It was downtown kind of morning

Instead of going to the gym as usual and hitting the treadmill, I decided to grab my trusty camera and brave the cold winter morning in downtown Port Arthur. Luckily, the weather warmed up slightly so it wasn't as bad as it has been all week. So I parked the car, bundled up and headed out into the unknown. Well, in this case, it ended up being Cumberland Street at first.

My first stop was the old Cineplex Theatre, which is just an old abandoned building for the most part. I am still amazed that they haven't torn down the signage. My camera of choice was the Fuji X-T1 and the 16-55mm lens. It's a great combo, and even though it's a bit of a bigger lens, I still don't really notice the weight. I usually shoot with my prime lens but I must admit, it's nice to have a bit of zoom. It allowed me to get some perspectives I wouldn't normally have been able to get.

The next stop along the way was the Shoreline Motel. For some reason, I'm always drawn to this building, for photos that is. It's not really my cup of tea as an establishment, but to each their own. I think I'm just a sucker for slightly run down and old buildings. 

Seeing as how I was right across the street from the Marina, I crossed the street and walked around the west end. There were some interesting cloud formations hovering around the Sleeping Giant so I waited a bit for the sun to be right and snapped a couple photos. I really need to start bring my tripod with me more often but I think I got a good enough shot hand held.

I was starting to get a bit colder, especially once the sun went away so I took the overpass back downtown and finished up by exploring some other streets and back alleys, before heading back to my car. The last shot of my walk was my favourite. I noticed that a whole bunch of pigeons were perched on the building so I gently approached, and because I had my zoom, I was able to stand a bit back and get a good shot. 

Thanks for viewing!

Walking the East End with the Fuji XE-1 + 16mm 1.4

It was starting to get late last night when I got the urge to just get out and walk around and take some photos. Although it may not be generally known as the nicest part of town, I'm usually drawn to the East Side when taking photos. I guess I just love the atmosphere. The rain was slowly creeping in but luckily it held off long enough for me to really put the Fuji 16mm lens to the test. My camera of choice was a simple one, since it is currently the only once I can mount the lens to, the Fuji XE-1. For a while I was trying to sell it but I figured I would give pull it out of hibernation and start using it again. It may not be the fastest camera but over the past week of using it, it has taken some of my favourite photos of the year. 

So I set off into the East End with that combo and wandered around aimlessly, like I usually do. The first stop was the East End bridge to get a few expansive shots of the neighbourhood. The 16mm is probably becoming one of my favourite lenses, not only for landscapes, but just for general use. It is sharp all the way through, focuses extremely fast (even on the XE-1) and produces great tones. With a lens this wide, it's hard not to play with the angles a bit as you can see from the first image. 

After walking in and out of some of the streets I decided to drive on over to the long path that overlooks the Sleeping Giant. With the clouds rolling in and a hint of the sunset it made for some nice dramatic photos. All in all it was a fun walk around. It goes to show you that even if it is raining out, there are always opportunities to just get out there and create some good photos. Of course, make sure your camera is waterproof.

(The last image is of our dog Willow. I couldn't help but take a photo of her all curled up outside in the rain when I got home... such a hard life.)

All images shot with the XE-1 and 16mm 1.4. Enjoy!

View from Hillcrest at Sunset

It has a been a very long time since I have been able to get up to Hillcrest Park and get some sunset photos. Well, I finally got a chance to spend some time doing that very thing. I arrived at Hillcrest Park about 30 minutes before sunset. I absolutely love this time of day as everything gets a nice orange glow, and there are still some soft shadows among the buildings in this case. 

Admittedly, there aren't too many views from Hillcrest, with only a few being completely unobstructed. I managed to get a bit creative with some of the photos using the foreground to lead into the composition. I also converted some to black and white, well, because I love black and white. 

As usual I used the Nikon D610 paired with the 85mm 1.8. I find that lens gives that nice compression and offers a fairly wide enough angle for what I needed. I will eventually go back and see how it looks using my old 20mm 2.8. 

I am by no means an expert landscape photographer but the way I take photos like this is by focusing about 1/3 of the way into the scene and using an aperture of about F8 - F10. These are all handheld too, as I didn't feel like lugging around my tripod. As for processing, I used some VSCO filters with my own flair, then brought them all in my RAW sharpener program. Then, for the colour images I used Nik Vivesa to add just a bit warmth and Nik SilverEffex Pro 2 to enhance the black and white images.

As you can see they are all still kind a bit of muted and not too saturated. This is just personal preference. My next project is to actually get out and do a time lapse with the setting (or maybe rising) sun. Until then.