Saturday, November 28, 2009

What I did today...

Well, I hate to say it but most of my day was spent at the computer writing. I finally had some time and I was in the mood to start writing my trip report from our "21 Day Canoe Trip to the "Little North" from Aug/Sept of this year. Well, I'm on page 15, but there will be many more. I have no time frame when I'll finish it.

I don't know what I name the trip report but I keep referring to it as "21 day canoe trip to the "Little North", so who knows....

I had processed all my photos that I was going to put with this report. I had backed them up on another external hard drive before my other computer crashed so they should still be there. If not I saved the SD cards.

I mentioned that my pc broke down a month ago or so. I have a new Mac Pro computer that I'm using now. I was used to Microsoft Word, but now I'm using Apple's iPages to write this report.

Besides learning the features of the Mac platform, I'm learning Adobe Lightroom 3 (beta) and I just bought Photoshop cs4. I tried working in photoshop the other day and I was overwhelmed. I think that could be the reason I was in the mood to start writing my trip report. It was avoidance of Photoshop cs4.

So far I really like Lightroom 3.

I also have a Smug Mug pro account that I received in September when I attended an Essential Lighting workshop. Now I have to find time to figure out how to set that up.

Well, I'm only rambling so I done for now.

Chuck

Friday, November 27, 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Ashley...some more photos

Here are some more photos of Ashley from the photo shoot on 11-14-09.




(above) Ashley's mom, Shelley, is holding the reflector.




Chuck

Friday, November 20, 2009

Ashley

Here is Ashley in natural light. She was standing next to a row of windows. Last Saturday Ashley was my model for a few hours. Ashley is Shelly H.'s daughter. I hope to post more pictures of Ashley in he coming days.





Chuck

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Milena

On 11-01-09 I went to a meet-up with the Twin Cities Photography Club at Hot Sams. It was "Trash the Dress" although I didn't see a whole lot of dress trashing.

This is Milena another photographer. I first met Milena in January of this year at another photo meet-up doing some studio off camera lighting in St. Paul. Milena brought a couple of her dresses to do some modeling before grabbing her camera to shoot.





















Chuck

Friday, November 13, 2009

2009 Near North Symposium December 5, 2009

I received an e-mail from Joe Conrad this evening. Joe volunteers his time with the Minnesota Canoe Association. He wanted me to let people know about the Minnesota Canoe Association’s 2009 Near North Symposium in cooperation with Midwest Mountaineering.

A travelogue Series of Wilderness Paddling Near or in Minnesota. This is the second go for the “Near North Symposium”. This will be focusing on wilderness trips that are within a day’s drive from the Twin Cities. I went to the last one.

December 5, 2009 from 11:30 am to 5:30 pm

Cowles Auditorium, University of Minnesota Campus.

The speaker are Rob Kesselring and his daughter Zoe, Randy Strobel, Cliff Jacobson, Fred “Jacques” Shermock and Uncle Phil aka Phil Cotton.

Here is a link with more information:2009 Near North Symposium



Some of you are aware Dave Phillips from Virginia and I did a 21 day trip to the “Little North’ in August/September of this year. This covered the Caribou Forest, Misehkow River, Albany River, Wabakimi Provincial Park and the Ogoki Forest. On this trip we documented the route to give to Phil for his future planning with The Wabakimi Project. We gave Phil copies of our maps along with about 100 GPS locations.

I haven’t done my trip report for this trip, but I have one posted on last years 15 day trip to Wabakimi. If you are reading this on my CIIcanoe.com blog look over to the upper right and you’ll see a link. CIIcanoe Canoes Wabakimi.

Prior to leaving on our trip out of Armstrong, ON this year we stayed a couple nights at Wildwater’s B & B. We were told that Rob and his daughter Zoe had stayed there and had paddled Wabakimi Park earlier in the season. I believe it was their first time to Wabakimi.

I’ve met both Rob and Zoe a couple years ago at a Winter Camping Symposium. I also read one of Rob’s books, Daughter Father Canoe. I was thinking of paddling the Snowdrift River at one time.

I’ve seen Cliff several times at different events and at the MCA.

Chuck

Thursday, November 12, 2009

New Mac Pro Computer is Up and Running...

This will be my first attempt at writing something with my new Apple computer. I just got my new Mac Pro on Tuesday. Yesterday, Wednesday, I downloaded the Beta version of Lightroom 3 which I’ve never used in the past. I switched over from a PC to Mac.

Everything was so new yesterday so it was a little frustrating trying to learn two different things at once. Tonight I called Bill Houlton who I shoot with at Flickr MN Strobist. He spent a little over two hours guiding me thought some of the basics on Lightroom. He was my human voice activated instruction manual. Thanks, Bill!

Anyways, like I said I just got my new computer so now I have to learn Lightroom and I still need to get Adobe Photoshop for Macs.

For the people I shot with at Hot Sam’s on 11-01-09 I just started to import the photos into Lightroom 3. I will get the photos to you as soon as I can.

I also have an informal photo shoot on Saturday morning with Chris Gerber and Chad Davey. I think we decided on only two models instead of three. Chris and I got together at his work place a month or so a go when we shot Rachel H. I believe one of the models on Saturday will be Celia Cyanide aka Rachel Grubb.

On Sunday I plan to shoot Ashley’s graduation pictures. She had someone else take some earlier but both Ashley and her mother didn’t like the results, so it’s my turn. I took photos of Ashley earlier in the summer on her prom day. Some of the photos were posted on my blog.

Deer hunting with rifle started this past Saturday. I shot a large 8 point buck. It was the largest deer I’ve shot. I hunt with my father, his good friend, Roger, from Ohio and my step-mother’s brother, Gary.

This year Roger brought his son Zach who recently moved back to Ohio from California. Also, this year we had Aaron who is the son of another brother of my step-mother. This was Aaron's third year hunting, but only his second in a stand by himself. My father and I have 85 acres together so we hunt on our land. Our property is in a “l” shape and it abuts Blandin Paper Company land south of Grand Rapids.

Later this summer and into the fall my father had his trail camera set up in the woods. He captured many deer including the 8 point I shot. He captured a Timber wolf and a bunch of turkeys.

There was also a 9 point on his trial camera. My dad had a little photo book with the two deer showing everyone what the two deer looked like. Well, on Monday at 0710 am Zach shot the 9 point. I didn’t see the deer in person, but I was told the 9 point buck’s rack was slightly bigger than mine but mine has a slightly larger body. I hunted all day and when I got out of the woods it was already taken to the butcher. We had a total of five deer.

Once I figure out this new photo system I will post a couple pictures of the deer I shot.

Roger and Zach left my Dad’s place on Tuesday heading for the upper part of lower Michigan. Roger and Zach are going to do some fishing prior to Michigan’s rifle deer season beginning on Sunday the 15th. Roger has been hunting with several guys on a 7400 acre hunting camp for many years, He mentioned he has had the same blind for 25 years.

Well, I was going to write a little bit on the 2009 Near North Symposium so I’ll do that now. It will actually be the earlier post.

Chuck

Monday, November 2, 2009

Model Mayhem #1428967

I'm now up on Model Mayhem. It took a little over a week from the time I send them my info to the time I was approved on Friday.

Here is the link: Chuck Ryan Photography

I looked at my page quickly only once before my computer completely died. I knew I needed a new computer but I was hoping it would have lasted a couple more months. I was going to add more info to the site, but now it'll have to wait.

My Dell Computer was six years old. I'm planning on switching over to Apple. I would never buy another Dell computer again, because of their lousy customer service.

I won't be able to order the new computer for a couple more weeks. Then I have to order Photoshop for the Mac platform, etc.

Yesterday I took some photos during a shoot with the Twin Cities Photography Club. I told some of the models about my computer dying so it would be a while before I got them any photos. I will get them to you. Sorry for the delay!

Chuck