Its been too long since my last post so I found something fitting to throw up. I simply haven't shot anything new worth posting, so I dug this one up from almost exactly a year ago.

This area is one of my favourite close places to go when I can't think of anywhere else interesting. I've never got any really good photos there but its just a nice quiet place to be. There's coyotes, bald eagles, and usually hundreds of geese. The only time I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a coyote was a kilometer or two away from where this photo was taken.

It was about 2am and I was shooting night photos at the beach along Riverside Drive. I looked down the beach and saw the silhouette of a dog sprint through the light of a street lamp, under a fence and into the darkness beside the old abandoned Riverside Brewery. At first I thought it was a dog, but then I noticed the thick bushy tail.

As a bonus I thought I'd add a photo from that night. Here is the Riverside Brewery building looking in the direction I saw the coyote. It was in the area of the lower left of the photo.

Windsor Dragway

In 1968 the Wheatley brothers officially opened the Windsor Dragway in front of 4000 spectators, three years later in 1971 it was closed and abandoned. A couple weeks ago I went out to visit the decaying remains just off Manning road at Baseline. I shot some photos but ran out of light way before I was done exploring. So on Saturday my friend Todd and I went back.

Click the photos to enlarge.

This is a shot of the actual drag strip that I shot on my first visit.

The West concession stand interior.

The West concession stand bathrooms.

Once the sun went down I got out my flash and homemade color gels and try to liven the place up a little. I've been trying this technique more and more lately, but without overdoing it (I hope). I find it interesting in old decaying places. It seems to bring back some life and vibrancy.

Deep fryer in a roofless section of the East concession stand.

East Concession stand entrance.

Looking out from the East concession stand.

St. Joachim Farm

Chevelle

I was looking for something to post because I realized it has been too long since my last post. I remembered I hadn't posted any photos from the Chevelle concert I shot over a month ago. I posted them on Facebook already (which I really need to stop doing with all my photos). So here are a few of my favourites from Chevelle's show at the University of Windsor.

Light Painting

I went out late the other night and tried some light painting. I got some better photos but I'm saving those for future use. Here's a couple decent ones that I just wanted to share.

October 4th Sunset

Fall Classic

By 1 o'clock on Saturday all the karts and drivers had arrived for the first annual Fall Classic at FOG Speedway. The championship had been settled over a month ago but we had to get one more day of racing in before the snow came back. Here are a few of my favourites. You can check out www.fog.calebest.com for all the others.

Chase Again.

I just wanted to share a video. I added a photo I took to make it related to my photography. Plus that spot/trick is in the video too. I didn't make the video, Chase did. So check it out, he's good.

Ridebmx.com

A few weeks ago I sent some photos in to be included in a gallery that was going to be on ridebmx.com. The BMX photography forum I frequent, BMXperception put a bunch of photos together for ridebmx.com to try and boost membership. Anyway, the photos of mine they used aren't crazy tricks, but the ones I felt were the most technically sound. Check em' out. Both my photos are of Richard Carson, they didn't credit the riders, just the photographers.

The Wonderful (and slightly creepy) world of technology

I took this photo about two years ago on a drive home from Denver. It's just outside of the Rocky Mountains in Loveland, CO. I pulled over at the side of the road just because it looked like a cool place to take a photo. It's one of the few photos of myself that I actually like.

Well yesterday I went on Google Maps to play around with their new "street view" feature. Windsor isn't on it yet so I was looking at places in the US that I had been. I found the actual spot I took this photo years ago. You can see the pine tree on the left of my photo.


Anyway, thats all, no message here, just something I wanted to share. Now go find yourself on google maps and get creeped out.

Chase

Last week a bunch of us met up at the skatepark with the intention of riding a bunch of street spots. After a couple hours at the park waiting for Seth to finish what must have been a super Big Gulp cup of coffee and show up at the park, we headed to a nearby high school to rock some ledges. We didn't end up going to half the places we had planned to, but I still got some decent photos.

The Farm

A few weeks ago I went out to St. Joachim, about 20 minutes out of the city. My friend's band was practicing at the drummers dad's old farm house. While I was shooting photos of them I noticed the sun setting outside. I had purposely planned to shoot some sunset photos while I was out there that night.

I grabbed my tripod and slipped out the back door for a few minutes. I headed towards the back of the property and by the time I found a place to start shooting from I could no longer hear the music pumping out of the house.

I tried shooting these the honest way, with a graduated ND filter but the angles were too much and the sunset was too bright for it to really have an effect. So I started shooting everything twice, first exposing for the sunset, then again exposing for the foreground. It took me awhile to get it right in photoshop putting them together but I finally got this one to turn out decent.

I'm still not 100% happy with it, which is why I'm posting it here and not saving it for a greater use. I have others from this shoot that I'm holding on to for the time being.


After looking through all these photos and working on them in photoshop I really got the desire to shoot more photos in the county. But first I need a car to explore in.

Prep Work

Sorry, I've been slacking on posts lately. No excuses. Here's a couple photos from about a week ago. Richard prepping a ledge while I test the lighting and an icepick on said ledge.

Bike Jam

We had a little bike jam yesterday at the skatepark in Forest Glade. Not too much to write about...just lots of seagulls and even more bees.

End of the Season

Monday night was the final points race of the season at the kart track. After four months of racing many drivers were still close in points. I myself was just aiming to keep a spot in the top ten. I haven't seen the final point standings but I figured I ended up tied for 8th out of about 45 karts.


I was happy with my top ten finish in my first year back in a kart in about ten years. Almost all the karts in the top ten had much more horse power then our modest near stock Honda clone 6.5hp engine.


I shot more photos than I usually do on a Monday. I enjoy taking photos at the track but I usually don't have the time to do a lot of photography if there's work to be done on our kart. But this week the kart ran great, and I stayed out of trouble on the track.



As the season went on the word spread about the track and each week more and more spectators showed up. This week there had to be at least 300 people in the audience and that's not including the people in the pits.





After the drivers meeting we had all the drivers assemble on the track for a class photo. I set the 10 second timer and jumped into the photo at the far right.


Now we move to Saturday afternoons until the end of October for fun racing and testing for the 2010 season.

Snowbirds

The Air Show is in town this weekend and yesterday there was much commotion in the skies over our house. I caught Canada's own Snowbirds flying overhead from my backyard. Usually I don't have enough to get my camera out and change lenses from the time I hear the roar of a jet to the time it streaks past. But they made a few passes and I was able to get one decent shot without trees or telephone lines in the way.

I was planning on heading out around the airport to get some photos today of the planes warming up for tomorrow's events, but its been raining all day so far. I have to work tomorrow but I might journey to the airport on Sunday, weather permitting.