I am a photographer that loves to be ready as you never know when the moment will strike where you need your camera. It doesn’t matter what camera you pick up, as long as the moment is special, capturing it with any type of camera is better than none at all. In a related post, I talked about reaching for the nearest camera, which is the best tool you could have at the moment.

A special moment hits in split seconds. When you recognize something worth capturing, it takes only split seconds for that moment to erode. When you reach for the closest camera, turn it on and take the shot. Don’t worry about settings or exposure or even focus. It takes merely 2 seconds for the camera to boot up and fire the first shot. After that, you can look at your settings and adjust it for the situation as needed. Too many times, people worry about their settings and by the time they are done fiddling with their camera, the moment is lost. You never know when a photographic opportunity awaits you.

My favorite go-to camera is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 10.1 MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD – In WHITE of course!. Most of my photos are taken with it because it takes no time to boot up and the photos taken by its “Intelligent Auto (iA)” mode is spot on, sharp, dynamically bright, and amazing overall.

The overnight low in Edmonton was -35*C, but temperatures felt like -44*C wind chill factored in. That my friend is very very cold. I dropped my wife off at work and complained all the way home how cold the steering wheel and shifter was, even with gloves on. So as soon as I get home, the logical thing to do is go outside for 15 minutes in nothing but a sweater and flip flops for a portrait session with Andy? Yeah, baby! It’s cold outside and I’m a little bit insane.

This morning, we wake up to this in Edmonton. Snow! The picture is not grainy/noisy. That is actually snow falling down.

Canada Place in downtown Edmonton on a cold day. The interior of this building is quite beautiful as the other corner of Canada Place is adorned with vegetation growth. This building is warm like a greenhouse in the summer months.

Extremely cold in the office today because the heater in the building is not set to full-winter mode yet. So it was nice to see a bit of sun come out and heat up the window behind me. Took a picture of the sun through the blinds for a more textured look.

This Saturday was too cold for riding my bike, so I made it my errand day. My first trip was downtown to see Dion and as you can see here, most of downtown was covered in very low-lying clouds. It was below freezing in the morning and the first frost warning of fall. Winter sucks!