So one of the things that has been keeping me extremely busy is preparation for Kempenfest. Kempenfest is a huge art festival here in Barrie, and I’ve rented some space there to sell my photographs and a few of Desi’s paintings too! It has been a lot of work preparing everything needed to do it right, and for the next few days its going to be pretty crazy but I’m sure it will all pay off.

I wanted to sell photos not only at a festival such as this – but to anyone, anywhere that may want one. Its nearing completion, so feel free to check out the website for Don Komarechka Photography: www.donkom.ca. Creating an e-commerce portal hasn’t been easy, but it certainly has been rewarding.

I’ve also made some pretty nifty business cards, brochures, banners, portfolio, etc. If you happen to be in Barrie this coming weekend (July 30 – Aug 2) come down and see me and the hundreds of other artists. I’ll be in spot 109A, which is near the park and washrooms.

Oh, and whats a blog post without a photo? Here’s one I took a recent Barrie Photo Club Outing (much more of these to come soon!)

I’ve been so very busy lately (hopefully I’ll announce a few things soon!), but I’ve still found time to get out and take some photos. I have a huge backlog of pictures to edit which I’ll get to next, but this month’s theme for the Barrie Photo Club is macro photography. I wanted some new shots edited in time, like this one:

There’s different crops of that one in the gallery below, too. I’m really enjoying my macro set-up, but it can be a real pain to use. The lens is manual-focus only, and on that scale your depth of field is a millimeter or less. Trial and error eventually results in shots like this:

Many of these photos were taken during an outing with the photo club to Milligan’s Pond here in Barrie. We went for the ducks, but I found my best shots were macro shots. It had been raining a little which helped to liven up the shots:

And yes, I found even more spiders.. you’ll find them in the gallery below. I’m hoping to get out and take a few more sets like this in the next few months, it was a great way to spend a morning.

The best camera is the one that’s with you. I’m not the first to say this, I’ll give that credit to Chase Jarvis – he has a book with this title that includes only photos taken with the iPhone.

I haven’t found much use for the camera in my iPhone except for occasional snapshots (mostly to send to Desi!), but when I was down taking photos at sunrise recently, I noticed my Canon 5D making such a nice silhouette against the sunrise. Without missing a beat I pulled out my iPhone and took this photo:

I was really happy with the results – even a tiny 3MP camera in my phone can take a great photo in the right place at the right time.

Oh, and a small confession about the sunrise photo in the post below. The ducks in the shot weren’t actually there, that was a little bit of photoshop magic. They were flying over Kempenfelt Bay, just in a different photo (from March 2009!). Thanks to Desi for helping me choose the number of ducks to include as well.

Last week, I had the strange urge to wake up around 4am and go down to the lakeshore to grab some photos of a sunrise. I was hoping for some nice morning fog, but I didn;t find that. Instead, around 5:54am, I snapped this photo:

It certainly looks like those rowers have the best seats in the house! I need to go out and experience these sunrises more often… to think that such natural beauty exists in every day, and I am normally asleep until well after it is gone. A few more photos below!

I’ve had this for a few weeks now, and I am really enjoying it. It is also one of the reasons I have been so busy! The item in question is a large format printer, a Canon ImagePROGRAF 6300:

I realized how expensive large prints are, especially on canvas. Buying my own large-format printer made sense in the long run, and printing for other people has already started to pay for it. Its a 24″ roll printer, so I can easily print off 24″x36″ prints, or even 24″x60″ or wider if I wanted. Here a shot of some of the things I’ve put together so far:

It has been quite the learning curve, especially with the canvas and applying protective coatings. I have all the kinks out of the process and I’m really enjoying being able to print any size I need on a whim. The control I have over the end result is wonderful, and the results are even better than I expected. A great investment for sure. I’m looking forward to reproducing some of Desi’s paintings with it as well!

The only downside is its size: this thing is huge! This is how it fits in my workspace: