Week 25

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I already had some photos ready for this blog, but I got some better ones last night. My new favourite thing is driving around the county aimlessly looking for interesting photos. There's not much logic to my process. I try to find the lesser populated roads and explore those.

Although these photos aren't really from empty roads. The first is one I've been meaning to shoot for a while now, the old dock for the Boblo Island ferry that has been abandoned since 1993.

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These next two photos are just off the highway in Maidstone, Ontario. My dad had mentioned this spot to me earlier in the day, and on my aimless drive back from Amherstburg I found myself driving by it. So I stopped and spent quite some time roaming around the field with mosquito's buzzing in my ears.

The above photo is a 6-shot panoramic and the bottom one is a 9-shot. On the second one I walked quite a ways back into the field in order to fit everything in. The road is in the far background. You can see my car parked, dead center.

I have some other good ones from this spot but I just don't have time to process them all right now. Plus I should save some of them for furture use. I think I'm up to about 15 folders of photos I haven't finished editing yet and my computer is out of space.

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Check out Todd's Photo(s)

Week 24

My lightning photos from Friday night don't compare to what Todd caught, but they're still my personal bests to date. On my way home from work Friday night the lighting really started hitting hard, so with my new car I knew I'd be stopping at home to pick up my camera then speeding out of the city, hopefully to get ahead of the storm so I could get set up somewhere nice and fire off some photos before the rain came.

On my way out of the city the lighting was hitting all around me, non-stop. While stopped at a light out in the county I saw a flash, followed by another bright green flash, out of the corner of my eye. I looked just in time to see sparks showering off a telephone pole and a cloud of black smoke floating into the air. I wanted to investigate further but I didn't see much other than the smoke, and I really wasn't feeling brave enough to get out of the car right there.

So I raced on as bolts hit the farm fields on both sides of me. Unfortunately, by the time I decided to pull over and shoot some photos, the storm had calmed down a lot. I still managed to get a few decent bolts in the distance.

I pretty much spent the whole weekend driving around the county chasing storm clouds and sunsets. The above shot is from somewhere between Harrow and Amherstburg after sunset. This is from Saturday night.

This shot I thought I'd throw in to mix things up. Its from Tuesday night at 13-stair set on Huron Church Road in Windsor. (Yes, he landed it).

This is from Sunday night after a rainstorm. Try to find the rainbow. There was more of it, but by the time I found a place to pull over it was starting to disappear.

One last thing, I thought I'd throw this in here as well. This is a timelapse of the last storm clouds passing over Kingsville, Ontario.

Check out Todd's crazy lightning photos. (and Others)

Week 23 - The ongoing quest for lightning

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I've been trying to get some good lightning photos for about 10 years now. Unfortunately I still haven't got anything good. A small storm rolled through last Thursday night so I headed out to see what I could find. I saw some good bolts on my drive out but by the time I got set up there wasn't much more than some flashes in the distance.

My main photo for this week was one of the last ones I took after the storm had passed. I added a second photo below, its the best one I got of a little lightning (just above the tree tops on both sides).

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On another note I finally bought a car, so my subject matter should improve a little as I now have a better means of getting out of the city, instead of relying on borrowing my parents van.

Check out Todd's Photo.

Week 22

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With my 27th birthday passing yesterday, it's been a year now that I've had this blog going. It has changed a bit since my initial plan to post a photo everyday for a year, but I'm still at it. This week's photo is from a random journey I took driving around side roads just outside of Windsor. I couldn't tell where it is exactly though. I got a little lost in the process, but I enjoy that.

Check out Todd's Photo

Week 21

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I almost when to bed without posting my photo for this week. Not much interesting to say about it I guess. I've taken a lot of photos this past week but this is the only one I had edited and ready to go. Since my computer took about 5 minutes just to open this browser to do this, I'm not even going to try and open photoshop to get anything else.

Check out Todd's photo(s)

Week 20 - 100th post

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This is my 100th blog post since I started posting on here last year on my birthday. Just thought I'd celebrate that for a second before I get to my story.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was at work and got a call from one of the supervisors asking if I could work an upcoming Sunday shift. As I thought about it for a second, she added "its your weekend off." Weekend off? I thought. So I stalled long enough and she told me to think about it and get back to her.

I immediately ran to the back to check the schedule for that weekend. Turns out I had that Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. "Road Trip," said a voice in my head.

I ended up picking up that Sunday shift because I needed another shift off in order to work the Windsor Spitfires game. So I still had 3 solid days off. I worked Wednesday at 4am until noon. So when I got off I rented a car, packed it up and went to bed around 7pm in order to get an early start Thursday morning.

I was ready to leave by 6am. As I was on my way out the phone began to ring, it was work calling, presumably to see if I could work for someone who called in sick. I shot the phone the finger in a comedic fashion and slipped out the back door.

I didn't have much of a plan for where I was going. I just knew I was heading north (pretty much the only option, unless you're going to the states).

So, to make this quick, as I've already wrote more than I planned. I went as far as Wasaga Beach, zig zagging my way through back roads. I drove a total of 1600kms and got lost almost as many times as I wanted to.

I haven't even got to editing the photos yet, aside from these two. The first is a random barn on a sideroad that I came across in the brief break from pouring rain, snow and 60mph winds. I shot a bunch of this barn, but this one is made up of two different exposures. One I exposed for the sky, the other for the barn/grass. Then blended the two.

The second is a 5-photo panoramic. Aside from stitching the 5 photos together there's very minimal photoshop done. (Just levels, and unsharp mask).

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Check out Todd's Photos.

Week 19

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I don't have time for a long post, as I should be in bed already. But here's a quick shot from Saturday at Todd's book launch party for Major League Anxiety. Todd is on drums, jamming out some Weezer with Daniel Victor of Neverending White Lights.