Alpaca's Take Over the Royal Winter Fair

Llama looking creatures that draw in attention from everyone at the Royal Winter Fair are furry friends that everyone adores. At the Royal Winter Fair, hundreds of people came to do a little shopping, go to some cow shows and just to have fun. One of the main events that drew in I would say hoards of people every minute was the petting zoo. There were goats, sheep, chicken, bunnies and my favourite of all, Alpaca's. Alpaca's were the main event in the petting zoo; everyone would gather around to feel their soft coat and funny looking lips. Eric from Toronto, at the petting zoo said "I've been here with my kids for about an hour already, they can't stop feeding the alpaca's." "They're just about the cutest and funniest animals I've ever seen" says 7 year old Maddie from Mississauga. "I love feeding them food and seeing their lips go all over the place trying to grab the food out of my fingers," chuckles Ms. Zanini.

Spotted Huacaya Alpaca

Lots of people take photos of these Alpaca's and feed them till they leave. The Alpaca's will walk around in their area while people follow, "They keep running away from me" says Ella. When you come to the Fair it's hard to say bye to these adorable animals because you just want to keep petting them, their fur is incredibly soft and you won't want to stop petting them. At the Royal Winter Fair you can buy scarfs and hats made out of Alpaca fur as well as sweaters too. You can buy your little ones cute sweater with Alpaca's on them or your girlfriend mittens; you can never go wrong with Alpaca's; everyone loves Alpaca's. "I'm going to need to bring extra change next time I come here to feed the Alpaca's," exclaims Shaniqua from Scarborough. The petting zoo is a great place to come with your kids and even with your friends, it's for all ages and anyone will enjoy it with cute Alpaca's and other animals waiting to be fed.

Perfect Portrait #3

In this photo above, I had my friend sit down and try to pose for the photo. Like always I tell my models to do anything they want and this is what we tried to do for so long. After endless minutes of trying to capture a perfect photo and after fixing all the settings for every photo I was going to take, I finally captured this one. I knew that this was the one i was going to use but I tried to top this photo but I just couldn't. I got a couple more photos that I really liked as well but none of them really spoke to me like this one. Once i took this photo stared at it for a long time, it gave different feelings and emotions, which is a reason why I really like it. It looks like a normal pose but if you look really closely into her eyes they grab your attention so much. It's almost like she has a scared look in her eyes and you can see so deep into them. Although this photo is black and white it has a wide range of greys, whites and blacks which is pretty cool. I asked a couple of people what they thought about this photo and most of them said that it looks "artsy" and someone said that she looks intimate. I agreed a lot to what the person said about her looking intimate because even though it's a simple photo it looks very emotional. Overall I really enjoy this photo. 

• f- stop: f/5
• Exposure time: 1/60 second
• ISO speed: ISO-100
• Focal Length: 30 mm
• Flash Mode: no flash
• The lights in the room were off
• 2 regular sized lights on the left side of her, one directly beside her about 1m away and one slightly in front of her about 1.5m away
• 1 regular sized light on the right side of her face standing about 1m away from her
• 1 small box light shining from right under and slightly behind her

my puppy running towards me

Perfect Portrait #2

In this photo my model was meant to take a laughing photo and it turned out actually really natural looking, which is just what I was going for. She looks very happy and carefree. What I really enjoy about this photo is that even though the model I used is already beautiful, this photo makes her look even prettier with the range of colours that are present. Her hair is perfectly placed and everything is in focus. The lighting in this picture is different compared to the other two photos I have because as you can see there are dark spots under her eyes and around her smiling mouth. I think that those shadows really help make the photo because they add depth and more detail into it. There is some shadows on the right side of her face but I kind of like it because it gives an effect and doesn't make it look plain. Another thing that I also like about this photo is that it looks like she's looking at someone that's making her laugh, how she's looking up and into the distance and the way I positioned her to the right side of the picture.

• f-stop: f/5.6
• exposure time: 1/60
• ISO speed: ISO-400
• focal length: 55mm
• max aperture: 5
• flash mode: no flash
• small lamp light shining about 1.5 meters away from the right side of her face a bit in front of her
• regular light shining from the left side of her face about 1 meter away from her
• light source from the bottom behind her to remove all shadows from behind
• giant light source coming from the top left side of her about 1m away

Perfect Portrait #1

In this photo above, I had my model look into the light and told her to do whatever she wanted but not to smile. This photo captures emotion and depth. Before I took this photo, it was actually almost the end of class and I hadn't really gotten a good photo that didn't look so posed and fake. I didn't want to get her smiling or fake laughing because I wanted to do something different from my other photos. I particularly like the lighting because there are barely any shadows but it looks like there's shading on the side of her face. My model is placed not directly in the middle, but slightly off to the right side of the photo but still almost in the middle to make her the main focus rather than placing her in the very bottom and questioning why there is so much space around her. I think that the way the back of her head is darker than the front really makes this photograph powerful. It's almost like she's waiting for something to happen and is really interested to what is going to happen.  

• f-stop:  f/5.3
• exposure time: 1/60sec
• ISO speed: ISO-100
• focal length: 40mm
• max aperture: 4.8
• flash mode: no flash
• light on the right side of her, shining into her face about                                        30cm away from her
• little lamp shining onto her face from the same side the same distance away
• lamp with umbrella about 1m away from her on the left side a bit behind her, not directly beside her  
• ground lamp shining up from her left to remove shadows and add a bit of light                

Multiple Exposure

This picture was inspired by a photograph I saw on the internet when I was looking online for cool photos. Genuinely this photo is suppose to be of a girl looking into her hands and thinking. The picture inside of her hands is what she is feeling and how she is feeling. She is feeling lonely and trapped at the same time and i decided to put a picture in the background of waves/water to create a sort of flow in the picture. The main reason i decided to do something like this was to try to mimic my favourite photographer, Jerry Uselmann, which I think I did a pretty good job.

daiana spataru