Monday, January 3, 2011

On Assignment x 3

Amid the tooting horns, hugs and salutations greeting 2011 I thought of two things: This blog and Mark Twain. The two do go hand-in-hand, you see.

I have my good friend Ethan Meleg to blame for getting me started in the blogosphere. He allowed that social networking was good for the soul and kept those interested in lock step with what I was doing. I countered with a familiar phrase “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

Ethan wins, and here I am shamelessly admitting I just don’t get it. You see, I interpret Facebook to be the biggest deterrent to productivity imaginable. I wonder how many lost working hours in North America are the result of skiving employees partaking of the Facebook addiction? I digress.

What I have learned over the past year is that a blog takes work, and in order to be reasonably successful, an unquantifiable term I muse, it roughly translates to making updates at least once per week. For someone who suffers a self diagnosis of adult ADD, a weekly commitment writing something about nothing is a tall order. Who, after all, cares what I am up to?

Aagh, yes, Happy New Year.

I resolve ...., said one friend. I resolve..., proclaimed another. I attributed their lack of logical reasoning to an over indulgence of moose milk, that concoction of various alcoholic beverages mixed with a couple of gallons of ice cream added for texture. It is, by any definition, best known as “instant stupid.”

So, no, for those of you wondering, I did not make a resolution to post weekly updates on this blog. You see, I believe Mark Twain said it best when he wrote of New Years resolutions: “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

With that having been said, let’s go back and take a visit to the job in Cape Breton that I introduced, well, a month, or so, ago.

The day started at Alexander Graham Bell Museum in the resort town of Baddeck. It was here that Bell developed many of his most famous inventions, and I encourage you to visit the web site or the museum itself.


Canon 5D MkII, 17-40 EF-L lens, Singh Ray Hi-Lux filter


I have had the good pleasure of knowing the staff and working at this location for many years. One shot I have always wanted to do was show the juxtaposition between current and past, and it seemed to me that a logical starting point would be to dress a young model in period wardrobe. So here we have a young Alexander Graham Bell standing in front of the HD4 Hydrofoil exhibit.

That afternoon the production team crossed over to the other side of the Bras d’Or Lake to the village of Ben Eoin and The Lakes golf club. This is the newest, just one season old, public golf course on Cape Breton Island, and is certainly destined to be a favourite among duffers looking for a challenge.


Canon 5D MkII, 24-105mm EF-L lens, Singh Ray LB Warming Polarizing filter


We had just four hours to get some shots and this is a tall order when one is unfamiliar with the layout of the course. Let’s just say we had to swing from the hip and create and make. The sixth hole is, arguably, the signature hole of this course and offers fabulous views from the tee box that is at an elevation some 150-feet above the fairway.

Canon 5D MkII, 100-400mm EF-L lens, Singh Ray LB Warming Polarizing filter

As we were rushing to the back nine to capture some shots on a green that would still have some light in the fast fading sun, a shaft of light struck the tee box on the tenth hole. Our entourage of carts came to a screeching halt, a course pro was appropriately placed and we fired a couple of frames before the light faded. Unfortunately there was simply no time to have my assistant run to the tee box with a reflector to add some fill light. We only had about two minutes to capture this shot before the light disappeared.

And now, Happy New Year!

4 comments:

  1. I love following other photographer's blogs. It inspires me and you truly have a gift. Great work! http://throughaphotographerseyes.blogspot.com/

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  2. A very cute Alexander Graham Bell. I like how the golfer is captured in the circle of light in your last shot. Sounds like you had quite the adventure.

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  3. Thanks for your kind comments, Misty.

    Yes, longneys, photographers love cute kids; they make us look good!

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  4. It's an interesting point of view and possibly a misconception on the thought that all blogs, twitter and facebook updates are personal. The content you write is what you make of it with little difference to you writing a column for a magazine - at the root, you're still a writer but distributing it differently.

    So while it's true that a large percentage of users are only producing noise - many others are building a target audience with focused content.

    It's not for everyone.

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