That's right folks, I do believe that I am sitting right in the eye.  What makes me think that??  Well, as I type I am looking out my window and I am sure that the wind is blowing at least 100kmh... in my book we are indeed having a hurricane!  And here I thought that Saskatchewan was immune to those things   I will take the wind over the cold though.  Actually, now that I think of it maybe it would be a toss up but right now I think I favor wind because I am so sick of talking to people about how cold it is... I should have counted the amount of times in the past month or two that I have heard the line "Is it cold enough for you?".  I have come up with a new response to that so when I am asked I seriously look people in the eye and say "no"... at first they think I'm joking but then I explain that I need it to go down to at least -50 (before the windchill) as that is the temperature at which ice crystals start to merge together and I am really dying to photograph this rare event.  Yeah, not so much

Okay... once again I have found myself getting a little bit off course... sorry... so, what has been happening photographically speaking in the past couple of weeks?  Well, we have been as busy as ever teaching photo workshops.  We have a post processing workshop coming up and we have also been gearing up getting ready for our Winterscapes 2009 fieldtrip which as long as the weather holds out should be a blast.  Rob has also been busy with the University of Regina and is shooting wrestling as we speak.  Other than that I do believe that Rob is planning to shoot both Brad Paisley and the Eagles in the near future... am I jealous??  Come on...seriously, everyone knows that the Eagles were only a one hit wonder anyway Okay... I might just be a weeee bit envious.

I did head out once again to the Floral Conservatory to shoot their orchid display. I must admit that I am starting to love it there as there is nothing like walking down paths of flowers in a tropical environment when it is about -40 outside.

And with that we will move onto some pictures.  Rob has in fact finally found a bit of time to send me some more of his Costa Rican trip so I will be posting some here in hopes that Rob will add some comments after the fact as I could make some but they most likely would have nothing to do with the actual images... hmmm... now that I think of it maybe I will do just that and then he can add on if necessary I will also once again point out that Rob did not take an SLR on his trip as all photo were shot with a Canon Powershot G10.

This blog is also going to be split up into at least 2 if not 3 seperate entries as this time we have a lot of images to post and we have realized that some of our blog buddies are on dial up and it takes them upwards of half an hour on occasion to load the blog if there are a pile of images in it.

{Hello blog reading people - Being that Devona was kind enough to do all this work for us and publish these blog entries all that is left to me is to add some comments and explanations which I will do througout these postings and use these funny little bracketsf or which I have never previously found a use for.}

{Your eyes do not deceive you. The above image has been seriously tweaked in PS. At full size it looks very much like an oil painting and will ultimately be printed on a canvas or cotton stock.}

ISO - 80, F - 8.0, SHUTTER SPEED - 1/30TH SEC. {Poas Volcano in Costa Rica - The clouds parted for just long enough for me to shoot this. Most visitors during the week we were there were not lucky enough to see anything other than clouds (Don't worry, the tour guides still took their $60US per person) Can someone please remind me to change the typo on the print... or perhaps not, those tend to be the things that people buy and glom onto for decades... other people's screwups.}

ISO - 80, F - 4.5, Shutter Speed - 1/80th sec, Exp Comp - +0.7 {Yes, that says ISO 80 as all these Costa Rica images were shot with a Canon G10 which has a maximum aperature of F8.0 and quite often meeter readings not terribly relevant to the SLR world due to the size of the sensor and the close proximity of it to the lens opening etc.}

ISO - 200, F - 8.0, Shutter Speed - 1/500th, Exp Comp -0.7

ISO - 80, F - 8.0, Shutter Speed - .5 sec, Exp Comp - -0.3

ISO - 80, F - 8.0, Shutter Speed - 1.5 sec {Somehow the results I obtained from this little camera at F8.0 were suprisingly similar to the results I would see from my DSLR at about F16 or higher - I am generally very pleased with how well this camera performed especially considering how many Cervezas I had consumed by the time the sun set daily}

ISO - 400, F - 4.5, Shutter Speed - 1/200th sec {handheld}

ISO - 400, F - 4.5, Shutter Speed - 1/400th sec, Exp Comp - -0.3 {handheld}

ISO - 400, F - 4.5, Shutter Speed - 1/250th sec, Exp Comp - -0.3 {handheld}

So, I would have made some comments on Rob's photos above as I think that they are all stunning but the problem lies in the fact that looking at them makes me just a wee bit envious as I was sitting here working with the temperatures hovering around minus a zillion while he was galavanting all over Costa Rica taking amazing pictures and I didn't want to come across in my comments like I was bitter or anything

Okay everyone... this is where I say "to be continued" as after I post this I am going to start working on part II ....