It’s been about a month and a half since this year’s interior camping trip to Algonquin Park and I’ve finally uploaded some of the photos to Flickr. I went through them a while back, even made some small edits, but I neglected to actually post them where people could see them.
So, here are a few photos from this year’s trip, which actually consisted of good weather, a gorgeous island campsite, only 1 portage (yeah… we took it easy this year after last year’s crazy adventure), actually seeing moose from a canoe and not from a car on Hwy 60, and a brand new rental canoe from Algonquin Outfitters that hadn’t even seen water yet. It was a good trip.
More photos from this trip can be found in my Algonquin Park 2010 set on Flickr.
** Just a note to let you know that there is a new Shoot the Thrill Photography Blog that will showcase some of our weddings, portraits, etc. Feel free to check it out, and see what Shoot the Thrill is up to. **
I was working on some photos from our interior trip to Algonquin Park, when I realized that I hadn’t done a post with pictures from our trip to Florida for our kick-off to summer (ie. May 2-4 week). I had done a running related post on my other blog, but forgot to post photos to this blog.
Ryan and I flew to Orlando, Florida on Saturday, May 22nd with our 
friends Wayne and Kathleen. We stayed at the Marriott Cypress Harbour for the week, which was quite nice. We had a condo-style suite and had access to several pools on the large vacation property. Unfortunately, we did not spend as much time lounging on the property or swimming in the pools as I would have liked, but that’s only because we were out having fun at the many parks in the area.
During our vacation, we visited Sea World, went on many water slides (all of them) at both Sea World’s Aquatica and Wet ‘n’ Wild, and enjoyed the rides and sights at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (the Hulk coaster was very fun!). After our days out, we spent a few nights at the various establishments on Universal City Walk.
It was a good week. For the most part, I did not lug around an SLR, but I did walk to Sea World for a strictly photo taking day after we had already been there to experience the park.
The dolphin show was fantastic, so I definitely wanted to go back and take some photos of it. It’s difficult to capture the magnitude of the show as there was so much great choreography with the dolphins and the energy was amazing as well.
I have a few more photos of the dolphin show on Flickr, but the above photo was my favourite of the craziness that is a live animal show.
We saw some other great creatures at Sea World. Here are a few:
On June 27th we had the opportunity to photograph a wonderful family, the Jeffers. We had made arrangements to meet up that afternoon and we planned on photographing outdoors as long as the weather cooperated.
When we arrived at Mykel and Tracy’s house, the weather was “iffy.” We went outside to check out the yard and when we were only out there for a couple of minutes, it started to rain.
As you can see, some of the children didn’t mind, but the rain wouldn’t have worked out so well for the photo session.
As the rain poured down more and more, the formal living room was being re-arranged to accommodate the family portraits. Looking outside, we noticed that it had died down and that the neighbours were actually taking some photos outside of their house. So, back outside we went.
The weather held off for the remainder of the afternoon and we got a good variety of photos involving 7 people and one dog. It can be an interesting time when working with several kids and you always get some of them hamming it up for the camera, some with upset kids, and hopefully some with everyone happy.
When we were all packed up and ready to go, the rain came down hard suddenly. We made a run for the car and all was well.
Here are some of the photos from the shoot:
More can be seen on Facebook, on my Flickr and on Ryan’s Flickr.
Last weekend, Ryan and I drove out to my parents’ place to spend the long weekend with family. Every year, we hide small chocolate eggs around the property and the kids (my nieces and nephews) hunt for them. Yes, I realized this does sound like a regular Easter egg hunt.
This year, the temperature on Saturday (when we did our egg hunt and Easter dinner) was in the high 20s (celcius) and there was much higher risk than usual for the eggs to melt. My mom put them in the fridge overnight so that they would be colder and hopefully not melt too quickly.
Saturday moved along as my mom, my sister, and myself hid the eggs. My dad took my nephew Kyle for a ride on the motorcycle at this time as well.
Once they returned, it was time to hunt!
This past Labour Day, Ryan and I went to Virginia Beach for an extended long weekend. We arrived on the Friday morning and stayed until Tuesday afternoon. The main purpose of the trip was for me to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon, but it was also a great place to go for a nice relaxing weekend on the beach. Or at least we thought it would be.
We had a great weekend, but the weather didn’t quite cooperate the way we had hoped.
Race day morning was sunny and hot (great weather for the race itself) but it started to turn stormy that afternoon. We actually swam in the pool at the hotel and not the beach as the conditions were very rough in the ocean. I also had to take my finisher’s medal photo from inside the hotel room because I forgot to take it when I was still at the beach and by the time I remembered, it was raining.
All of the Monday was stormy, so we took the bus up to the Virginia Aquarium to check out all of the indoor exhibits. It was quite busy there (combination of long weekend and rainy day) but we had a good time and saw lots of interesting creatures.
All in all the weekend was great, even with the rain. We enjoyed the Verizon Wireless American Music Festival, ate wonderful food at Mahi Mah’s and enjoyed some beverages on our ocean view balcony at Sandcastle Oceanfront Resort Hotel. All that was missing was sitting at the beach and swimming in the ocean.
Starting in May, Ryan and I started acquiring more gear for our first interior camping trip together; we were heading to Algonquin Park. We purchased packs (I never expected it to take me so long to find a pack that fit me well, visit an old blog post for more on the pack hunt) and several miscellaneous items (stove, fuel, dehydrated food, etc) at MEC and Adventure Guide. We were well prepared for our trip.
We headed out on our adventure after work with a plan to stay the night in Barrie so that we could get up to Pog Lake relatively early in the day to start our trip. Unfortunately, it took about 3 times as long as usual and we did not arrive at the hotel until late night.
In the morning, we headed up the highway, stopped at the Muskoka Store and picked up some rain gear that was on sale, thinking “you never know.”
Next stop: picking up our rental canoe from Algonquin Outfitters. I had made arrangements ahead of time, so the process was nice and smooth. While in the store, we picked up a large 1.5 L Nalgene bottle (to use for pumping/filtering lake water) and also some GSI mugs.
Now we were ready to start our camping trip. We checked in at Pog Lake (where we were to be meeting my family later in the week) and set up our site. We spent the first night here and then we were off for our 4-day 3-night canoe trip.
We put in at Cache Lake and when we were about half way across the lake, the rain started. Good thing we bought rain gear. We put it on as quickly as possible at our first portage and pretty much lived in the rain gear for the remainder of our interior trip. We did have a few clear breaks, but the rain won.
We stayed at a site on a different lake each night. When we’d arrive, if it wasn’t raining, we’d take put out or Keens to dry on a rock and make our yummy dehydrated dinners.
We did get a bit of dry weather at our final site on Tanamakoon Lake. We actually got to spend some time outdoors at the fire for the evening and I got up early in the morning to take some photos at dawn.
When we arrived back at Pog Lake, we made ourselves a “gourmet meal” on the Coleman stove, ate it by the light of a propane lantern, while sitting under a dining shelter (it was still raining), wearing dry clothes. It was a good feeling.
As much as the rain put a damper on things (groan), the trip was a good adventure. Of course, it would have been more enjoyable if we could’ve had some nice weather, but since this was our first interior trip, our next one will likely be a better experience. I’m definitely looking forward to another Algonquin Adventure.
Here are a couple more photos from the trip, for more, click on a photo and check out the Flickr set.
I always like to take my birthday off to do whatever I want to do that day. This morning I went out to Victoria Park with the D300s and the 50mm 1.8 lens. We got a lot of snow yesterday, so I thought it might be a good time to see some fresh, clean snow in the park.
Ryan and I have started planning some vacation time for 2010, which put me in the mood to look through some of last year’s vacation photos.
Over the next few posts I will highlight some of our vacation moments of 2009.
First of the year was our May trip to Ottawa, ON and Alexandria Bay, NY.
Ryan and I arrived in Ottawa for Victoria Day Weekend (May 2-4) when the Canadian Tulip Festival is in full bloom. This festival is the largest of it’s kind in the world. With three million tulips blooming, it’s quite the spectacular site to see.
After a great weekend in Ottawa, we headed south to visit my parents for a day. We ended up having to stay a bit later than planned due to some car trouble, but were on our way to our next destination of the Thousand Islands by late afternoon (we were planning on leaving in the morning).
We stayed a night in Gananoque before our trip across the border to Alexandria Bay.
Our stay in Alex Bay was great! We stayed at Captain Thomson’s Resort and had a fantastic view from our balcony. We spent our evenings sitting and enjoying the clear skies and view of Boldt Castle on Heart Island beautifully lit up and spent our days both touring Heart Island and also enjoying the weather on patios.
The view from our private balcony at Captain Thomson’s: 
Boldt Castle:
After leaving the Thousand Islands, we were on our way back to Ottawa for Race Weekend! I was to be running the half marathon, so I wanted to be there a bit early to get prepared.
We checked out the 10K race and saw some amazing elites competing for the top spot on the Saturday evening. Ryan shot some photos that evening in preparation for the next day’s Marathon & Half Marathon.
On Sunday, My nephew and niece ran in the Kids Marathon and about an hour later it was my turn to start in the half marathon. It was a warmer day than usual with bright sun and very little shade. It was a great course. I definitely enjoyed the day.
Here’s a shot of my niece wearing all 3 completion medals (mine, hers and her brother’s).
Below is the first photo with the portions that were changed marked.
- The curtains were changed from patterned to solid
- The shadows were removed
- Glare was cleaned up on Ryan’s glasses
- Ryan’s mouth was replaced with his mouth from another photo
As some people said, the crop was a bit different from one photo to the other and also the exposure was increased on the people in the back.
Thank for playing!
This photo is one that was taken of my family at Christmas just with the camera on self-timer on a tripod. For a quick family portrait before dinner, it turned out well, but a few (fairly) quick fixes were made before printing it in 8x10 for my family.
Look closely at the following two versions of the same photo. Can you spot the differences?
Leave a comment with the differences that you can see. I’ll post the changes that I made in a new post this coming week.
2009 was an exciting year for Ryan and I. We’ve both been avid amateur photographers for a long time, but this was the year that we officially started our photography business.
Shoot the Thrill Photography came into existence early in 2009 and we are happy to say that it is steadily growing stronger. We’ve had the pleasure to shoot several family portraits, 2 equestrian shows, a number of road races, and a wedding.
Of course, we didn’t strictly photograph for business, we took some fun photo excursions as well (ie. Toronto Zoo, African Lion Safari)
I am looking forward to everything that 2010 will bring, especially the weddings and portrait sessions that are already booked. I get excited every time I receive an inquiry or talk to someone about photography. I absolutely love taking photos and I know that Ryan does as well.
And what would a photography year in review be without photos?
The following are some of my favourites of photos I’ve taken in 2009.
