I used to keep as much detail in the shadows as I could but this held back interesting positive/negative shape relationships. Eventually I realized it's alright to let things disappear into black.

I took this accidental photo while running one day. I loved the motion blur and colours (likely a byproduct of the forest fire smoke).

There's haven't been many thunderstorms this summer so I was excited to finally see some lightning in the sky this week. I set up my tripod and started taking 30 second exposures at f/22 until I captured some lightning.

I have a small series of “gas stations at night” photos. I love the little beacons of light set against a plain backdrop.

There are two gas stations along my typical photo walk route so it's easy to see what's up at both.

I was interested in the mixed light temperatures in this scene. I need to experiment with this more.

I see photo opportunities while driving but I rarely pull over to take them. This project is encouraging me to park the car and make the photo. Unfortunately, they're usually failures because I'm looking in the distance with a telephoto eye which makes the 35mm lens unsuitable.

I used to take food photos for my girlfriend's blog. They were always amateur, but it was still fun. When I saw this beautiful assortment of pastries and baked goods I had to try again.

This is environmental portrait around golden hour in Vancouver. I was using the balcony door as a frame within a frame. One trick I learned is to temporarily crop in tight on the bright areas of the photo and adjust the photo until the histogram shows a proper exposure. Then I reset the crop and bask in a properly exposed subject and a naturally darkened frame.

I was thinking of a story from Understanding Exposure—likely the most useful photography book I own—when I took this photo. The author is a self-described “very specific time of day” photographer. He described the light between 11–3 as poolside light, because that's where you'll find him—sitting by the pool. Now I also happened to be at a pool so this photo was a subject matter and light challenge.

Luke Beard takes some of the nicest photos of cocktails (and food) I've seen. I'm trying to channel him here, but the photo ended up looking a bit flat and dull. (The drink was good!)

This sunset was dramatic. I've been watching the photographers I look up to closely and, unsurprisingly, noticed they rarely take pictures of a sunset. What they do instead is find an interesting subject and make a photo of it at sunset. I think this one still falls into “sunset photo” territory, but I'll get there. I'm also trying to figure out a series name for these photos from my balcony. My girlfriend recommended “Balcony Shotz” but that's been taken over by people drinking booze on their balcony already.