Feeling restless and the need to leave the loft for a few hours, Colette and I decided to go for a drive. I remembered weeks back driving through Orangeville and seeing an abandoned house that I thought was interesting enough to photograph. I did not have time that day to photograph it but today it gave us a destination and purpose. However, it probably wasn’t the best day to shoot since it was a cold -8 degree celsius with 70km wind gusts and snow squalls. Also, my foot was acting up again and I was barely able to put on my shoe without some pain and discomfort. Anyway, with a few tylenols and the need to get a fix, we grabbed our gear determined to get at least one shot.

We arrived at the abandoned house and parked the car off to the side of the highway. Quite dangerous actually and we knew we wouldn’t have much time. After about 10 minutes of photographing the abandoned house with different perspectives, I remembered to use my iPhone (read previous blog post) before limping back into the car, frozen.

The top image is from the iPhone. It was both edited and processed through a couple of filters in the iPhone (hence the slight pixelated look) while the bottom image was shot with my D700. Which do you prefer?

Soundtrack for the drive included Lambchop’s albums OH (ohio), Nixon, Is A Woman and What Another Man Spills.

After hitting two large buckets at the golf range for the second consecutive day I thought I would give my rubber arms a break by shooting some creatives at Edwards Gardens. On this particular January day, a balmy 14 degree celsius made this choice very easy. I used mainly my macro lens but also captured a few images with my iPhone. The middle image was taken with an iPhone and edited with the Snapseed app.

The camera on the iPhone 5 is pretty amazing. Yes it has its limitations but as an extra photographic tool that I have with me almost all of the time, I really should be using it more. The convenience and ease of apps that provide instant gratification have an appeal to them as well. Thanks to Colette for some inspiration of late, I have started a gallery in my extended portfolio page titled iPhoneography and all of the images in this gallery were and will be shot and edited with my iPhone only. This gallery is mainly for experimenting and creating some fun art. As you can see from my regular portfolio I am a purist in the sense that I do not like using filters, effects, etc. with my images in Photoshop or Lightroom. In fact I even hate to crop. But with an iPhone, I feel that anything goes as long as it still contains the aspects of a good image (composition, lighting, subject, mood, emotion etc). Anyway enough babble. Check out the gallery here and I will have more images to come.

Soundtrack for this balmy day was Rosebuds’ fantastic album Loud Planes Fly Low.

I picked up lots of great music this year and thought I would share my favourite 10 new albums from 2012. Like selecting your top ten photographs for a portfolio, you know how difficult this can be. Regardless, I had Simone help me out with the selections.  Without further ado…

1. Alabama Shakes Boys & Girls

2. Lambchop Mr. M

3. Tindersticks The Something Rain

4. Sharon Van Etten Tramp

5. Grizzly Bear Shields

6. Cat Power Sun

7. Damien Jurado Maraqopa

8. Calexico Algiers

9. Chromatics Kill For Love

10. Of Monsters And Men My Head Is An Animal

Great day assisting Colette with some pet portraits. Of course I had to sneak some shots of my own…how could you not with a dog as cute as Bella.