Toronto Skyline

Toronto Skyline
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's a panorama of Toronto from Toronto Island. All the way to the left is the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Porter Airlines flies from there. The mid-left you'll see the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower next to it. Past the middle, I'm not so sure what's there... nothing much really. It was getting damn cold when I was taking these pictures. I've learned that leather gloves barely do anything, in terms of insulation.

Photoshop used to automatically and manually align images. Automatically blend the layers. The usual processing afterwards.

Green and Red Fireworks

Green and Red Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Since we're in December and getting close to the holiday season, I thought it would be appropriate to upload these colours for fireworks. Apparently there are some faint blue fireworks in the background that I didn't notice when I uploaded it. Well, more colours are more fun... sometimes.

Toronto High Rises

Toronto High Rises
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here I'm standing across from the CN Tower, really close to the Steam Whistle Brewery.
When my cousin came to visit me in Toronto, he and I went up to the CN Tower to shoot some shots from there and we run into my boss, what are the chances.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop with the usual processing.

Toronto Light Pollution

Toronto Light Pollution
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So it was getting dark on Toronto Island and my cousin and I noticed the light pollution. He took a picture of it first and I thought it was cool so I took one too.

As you can see, the light pollution in Toronto is quite apparent.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop.

Flapping Swan

Flapping Swan
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So, I saw some swans and ducks when on Toronto Island shooting the city in the evening. This swan was probably the closest one and I happened to be shooting it that it decided to flap its wings.

It was quite dark so I had to lighten up the picture and you can see the noise on it, but oh well.

Steam Whistle Train

Steam Whistle Train
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's one of the trains by the Steam Whistle in Toronto. This is the first picture processed from my newly bought 7D. I just bought the 7D today. Almost an impulse buy. I had thought about getting it and went into a camera store. They had a good price, so I got it.

I barely processed this picture at all because I was quite pleased with the result that the 7D gave me.

Look forward to some videos with the new camera.

Back from Hiatus

Back from Hiatus
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

I told you I would post a picture soon. Here's a picture after a 3 week hiatus. I just didn't have any pictures to process/was too lazy to process anything. I also haven't gone out shooting for a long time.
You can see the CN Tower at the back. This is probably my first time seeing it in purple and green. I've seen it in green and seen it in purple, but not the combination.

3 exposures. HDR in Photomatix and then combined with some 3 exposure processing in Photoshop.

Nepean Sailing Club

Nepean Sailing Club
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's the marina where my dad has his boat. This is taken from the peninsula? of the cove? I don't know the terms. If you check the map, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Something is wrong with the sky when I saved it as a jpg... I don't know what it is but it became all pixelated for some reason. Whatever, I needed to upload something since it's been a while.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop.

White Fireworks

White Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Yup, another fireworks picture. This one has a tint of green, but mostly white. It's a different style from the rest of them I had too. This one seems like dotted lines rather than a continuous stream.

Father and Son

Father and Son
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

My Converse All Star shoes. When I was in Buffalo a few months back, my sister and I went into the Converse store and I bought the keychain of the shoe. I'm running low on pictures, so I'm coming up with really plain ideas or looking at pictures from a year ago.

Marina in Vancouver

Marina in Vancouver
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So this is somewhere off of Granville Island. We walked from Granville Island to my friend's mom's new house that she bought but wasn't there yet. Anyway I haven't posted a processed picture in a very long time because I've been a bit busy with work and I don't have any new pictures. I haven't gone on a photo shoot in a long time... I should go somewhere. Enjoy.

3 exposures processed in Photoshop.

Wedding

Last night, my good friend got married to his girlfriend of six years. High school sweethearts, how sweet. I found out that she's a lot more sociable and normal than I thought she was. Over those six years, I've never had a conversation with her because my friend would never bring her around when we hung out. Anyway, the wedding was good. Good times, lots of stories. We saw this wedding coming for the longest time.

Congratulations to him and his wife.

Very close

It's so close, I can taste it. I went to go look at some condos yesterday with a real estate agent and she showed me some really nice places. She's away for this Thanksgiving weekend, so we're going to continue our search on Tuesday. Probably sometime next week, I'll have a decision and hopefully be able to move out of my sister's place. Once that happens, my life will be +5 awesome points.

On another note, David Choi is having a concert in Toronto on Monday at the El Mocambo. I am definitely attending this. More information on his tour is available here.

Pink Fireworks

Pink Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Today, it's pink. As you can see, I am really lazy these days about my photography. I don't even have anything to say here.

Processed from one RAW.

Golden Fireworks

Golden Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

This time it's golden. I've bee really busy with work lately, so I haven't gotten the chance to go take any new pictures or process any old ones. My parents also have come visit, so that took up sometime. Hopefully I can get some new photos in the next week or something.

Processed from one RAW.

Blue Fireworks

Blue Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Today, it's blue fireworks. I haven't posted anything in the past few days due to work, laziness and that I have not many things left to post.

Processed from one RAW.

Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here is the glass floor of the CN Tower. It's much less interesting and uneventful than the Calgary Tower as seen here. There are also too many things blocking the interestingness of the city.

3 exposures blended and processed in Photoshop.

New York City

New York City
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Down 42nd street, I believe. Close to Times Square. Not much to say about this, just a lot of pedestrians.

3 exposures blended and processed in Photoshop.

Jay-Z

Jay-Z
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's a painting of Jay-Z done by David Garibaldi. David is an amazing performer. He paints to music and is very energetic. I got to see him when I went to NYC. He painted himself and Lady Gaga as well.

Rogers Centre from Heaven

Rogers Centre from Heaven
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

No, this is just from the CN Tower. Anyway this is the Rogers Centre, formerly known as the Skydome and there is a baseball game going on. This is about the only interesting thing I could see from the CN Tower, especially since I couldn't look east or south because of the restaurant being in the way.

3 exposures blended and processed in Photoshop.

Asian Lantern

Asian Lantern
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's an Asian lantern in my sister's place. I've been trying to find something interesting to shoot in my sister's place. This is the only interesting thing I could find on short notice.

I uploaded this photo to flickr via Lightroom's new publishing feature.

Looking north on Toronto

Looking north on Toronto
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here I am up on the CN Tower. Not much else in this shot that the other shot I posted a few days ago didn't have. The next one from the CN Tower that you see will from me will have something to look at.

3 exposures blended and processed in Photoshop.

Japanese Doll

Japanese Doll
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's my crappy attempt at macro photography without a macro lens. I used the 50mm f/1.8 lens. For the backdrop I used a poster my sister had lying around that was white on the back of it. I used my flashlight on the side of this to get some more light because my sister's place is not very bright. I used the popup flash on the camera with a Gary Fong Puffer.

This is a kimmidoll collection and her name is Ayame.

Ottawa City Hall

Ottawa City Hall
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's Ottawa City Hall from an angle. You can see the lights on the right here from another photo I shot. I had the setting on large jpg and I didn't notice until later and I was like... ugh man... It turned out alright though... not amazing but alright. This shot is very green.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop. Usual processing.

Green Fireworks

Green Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

This time it's green. This is a lazy upload because I'm so tired from work. I just started work and I'm already this tired. I wonder how I'll be like Friday afternoon... haha.

West Toronto

West Toronto
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here I am at the observation deck on the CN Tower. We're looking west here at an angle because I put my jacket around my camera to cover it from the glare. Little did I know, my jacket was pushing the camera to shoot at an angle like this. Came out find though, so it's cool.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop. Usual processing. The line in the sky was a plane flying by, probably from the Pearson Airport seen here.

Light Posts

Light Posts
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

These light posts are just in front of Ottawa's City Hall. Not much to say about these. Enjoy

3 exposures processed in Photoshop. Usual processing.

Hot Air Balloon Collage

Hot Air Balloon Collage
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Definitely stole the idea of doing the collage from my cousin. You can see his shot here.

This was taken at some festival in Gatineau. My cousin and I wanted to go up one of these balloons but it was full because people reserved flights. We're thinking of reserving a flight next year.

I changed the exposure of the outside two pictures using Lightroom. No processing otherwise.

Reflected Lamps

Reflected Lamps
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

This is at the Ottawa City Hall. There was some water in this thing. I went to the Lantern Festival? with my cousin and it was pretty disappointing. We drove around and decided to go here.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop. Usual processing technique used.

Rain

Rain
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

I missed yesterday to post a processed picture, so I'm posting a non-processed picture today. Although I did reduce the noise with Photoshop.

Here we can see the rain in the projector's light. I took the shot with my 50mm lens, since it's fast and it was dark outside. ISO 1600, f/1.8.

Fireworks

Fireworks
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

This is the second time I've ever shot fireworks. This time was much better than the first time. The shot was taken from Rockcliffe Parkway at this little hut thing that has some parking. There was some guy from Toronto that was there and he gave me some pointers on how to shoot fireworks and it worked out pretty well. This was for some festival going on in Gatineau.

No processing done. Just cropped it. This was one of the rare times where I used my 18-55mm lens; at least it's not useless.

Church Vertorama, New York City

Church Vertorama, New York City
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

I don't know what this church is called. I just passed it by while walking around. This might be on Broadway, but again, I'm not sure. It's been a while since I've done a vertorama so I decided to do this one.

2 pictures, 3 exposures each. Processed in Photoshop.

Tim Hortons in New York City

Tim Hortons in New York City
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

I didn't think that Tim Hortons actually made it this far into the United States. This was in New York City, pretty sure we were on 42nd St., or at least we were close to that street. Getting closer to Times Square.

Added more colour saturation in Photoshop.

Apple Store, New York City

Apple Store, New York City
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

As the title says, this is the Apple Store. I went to New York City for a weekend. We started driving from Ottawa at 1:30AM on Saturday, got there and explored the city. At 7:30PM, we went to see ISA. Amazing show. Anyway, I digress. I figured it would be appropriate to upload this Apple photo as there was an Apple event today announcing the new iPod Touch, iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano and the Apple TV.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop. Usual processing.

Perseid Meteor Shower

Perseid Meteor Shower
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So I went to Meech Lake with my cousin and we wanted to see some shooting stars. We saw a few small ones and one really huge and clear one. We can see one here at the top left of this picture. We can also see Polaris right in the middle. The one that has no light trails.

It was really dark and we had our flashlights. Even with the flashlight, we were walking down towards the lake and we saw sand. We were like... alright a beach. A few steps later, we stepped into water. The water was so still and clear, we didn't even notice that it was there. Good thing it was a warm day and we weren't doing anything other than taking pictures.

650 second exposure at f/3.5 and ISO 100. A few Photoshop adjustments, but not much.

Nortel Networks Campus

Nortel Networks Campus
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's the Nortel campus in Ottawa. I was taking shots at a marina nearby and then decided to go to Shirley's Bay afterwards and this was on the way. I thought to myself that I should stop in here. The campus is not very interesting other than this "tower" they have. This is the first new picture I've taken in a very long time.

3 exposures HDR/DRI combo. Photoshop and Photomatix.

Waterfall Closeup

Waterfall Closeup
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's a closeup of the waterfall. It's the one in Orleans I took a few months back. You can probably tell I haven't gone shooting in a while and am running out of pictures to post. I'm just processing old pictures now.

3 exposures HDR/DRI combo. Photoshop and Photomatix.

Downtown Ottawa

Downtown Ottawa
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So here's a shot of downtown Ottawa from the King Edward bridge. You can see the Peace Tower, the National Gallery of Art and other unimportant things.

3 exposures HDR, DRI combo. Photoshop and Photomatix. Curves, levels, saturation, contrast, masking, unsharp mask.

Same Banff mountain, different angle

Same Banff mountain, different angle
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So here's the same mountain as my other Banff shots. I just took the shot much closer to the water. I think I might have not even used a tripod for this one. I set my camera down on some rocks. I put my trust into this rock to not move while my camera was taking the shot. If it did move, my camera would probably fall into the water and I would freak out.

3 exposures blended the same way as the last two.

Victoria!

One of my friends left for a year exchange in Belgium. I didn't really talk to her that much while she was there but I saw the Facebook updates and whatnot. She just came back on Sunday to her home in somewhere near Toronto. She was still jetlagged when I saw her today in my hometown and where she goes to school. Anyway, I met her and I didn't realize how much I had missed her. It was so good to see her again and talk to her. I caught her up on my life over the past year and we exchanged stories. One of my other friends in Ottawa told me to go see her and he would meet up with us. He never showed up and never told me why or that he wasn't going to show up. Anyway, I was a bit peeved by that, but seeing Victoria was great. She's leaving to help her friend move to Newfoundland tomorrow, so I won't see her for a few weeks until she starts school again. Hopefully by then I'll have this job that I really want in Toronto. Sorta means that I won't see her very often.

My night was made by seeing her. =)

Weird things in Calgary

Weird things in Calgary
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

I have no idea what these are or what they do. They were just there while I was walking around Calgary. I decided to take a picture of it, since they weren't things I would see on a regular basis. This was weird because the picture at 0EV was horizontal and the other two came vertical (proper) and I had to rotate them before putting them through Photomatix.

3 exposures blended using the new technique from the last picture.

Calgary from the Tower

Calgary from the Tower
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here's another view from the Calgary Tower. The sun has started to set. It took a really long time for the sun to set. I was one of the last ones in the tower. It was about 10:30PM. This shot was taken probably around 8PM. I really am running out of shots, I really should go shooting.

3 exposures. I tried a new technique that my cousin mentioned to me. So I used Photomatix to create the HDR. Then I used Photoshop to create the DRI. I then merged them together to get this image.

Skylight (Day 2)

It looks the same right now. They just added more drywall stuff on it because it was pretty thin yesterday.

Centre St. Bridge, Calgary

Centre St. Bridge, Calgary
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

Here is the bridge from below. Notice, there's a road at the bottom part of the bridge. In the distance, you can see the Calgary Tower. On the other end of the bridge there are lions (I think that's what they were). I crossed the bridge and then had to go down some really sketchy looking wooden stairs.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop and a bit in Adobe Camera Raw. Contrast, saturation, hue, unsharp mask, levels and curves.

Casino du Lac Leamy

Casino du Lac Leamy
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So here's the casino from down the road. Still part of its property since there are parking spots and the left and right. This was taken back in December. I'm going through my bank of photos because I haven't gone shooting in a while and I'm running really low on interesting things to shoot.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop with usual processing. Cropped it to a square because there was just black sky on the top portion of the shot and it wasn't interesting.

Ferry

Ferry
Originally uploaded by mdnjustin

So this is the ferry ride between Vancouver to Victoria. Not much in this picture, pretty boring actually, but I felt like posting this one. This was taken last year in August, but I didn't process it until recently because I just felt like it was lacking excitement. It does lack excitement but I'm running low on pictures to shoot so I decided to do it anyway.

3 exposures blended in Photoshop done with my normal processing.