PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activists held an anti-meat consumption protest in downtown Ottawa during the lunch hour on July 17, 2013. iPolitics/ Matthew Usherwood

A member of the Ceremonial Guard stands at attention during a ceremony marking the change of command of the Canada Army on Parliament Hill in Ottawa July 18, 2013. iPolitics/ Matthew Usherwood

Friends enjoy the sunset after a massive storm moved through the Ottawa area on July 19, 2013. (Matthew Usherwood)

Josh Smith goes for the crux move while bouldering in Gatineau on July 21, 2013. (Matthew Usherwood)

September 3rd 2011

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day. Im really stoked with the pictures I got from it. I've been getting a lot more comfortable with approaching people on the streets to get their portraits. When I take portraits of people on the streets I try to hear about their lives so I can take portrait that resembles their personality. I don't want to just take the picture and runaway. It's crazy how open people are to getting their portrait taken. Everyone is so different, it's amazing hearing their stories.

Street Performer

Sunny James

This fight broke out as I was walking by.

Everything is shot with a 50mm

5 Hours in the studio

Yesterday and today I spent a total of 5 hours taking photos of an old range finder camera. The reason why I did this was to learn how to use the new Hasselblad H4D camera and also to learn how to control the lighting better. I wish I had a better subject to shoot but it was all I had at the moment.

Arctic

For some reason this photo reminds me of the Arctic. I wish I actually went to the Arctic when I took this photo.

Point and Shoot

I recently said I would be putting up weekly point and shoot photos. I soon realized this will be harder than I thought because I am so busy with school. Here are some more photos taken with my Olympus.

Olympus Camera

Here is another picture I took with the Olympus camera. I plan to put one picture a week on the blog that I took with this camera. So far i've noticed that the camera has trouble in low light situations. If there isn't a good amount of the light, it produces really grainy images or it won't take the picture all together.

I took this picture while waiting for an early morning class. I was pretty early so I had a lot time to kill. I ended up just messing around with the camera for a while.

Point and Shoot

I've had an Olympus point and shoot camera for awhile now and haven't really experimented with it at all. They actually don't make the model I own anymore so I put a link to the closest camera to it in the FE series. In the next couple of weeks I plan to bring it around with me every where and photograph life around me.

Here is a shot I took a couple weeks ago downtown when there was a blizzard happening.

Books

Here are some books that lay around my house. This is only a couple of them, we must have hundreds. There is so many that we don't have enough shelves to fit them all. I have only read a couple of them from this pile, but plan to read them all some day.

The reason why I took this picture is for two reasons. I really like the lighting on them that was coming from a nearby window. The second reason is it's such a diverse pile of books. There are so many different styles of books. It makes me think of humanity and how if you put a bunch of people into a pile there would be so many different styles of people no one would be the same.

New Self Portrait

One of the Assignments is my final portfolio is a self-portrait for the prelim I shot a black and white one. I decided to redo it for my final portfolio. I like the lighting a lot more and the feel of the new one. Also there is no clipping in the new one and there is color which is nice.