A few from the Fall

Here are a few more shots I took this fall. Two of them as you will see are the zoom during the exposure variety. I'd never tried it before. It is interesting but I think I need to do it slower.

A winter Scene

So these are some shots I took about a week ago. I spent about an hour at two local beaches taking a few shots. There was a pretty good mist on the lake from the difference in air/water temperature for about a week. Should have been there about 3 days earlier to get more of the effect but I'm fairly happy with them.

Happy New Years All

The Year 2008 in Photography's

The Year in Photo's Part 2. Again this is an unreal collection of photographs. Some are not for children.

Family Portraits in the Park

So these are some family portraits I did for my good friend (and roommate)Helena and her two little girls along with another family who is Helena's best friends. We were at the park for about an hour and a half. It was nice weather for near the end of November here in Kelowna but a little cold. I used the normal setup I've been using for my portraits. My Nikon D80 with a combo of Nikon 18-70 and my Nikon 70-300mm VR with a SB-600 with shoot through umbrella on a light stand.

Had bit of a problem with the SB-600 not being powerful enough to fill when shooting in direct sunlight. I wanted to shoot 1-stop below the ambient light and fill with flash but that didn't work out. I am wondering if the SB-800 would make much different? Maybe two Flashes?


Family Portraits in the Park from Joel Todd on Vimeo.

The music for this slideshow was found here. "Continue Life" by Kevin MacLeod

The Schulz's Special Day

So this was a wedding I shot in place of a friend of mine. My friend wasn't able to make it as she had hurt herself and was on crutches. I had 2 days notice but felt good about it none the less. I ended up shooting the ceremony with my Nikon D80 @ ISO 1600 with a 50 f/1.8 lens. I really didn't want to wish my camera that far but it was candle lit (some other light was there) and was very small wedding (20 people or so). I didn't use a flash during the ceremony to keep the feel. I do use my SB-600 for some shots of the wedding party afterwards. After post-processing some of the files heavily for noise they turned out pretty well.

The Schulz Wedding from Joel Todd on Vimeo.

The music for this slideshow was found here. "Simple Duet" by Kevin MacLeod

The Year 2008 in Photography's

The Year in Photo's. This is a unreal collection of photographs. Some are not for children.

Samantha and Georgia's First Christmas

So this will be Samantha and Georgia's first christmas as they are newly brought into this world. I've worked with Samantha as her mother Courtney is a good friend of mine; this being our third photo session. Georgia and her parents are new to this but did very well. We shot (at the mothers request) off and on for about 4 hours with many theme's and outfits. I had a little trouble with finding the right angles to work with some of the props and outfits but think I did well for the most part. The girls were excellent.



Samantha and Georgia's First Christmas from Joel Todd on Vimeo.

The music for this slideshow was found here. "What Child is this" by Kevin MacLeod

Crazy Creek

So this is Crazy Creek which is a tourist attraction on Highway 1 in British Columbia about 30 minutes south of Revelstoke if I remember right. There are big signs and a big waterwheel. You do this hike up the wooden staircase to the top where they have a place to eat. You walk across this suspension bridge to the other side and then climb down the stairs to the platform which looks onto the waterfall of Crazy creek. It a nice stop. I think it's $8 for adults but free on Sundays. The first is a flower I found there the next a section of the falls I liked. The last is my beautiful girl friend. All shots were handheld with the Nikon D80 and the 70-300 VR. Below is my first attempt at HD Video on the web. Hosted by Vimeo.


Crazy Creek from Joel Todd on Vimeo.

Once upon a hoodoo

So here is my first try at a video on my blog. I will write an entry on how I created this slideshow (all free) but for now check it out.

You can find a few more pictures from this trip here

This was a hiking trip (day trip) that two good friends of mine and I went on a few weeks back

Introducing Mr Tom Esson

A friend of mine is a great musician that I have been to see 5-6 times now. This last time I brought my D80 with my newly acquired Nikon 50/1.8 lens. I pushed the d80 to ISO 1600 which is not real pretty on the D80. The photo's looked terrible in color but once I converted them to Black & White they look pretty good. Tom liked them.
Check out more of them

Panorama's Revelstoke NP

So a friend of mine Ang was asking me about Panorama shots and I knew I taken some I liked on this trip to Revelstoke NP so I thought I would post them. The first two are the same but one in B & W. When I first worked on it I really liked the vibrant color's I was seeing but after seeing the black and white I think I like that one best. These two are Vertical Pano's two which I don't see all that often.

The third one is a wide traditional shot of Jade Lake from the neighboring hillside. I like the grandoiseness (I'm sure that's not a word) of it.

One thing about Pano's is my blog doesn't do them justice.

Earth Quest Site

While maybe not the most exciting or amazing photo's it is one that is important to me. It is one of the few that I feel captures the feeling I get from being at the "site". This picture was taken in the past year or so. I was in Earthquest 10 years ago.... has it been so long?

This is what I call the "Earth Quest Site". Earth Quest is an amazing outdoor program that helped me with a lot of growth in confidence and many other things. While I was in EarthQuest it was first time in my life that I started to feel ok with my introversion. I always knew I was different in that way but I never felt ok with it.


Earthquest is an outdoor program run in Vernon, BC, Canada by an amazing couple Mo and Barrie Reid (or Mo and Reido) When I was in the program I did one Semester (about 5 months) at "normal" school and then about 5 months in this program. There was a certain amount of desk work to do as we received credits for certain courses so we didn't fall behind with the rest of our class. So some days we were at the school other days we were at the Earthquest site; an area of land donated to the school. At this site we would do all sorts of activities like basket weaving, fire starting (well trying), a beading project and we built Kakulies (traditional native houses). We did about 5 major trips to various parts of BC doing different types of outdoor activities like ocean and river kayaking, Back country skiing and rock climbing.

While the activities and trips were a blast what I learned about myself was 100X more rewarding. What I got out of it personally was so worth it and to think that it was a last minute (the night before) decision to apply. If you feel strongly about something ... even if you think it might be too late... go for it. When people see you want something badly enough they might go out of there way to help, please do the same for others.

Thanks Mo, Reido and my EQ group

Kalamalka Prov Park

This first one here is a shot taken on Rattle Snake Point (Turtles Head Point). I've always liked this tree and thought it would be interesting with the some hard contrast and fill light. I was thinking it might be better with that effect only on the tree. The composition isn't exactly where it should be but I like it.



This next one is one of my best buddies Dave. We were having a break on our hike. The photo wasn't anything to be excited about so I thought I would try this Gritty Effect I found on Scott Kelby's Blog. Basically I have a Lightroom preset to desaturate, bump up the blacks and take many of the other settings to there max. Then over in Photoshop you create a Blurred layer and paint it on the skin to give it a "softer" look. Kinda cool I think.




This is a basic shot that turned out pretty good (not as good on the web) looking down the peninsula of Kal Park towards Winfield.

An artsy take on a fence post along the walk way near Rattlesnake point


This is a view towards cousins bay. Again the web doesn't do it justice. Need to work on that.


This actually isn't taken at Kal Park but is the road to Kal Park. I liked the green/yellow colors and the diagonal lines.


And lastly I liked the reflection of the clouds on the lake and the color of the lake along the shore.

Kalamalka Lake actually means "Lake of many colors" in the local native language and on some days it can rival the ocean for color.

Kin Beach - Autumn 2008

Here is a series of shots from Kin Beach, Vernon, BC. I was looking at using the color of the season of course. I fave's are the third one and last. I have noticed I like vertical landscape shots more then most Photographers it seems. The last shot was taken from a road above the beach and I like it as it's different from what I've seen previously.

Autumn 2008 -

This one is taken along the shore of Mission Creek in Kelowna,BC. This was around the middle of October on a fairly warm (so far) year for the fall. I was having problems find a fore-ground with the great color of the trees in the background. This bend in the creek seemed to work pretty well. I like the curve created by the creek.



This is the leaves and rocks along the shore. I've always liked the "detailed" shots of rocks/leaves during this time of year. I am normally not happy with my captures as it doesn't have the same "feeling" as when I took them. This one is reasonable in that regard.

This last one I enjoy the strong colors and saturatedness of the scene. I was struggling with the composition as I wanted the reeds in the foreground but it didn't get to the point where I was completely happy. Also striving for the place I guess.

World Animal Day - The Big Picture - Boston.com

The Big Picture - Boston.com

A melody of great Photographs with some short comments on each. Very well put together.

Autumn's Show

Since Autumn has been putting on such a show as of late I thought I would show a few of my images from the few times I've been out.

This first one is my attempt at shooting the reeds into the setting sun. I am some what happy with the way it turned out but not completely
This next one is the reeds I was selective focusing on. I don't like the balance of it but thought it was ok anyway.

The last one is a crop of a shot I had taken from up the hill looking down at some nice looking trees but I found this crop was better as all the other "stuff" was distracting in the full photo