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!)

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.

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.

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 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:

The poor spider was probably quite frightened, a giant predator is trying to trap it and blind it with the light of a thousand suns. Anyhow, I got the shot I was looking for and went on my way. The spider survived its close encounter and hopefully is now preying on mosquitoes an other annoying flies.

It was an interesting way to start my day.

Some of the stones were interesting and gave a very valuable insight into the people that first settled this land. There was a grim reminder of Diphtheria, which claimed six children in an outbreak in the early 1900s. Another monument was for a woman that lost her life on “The Asia”, a ship that sank in a hurricane on Lake Huron in 1882. 122 of the 124 passengers lost their lives. The shipwreck was never found. Some monuments had rather unusual quotes on them as well, like this one:

The writing reads “Not Dead But Gone Before”. Quite an odd thing to say, and the only thing that jokingly came to mind was a vampire.  I researched the quote and found that is was from an ancient Greek comedian that lived 450 – 388 B.C.: “Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.”. Brent translated this to be “You’re next, don’t be too smug”. Very interesting to find!

It is amazing what you can learn about the history around you from those that came before – even if they can no longer tell their stories.

A sky filled with stars on a crisp spring evening, such an amazing view. My experiments weren’t over though. I wanted to try my hand at star trails. Stars in the night sky move over time, and this can be recorded with very long exposures. They all swirl around the north star; the north star was always used for navigation because it remained fixed in the sky. A nearby field provided me with the perfect landscape for a 37 minute exposure:

It was an amazing evening for photography. Spending time under the stars, quietly contemplating is something everyone should do once in a while. It is always wonderful to spend time with nature and capture its beauty.

It was a great light-hearted evening. Many more photos below!

I also had a chance to get out hiking on the Easter weekend. I hiked through part of the Bruce Trail near Devil’s Glen, and here’s a vertical panorama I took of the spring run-off flowing down the steep hills in the area:

It is wonderful to be surrounded by nature, it is great relaxation and exercise, and a great escape for my photography. More photos below!