August was the final month of doing business with HKXPat.com Ltd. For a little more than a decade I was primary developer on their ASP 2.0/3.0 web app. It was an interesting learning experience, and now I say ‘good luck and good bye’.
Working in Ottawa has been an exciting and rewarding experience so far. I can’t wait to see what the future brings.
Jen and I spent the weekend at Sharbot Lake Provincial Park. It was very relaxing. We had minimal equipment; just enough for the camp site. We tried out our new tent, and I think I fell in love with it. Our little Coleman Sundome kept heavy rains out (after a spray of waterproofing) and was a fast setup / breakdown.
We’re going to go back at least twice next year to camp at amazing sites we found while walking around on Saturday.
Full set of pics here.
It doesn’t get sweeter than this for working with XML in a web app.
The pictures have been uploaded into my gallery and exported to Facebook and Flickr. I love the recent upgrades to Zenfolio.
I’ve finished processing the beginning and the end of the photo shoot with Kyla and her girls. Awesome results from great subjects. I have the middle of the shoot (aka the park) half way completed, so I should have the set finished tonight.
These last 2 shoots has made me realize I need to upgrade my radio triggers to something faster. Maybe a set of Radio Poppers JrX or CyberSyncs.
I got a call last week that the ring I ordered had arrived. When I went to get it there was some drama caused by a young store clerk that thought I should pay for the store’s mistake of ordering the ring with the wrong finish.
After denying purchasing the ring a few times and stating “make a call” to the designer’s company regarding fixing the problem; the manager finally joined the conversation with “everything’s fine, we’ll call you later today when it’s fixed”.
Problem solved! Mature manager for the save, immature/annoying/rude clerk for the fail. I was ready to walk away from the purchase based on 10 minutes with the girl. I told the manager that fact after I agreed to take the ring home when I went back that day.
Now for the good news, it’s bloody amazing. The high polish finish really makes the diamond cluster stand out in this Anna Sportun design (a Toronto designer).
I’m glad I found something so unique for my future wife.
The day was extremely hot and humid, but we still got a ton of great pictures of Kyla with her little girls. The majority were taken at a very scenenic park Kyla knew of in a town a short drive from her house; so she packed up the kids and I followed in my car with my gear.
I ended up shooting outdoors solely with my DA* 50-135 stopped down a little at f4-f5.6, with a little f2.8 at the right times.
After we were done in the park (aka sweating to death) we went back to their home for a short shoot inside the living room. Kyla gave the girls some freezies and I fired away with some umbrellas setup. The shots have a very natural “at home” feeling to them, so I’m very happy. I basically shadowed her during a weekend afternoon, and her praise of the shots viewed from the camera put a big smile on my face.
She’s gonna love the final results online and in print.
I found time this week to process/reprocess the photos I shot almost 2 weeks ago. Talk about busy! These were an awesome learning experiencing because I was A) in a small room, B) the room was off white and C) the size meant shadows at a lot of angles.
How do you keep that scenario looking good, yet natural? You try what you know… and then throw that out and start over fresh and get it right the second time. I’m pretty sure this set received the most time I’ve spent on any collective shoot.
I’m proud of the results, considering everything involved.
Shot this at Chris & Shauny’s place a few weeks ago. Bokeh galore!
I’ve had no time to work on the photos from the portrait session last weekend. I can’t complain though, I’m logging billable hours for web development when I’m not hanging out with Jen (who’s on vacation! [jealous]).
Click the link on the image to get the full story on that little puffer fish.