Making your photos (more) interesting

Everyone nowadays has a camera, and more an more people want to become better photographers. I have many friends who come to me asking how they can take better shots. Unfortunately I cannot spend time with everyone and explain how I work. So in the following article, I will cover just some of the basic ways for making your photos more interesting. While this may not apply to all sorts of photos, it is still a good way to experiment what you can do with different subjects.

One of the first thing I like to tell people is that the more they understand their camera, the better they will be able to unleash their creativity, so a good start is to play with your camera and even read the user manual.

Next you want to find a way to make your photo stand out from what everybody else can do. One of the very simple ways of doing this is simply get an unusual perspective. Laying down on the ground and taking the shot upwards usually gives great results. On the opposite, if we had a ladder or a vantage point, we could use that to make the difference. If your subject is a person or a group of persons, make them do something special, make them jump in the air, stand on a chair, anything but make sure they do something unusual! If it’s an object, place yourself in a way to make that object stand out.

Another good thing to keep in mind is that you don’t always need to see the whole subject, sometimes taking just a part of a body can make the photo somewhat special!

Furthermore, you can also make a photo more interesting by using a large aperture and shallow depth of field! It will make the viewer of the photo look where you want him to look! The blurred section of the photo makes it simple to look at and not overcrowded with useless sharp details.

All in all, keep in mind that these are just some of the many many ways to make photography interesting. Now go out and play with your camera and give us another perspective of your subject!

Love cooking, hate cleaning

I’m always up for trying new recipes and discover new tastes. Today I had some pork sitting in the fridge and found this great recipe : Pork with a cranberry & port sauce to make good use of this meat.

The wonderful thing about this is recipe is that it takes the sweet taste of the port to counter the sourness of the cranberries. Just look at the photo and tell me if it tastes good……. !

Flying from Las Vegas to Québec – Day One

March 25th 2010, Las Vegas, Nevada — Beginning of a great journey! We landed at McCarran Intl. Airport in Las Vegas. Two hands were not enough to count the many limousines coming in to pick guests from the airport to the strip! And they were not simple limousines…. they were BIG, most of them were Cadillac Escalade, Hummers and other high fuel consumption cars.

On our way to Boulder City by car, it was impressive to see the dryness of the land and seeing how the people make use of the little water available. How can a golf course be so green in such a place? We then went to Boulder City Airport where our helicopter was waiting for us! We made a 15 minutes test flight over Hoover Dam, Colorado River and Lake Mead (pictures below) to make sure the helicopter was in good shape.

Once the papers were cleared, we took off southeast bound towards Tucson, Arizona. The scenery was stunning! Flat desert surrounded by mountains. We saw many huge cactus as well as many wild animals. Halfway through Tucson, we stopped to fuel in Buckeye Arizona, a small town near Phoenix where livestock is the primary source of employment in the little town.

It’s amazing to see how green the fields are in the above photo! In the middle of the desert, people manage to irrigate the water and grow plants just like we would here in Québec in the summer. After three hours of flying and 565 km, we finally took a good night sleep in the beautiful city of Tucson!

Stay tuned for day two of helicopter Robinson 44 November Seven Two Zero Delta Papa (N720DP)

Runway 06

Did you know that each end of an airport runway is represented by a two digit number? These numbers are used to identify the runway but also to indicate it’s orientation. For example, the runway 06 / 24 of Québec’s Jean Lesage International airport means that the strip is oriented in a 060° / 240° axis relative to the earth’s magnetic north. This helps pilots align themselves with the runway track with their magnetic compass.

In the following photo, we see a plane that is about to land on runway 06 (behind the photographer) at Jean Lesage Int. Airport

Parc national de la Gaspésie

Back in September 2009, I took a few days off to travel to Gaspésie, Québec, Canada. I used to go there every year with my parents when I was a kid and I wanted to go back and revive some of my good old memories. The autumn colors were absolutely fantastic even if the rainy weather conditions. Here is a photo that I took just north of the parc national de la Gaspésie.

For those who may have missed it, I also took a nice photo of the Restigouche river on that same trip.