Weigh-in and photos

So the whole weight loss thing appears to be sliding away from me. Think I got cocky with the relative success had early on. I slid up another two pounds this week and sit at 239. Which sucks. I think I'm doing ok on the exercise front, but I''m clearly sliding on the eating front. Doesn't help that the secretary near by office is becoming a clearing house for all the chocolate she has in her house.

That, of course, is a cheap cop out. I've just been sliding on the snacking at home and the portions. And since I've discovered that the weight won't magically disappear, it's back to watching what I eat again. Which kind of sucks, but I really would like to lose that 50 pounds by the end of the year.

Anyway, enough whining about weight, a few photos from Sunday when I took the dog for a walk out the Road to Nowhere. Also took the new camera. I think I got some of hte white balance issues worked out. Then again, it helped that it was a bright sunny day. Here are a few pics.



I just like the way the sun looks in this shot.



Just a lucky shot of Boo in mid-flight.



We found this igloo along the side of the road. No one was there and I have no idea how long it had been standing, but I still liked the look of it. Believe it or not, after 18 months in Nunavut, this is my first igloo.

Clearly I'm leading a sheltered life up here.

Test photos

So I've had a chance to play with the new camera a bit. I'm happy with it, but I obviously still have a lot to learn. It's not a professional camera, but it's obviously more advanced than an amateur one. There are a lot of features to master and play around with. Enough was spent on it; I don't want to leave it on the automatic features. Which means getting a feel of what features I need to use and what ones are fine, but only for special occasions.

Let's take this one for example.



Which is a perfectly fine shot of Boo. It's shot inside in crappy light and I had to use the flash. I dislike using flash, but kind of necessary in this case.

Then I used Photoshop Elements to touch it up and came up with this.



I like the second one better. I want to figure out how to do that without having to use Photoshop to work out the right elements. I know most professionals use Photoshop to fix photos, but I like to think they are just tweaking them. This is a fairly big change.

Although not as big as this one. This is Cathy and Boo. I've taken a lot of pictures of Boo because he doesn't really care. Cathy smiles politely for a few and then suggests if I try to take many more of her she might try out the new zoom feature of my lens to get a good shot of my colon.

Anyway, Cathy and Boo before.



And Cathy and Boo after the wonders of Photoshop.



Again, quite the bit of difference. And yeah it was a gray day outside. And yeah, snow can do weird things if you not completely sure how to shoot it. Still, I'm not completely happy with the results so far. It's not the camera, I'm pretty sure. I'm just not used to shooting with something this advanced.

I'll get better, I'm sure. It's just going to take practice. On the upside, the battery held up really well. It was cold, but not frigid on Saturday when I took the outside shots. Probably around -20. We've had colder, but that's still pretty harsh for most electronics. I had it outside for about 30 minutes and there was no problem with the electronics and the battery life was even pretty good. No noticeable dip. I've been outside with my other camera and saw the battery life die by about 40 per cent in 20 minutes.

Now I just have to start shooting to the level the camera is capable of. I almost wish there was a course here I could take part in. Maybe I'll look some people up when I'm in town the summer. I'm not a bad photographer. Just wish I was better.