Since this is now my new home for day to day pictures and writings, I guess I should introduce myself;

As you may have guessed my name is Scott Crouse. I'm a married 42 year old man who lives just south of the Canadian capital city of Ottawa. I've lived here for the past 10 years and am still learning my way around this massive part of Canada. Naturally the exploring is always with a camera. I'm originally from the east coast of Canada (Nova Scotia) and was first introduced to photography with a Pentax ME Super SLR as a gift from my parents during my teenage years. It was apparent that I liked the hobby and was pretty good at it but I found the developing costs very prohibitive (I'm a cheap bugger) so the camera didn't get much use. Over the years photography was on the shelf. I moved around living in Bermuda (3 years) and the Canadian Arctic (about 2 years combined time) and out on the island of Newfoundland. I got to see some very lovely places and made some excellent friends throughout Canada and around the world. I'm also an amateur radio operation (callsigns: VA3XA and VP9MM) and meet many new people each year though the hobby. A few years ago when digital cameras became affordable I started out with a point and shoot and the photography bug hit again. Each year I travel back to Bermuda to house sit for friends and through them and Bermuda I rediscovered my love of photography. Such an excellent place to find great shooting locations. I'm a massive computer geek so it just all came together ( digital photography + computers = fun ). Very quickly I traded in the P&S for a small SLR (Canon S3is) and my skills developed rapidly. I was being pushed by my wife and my buddy Tom (a Bermuda mate) to go to the next level. I then picked up my first "pro" camera, a Nikon D200, and haven't looked back. I gained lots of interest on flickr and started receiving comments from people wanting to buy my pictures. So I setup my commercial site and registered a business Scott Crouse Photography. Unfortunately photography is still a hobby for me, I have a regular day job to pay the bills so my photo time is evenings, weekends and vacations. Although I get a few sales, it doesn't even pay for the hobby at this point, so if you want to help me out and like my images head on over and purchase away (sorry, shameless plug for business haha). In 13 years I'll be retiring from my regular job and at that time I hope to move to a more full time posture. I'm still primarily a landscape photographer, I just haven't figured out how to shoot portraits or people. Right now it remains my Achilles heel but we continue to work at it. I have no models or people that even want to me take their picture so that makes it tougher to learn. In Canada most money is in wedding photography but I have no desire to even do that. I still shot for me and if people like my vision then great, if they don't, oh well. Dealing with clients is not something I'm overly interested in at this point. So for now, many of my photos are taken while canoing, kayaking, touring or while in Bermuda. So many of the themes are the same. Most of my images have been rejected on OE due to being to "common" (doesn't exist anymore) or "impact". But when you hold my work up to some of the stuff that is being published I can't complain. I'm just not different enough. But now with the OE homepages I still get to showcase my work for all to see. I hope the comments continue to be of the high quality that are on the regular OE page.

Part of the reason that I went with OE for my homepage (btw, I finished the trial with a payment to the crew, well worth the money) was to be able to combine my photography with my blogs. Prior to this I was on Flickr and Blogspot and I found both to be very unfulfilling. People just give a glowing comment, dash and run. Although I don't get many published on OE, I do like the quality of the comments and the honest opinions of people. So the idea is to phase out all the old blogs = Scott Crouse Blog and Scott Crouse Photography Blog and my flickr site and restart here. I've been poking around looking at everyones home sites here on OE and there are some very very impressive images and most Journal entries have been very photo related. Unfortunately that won't be my style.

My journal will sometimes contain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with photography and will be things from my mind and lots of my photography WILL NOT BE MY BEST. hahaha, I like to keep things light hearted and more on a personal scale. I hope I don't start stinking the place up :) If you look at the my OE homepage site, you see such beautiful images, I'm almost scared to post some of my stuff cause it's going to show on that page for a day or two. But we're going to try and have some fun and I hope others join me and put up with my "less then perfect" work.

For those who don't view the OE forums, I highly recommend going over and reading Vernon Trent's article on "Spicing up an ordinary shot". An excellent read. Well done Vernon.

An image explanation for the day;



The St Lawrence Seaway is a gateway for commercial shipping between the Atlantic Ocean all the way up into the Great Lakes of North America. Along that Seaway there were canal's that acted as an "inside lanes" for smaller shipping that could not handle the open water. One is called the Gallop Canal located around the Iroquois region. This canal is decaying with age but a great opportunity for images. This is a foot bridge that crosses over the canal. It is an HDR image consisting of 9 exposures. I did try and remove the bushes on the left hand railing but could never get it right so left them in.

You'll find that I write several times a week. I like to keep things light and cheery so please come back often. I love comments and chatter so speak your mind and visit often. Lets all have a good time. Cheers till later,

S

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