1/2053sec ISO 32

single word post #14

quoth

old photo #19

Climbing the cliffs - 30th April 2013 - Kangaroo Point, Brisbane 

The decision to immigrate had been made mentally, and physically... I was waiting back in oz for confirmation of both a date for my permanent residency, and Mr. D's third season. So to take my mind off all the 'waiting' I took morning climbs with Blake and Tom.

Sony Rx100 (35 equiv. 28mm) at f1.8 for 1/402sec, ISO 125, HDR post processing

old photo #18

Booming over the wall - 26th March 2010 - Brisbane, QLD

I think we were all crammed into a tiny little warehouse on the outskirts of northern Brisbane for the final days shooting on a little aussie film called 'a heartbeat away'

It's a typical setup with people walking from a false 2nd floor, down a hallway and into another room. As you can see, the camera is outside the "main door" and there's no way of reaching the other end of the hall and then successfully tracking the walk-n-talk without coming over the wall.

ladder-booming is fun.

Panasonic LX3 point and shoot - widest setting (35 equiv. 24mm), f 2.0 for 1/8sec (probably resting on the set-wall), ISO 80, HDR post processing.

single word post #13

logophile

speed re-cap #13

Something about steering... 11th May 2017 - Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia has a general election in the next month, and over the past few days, I've been visited by two out of the three candidates for my electorate

I say 'my' electorate... 

...however, I won't be able to vote by the time this particular election happens on may 30th.

Neither of the candidates are presently in office, though one of them is a member of the ruling party. (a party that I should mention, through complete misguided-muppetry, has managed to scare away the very life-blood of the industry that I work in) 

I'm curious about local politics, as, being new, I'm playing catch-up with who believes in what... There was definitely a stark contrast in the ways that these two candidates answered my numerous questions.

The first one was filled with compassion, understanding, and dare I say it - conviction, that they would 'work for' their constituents, even if it meant publicly disagreeing with the head of their party. They were able to present with clear, easy to understand plans; what they were proposing to do if they were elected.

The other, straight-up admittied that they would 'tow the party line' to show 'solidarity' with their leader, even if the majority of the people in their riding were actively against a policy.

It's been gnawing away at me since this second candidate left my front door...

I feel completely powerless when it comes to helping shape the political landscape of my community - like I'm a driver that can't touch the wheel.

So I'd like to encourage all my friends and family in NS to become engaged and vote.
I don't care who you vote for - but exercise your right as a Canadian citizen. I'm not able to - but I damn well wish I could

****Update*****

As I was typing up this post, a representative for the third candidate (the present sitting member) sneakily placed a generic card with a handwritten message of 'sorry I missed you' on the door, knowing full well that people were home (they saw Lisa pull into the driveway.) 
I can't say that I am all that impressed with a campaign that is ok with straight up lying like that - it seems a little shady that the candidate isn't even in the area at the time that they're "sorry" that they "missed me"...

here's a link #15

'the halifax explosion'


Last Month the US military dropped a big bomb - it took out a cave system in Afganistan; and was the largest non-nuclear weapon that had ever been used.

Reporters started looking into something to compare this with - this guy was surprised to find out that Halifax, NS has a bit of a record when it comes to these things...

It's a pretty good explanation of the Halifax Explosion.

old photo #17

Parking lot - 2nd Unit Australia, 27th August 2007 - Cockburn ranges, WA

In order to preserve the salt-flats for filming, we would all drive, and park, in a neat little convoy.

I was standing on the roof of my sound-truck for this particular shot as the camera techs set up the giant crane-rig.

Nikon D50+kit lens, 18mm, f8.0 for 1/250sec, ISO 400

new photo #16

Wall-hanging - 7th May 2017 - Lottery Prize home, Chester Basin, NS

Sony a6000/n35mm, f2.8-ish, 1/100sec, ISO 100

new photo #15

Turtle-toy and Kevin - 6th May 2017 - Chester, NS

Sony a6000/n35mm, f1.7 for 1/80sec ISO 2500

positivity #7

A quick review of the 'Neewer 35mm f1.7, e-mount lens' on the Sony a6000

For approximately $100 CAD... delivered... (i.e. less than 1/4 price of a similar "name-brand" lens) 

...it’s not too bad.

There’s definitely some barrel distortion (straight lines aren’t super-straight), the colours aren’t 100% delightful without a little post processing (fit eels a little ‘dull’), and it’s no where near as “sharp” or “clear” as something from Sony, Sigma, Canon, Nikon, Leica, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, etc…

But that lack of sharpness or clarity, is what brings a certain ‘character’ and ‘quality’ to the images that it captures… (sorry. Never thought I’d be ‘that’ person who writes about a lens’s “character” ugh)… it's quite enjoyable. It's also quite possible that I'm justifying the impulse purchase by looking at it's 'pros', while discounting the 'cons' ;)

I’m certainly enjoying the lens size, playing with the shallow focal plane, and the challenge of its manual focus.  You can really tell the lens is a cheaply built one, as part-way through the focus-throw, it almost seizes up and becomes difficult to turn... might be a quality control issue, or might get better as time goes on.

In short - if you can't afford a 'proper' lens, or would prefer to have some more "organic" image degradation without the image processing; then one of these 'cheap and cheerful' manual economy lenses might be worth the cash. It's about as optically good as the kit lens, almost the same size too; only with the capability of a shallower depth of field, and shooting a cleaner ISO in much lower light.

Some examples below.

The aloe plant in our kitchen

Back yard sunshine *It does occasionally happen!

Sharp-ish and nice colour (...in Daylight ...with a little post-processing)

Kale in the garden 

Kevin sleeps on my lap, I contort my body to capture it...

Lisa in the Living room

The view past our neighbours house (bonus points for the deer grazing by the fence in the distance that I didn't even see until I was tinkering with the image on the computer)

single word post #12

misanthrope

old photo #16

Bird - 3rd May 2015, Chester NS

There's a function called "Auto contrast" in google picasa (what I have been using to quickly sort and organise my photos for years)  - sometimes I'll hit it to see what happens. Sometimes it's better than I could hope to achieve with well thought and considered effort.

Nikon D3100+18-200VRII, 120mm at f5.3 for 1/800sec, ISO 800

3rd May 2017

We got a little sun poking through...

Sony a6000/Rokinon12mm, f8 HDR composite of 9 images, ISO 100

Sunshine over the old church

"That's no moon... "it's too big to be a space station..." sun-rise 2017

Alternate angles, deep colours.

hyper-colours!

This years setup 

no more optical viewfinders 

Random wood-shed detail.

WTF #6

It was cold and wet again yesterday (thanks for the single day of spring, weather-gods) and as I tore up some papers to start the wood-stove (or "fireplace" for all my aussie readers), I noticed something that made me giggle, then get a little sad for the state of what they now present as 'news' in my part of the world.

Please note that I cared so little about the date of the article that I have no idea when it graced the local paper, just that it happened in the last two months.

The reason that I giggled was mostly because I couldn't get this image out of my mind

ahhhh classic Simpsons, is there anything that you can't do?

It got me thinking though, the man in the article probably just wanted people to know about the 'scam' in question - he's a storied war vet, didn't want others to fall for what is obviously a problem for many people 'round these parts.

But the Headline! 

It's like they're making him out to be a hero... by doing 'nothing'...

...as in, he 'ACTIVELY TOOK NO ACTION' and we're what? supposed to celebrate that he didn't go out and hand a bunch of scammers access to his life savings? 

y'know what a better headline would have been? 

"MAN WARNS ABOUT MAIL SCAM"

"MAN HI-LIGHTS DANGERS OF FRAUDSTERS TARGETING THE VULNERABLE"

did the "reporter" really need to use the word "AVOIDS"?

(please note that the paper in question is still engaged in what is now a longer-than-year-old strike by it's journalists and that its quality was never exactly stellar to begin with)

ok - enough of the mini-rant.

Here's a picture of Kevin stretching in front of the fire.