Ideas in Ernest

I recently ventured up to Jordan River with a few friends from school. We all went up for the morning. The sky was overcast, yet still very harsh. Out of all the pictures that I took up there, I really only brought back a few. I did however bring an idea back with me. I plan on heading back up there and doing some shots of the logging camps, rivers, and the town. I’d like to get some people involved with it as well, I might not have the courage yet to just ask them to stand still while I take their picture. I’m hoping that I can head up in the next couple of days, before it gets nice out again.  On another note, I’m going to take this opportunity to promote my website again, it’s www.matthewkerrphotography.com.  I will be adding a portfolio page as time goes by and my portfolio grows.  I will also be updating all of the many grammatical errors that are littering the pages.  The picture on the left is a bunch of rocks that, due to either the river or the tides, were jammed between the log supports near the bridge in Jordan River.  Below is a shot of all the supports that were in the area.

Local Band

Local Band Apparatus Theory asked me to take some pictures for promotion work. This is one of the shots that we all liked. Apparatus Theory can be heard on MySpace. If you’re interested in getting some pictures of your band, send me a shout or check out the other site!
I know there is some errors, I’m in the process of fixing them. Also, Nikon Rumors got a facelift too. Check them out here.

Should I stay or should I go?

I tried doing some long exposures a few weeks back with my D80, I got the exposure from cranking the ISO to ‘3200′ (hi1.0) on my d80, then opening the lens to f/2.8 and I got a shutter speed of 1 minute. That being said I did the math, of getting to ISO 400 (3 stops) and f/8 (3 stops) for a total of 6 stops of light less than before. That being said I need 64 minutes on the shutter! The original ISO 3200 shot worked, but was horrible quality, and really bad noise. I figured, that the 64 minute exposure would work. No. I did some research and found that the D80 has a maximum recommended exposure time of just 30 minutes. So much for 4 hour star trails, I guess I’ll be breaking out the Canon FTb for those ones. Would a Holga work? Maybe with some elastic bands.
Some pictures from my field trip to Goldstream Park with school. I’m finding it somewhat of a disappointment. I’m not learning nearly enough to keep me interested as of yet.

^{Positioning for the Win – Matthew Kerr}

^{Matthew Kuhn – Matthew Kerr}

EDIT – I’ve added my new website for Matthew Kerr Photography to the intertubes! Check it out, if you dare!

Old and New

Combining a little of old and a little of new, I decided to write a new post. Old, in photography, isn’t that old. In fact for this post, old is just about a month ago. I went over to Vancouver to help with security for Jack Johnson. I decided it would be fun to take my Holga with me. On the ferry ride over, I snapped off a few images. I had forgot that I put colour 120 film in the camera. The first roll of colour 120 film I’ve shot on the camera. It turned out rather nice. It was shot on Fuji Reala 100, a great choice for the Holga apparently.

^{West Coast B.C. – Matthew Kerr}

Another shot I did was to experiment with two new(ish) tools in my arsenal. The strobist approach of off camera lighting and of course Photoshop. I say new(ish) because Photoshop is not a new tool to me, but I keep learning new techniques. After just one week, this photo recieved more than 10 comments and just about 100 views.

^{Jumping the Water – Matthew Kerr}

Old Photos

I was rummaging through my bag and I found one of my old thumb drives (read:flash drive, memory stick, etc.) and I found a bunch of unedited shots from my Holga that I had scanned. A bunch of them were horrible, underexposed, scratched, dusty shots. A few of them were salvageable.
This shot for instance, is out of focus. I can easily blame that on the fact that it’s a Holga, or I can just fess up and admit that I totally forgot about that part of the picture making process.

^{Sooke Harbour – Matthew Kerr}

Money

The new lens arrived and I thoroughly enjoy it. I’ve done some shooting with it and found that it is incredibly fast at focusing, incredibly fast at stabilizing, and just incredibly fast. With school starting I haven’t had much time to play with it. We’ve been limited to 50mm (35mm for DX bodies) for most assignments, and for other assignments we haven’t even used our cameras. I did take it with me to Fisherman’s Warf on one of our field trips to see what it could do. I think I’m going to enjoy this lens.

^{Seal at Fisherman’s Warf – Matthew Kerr}

On another note, I manage to get out and take some pictures of the Tour de Rock at Sangster Elementary School the other day. Below is Principle Georg Cruse presenting a rather large cheque for over $6000.00 to the Cops for Cancer Foundation. One student in particular raised over $2000.00 by herself! Congratulations to all the students for their hard work and the riders for their dedication to a great cause.

^{Cops for Cancer, Tour de Rock – Matthew Kerr}

On another note, this is a picture from under the bridge. I call it the troll as I would imagine this is where he/she would live.

^{The Troll – Matthew Kerr}

^{Nikon 70-200 image courtesy of Nikon Imaging}