12 Days Of Christmas - See You Next Year!

If there was ever a sign that those 'lazy, hazy days of summer' are over - this is it.

I found this tire swing, someone's summer diversion, abandoned and locked in the creek until the spring.  I hope it remains unmolested for the rest of the winter, a reminder of summer past and a reluctant photographic subject for those who find it hidden in the ravine.  The sun only reaches into the creek bed here for about an hour around noon. 

Rae, have you found it yet?

May you enjoy your photographic pursuits in the New Year.

12 Days Of Christmas - Happy Tails To You

For the older crowd who may remember Roy Rogers, Trigger and Dale Evans, I couldn't resist a little word play on their theme song, "Happy Trails".  For my dogs, happy trails translates to happy tails and when we are down in the Mill Creek ravine trails, the tails wag, the ears fly and the silly grins never end.

Get out and walk off some of those Christmas calories.  It will make you grin even if you ears don't fly.

12 Days Of Christmas - Poinsettia

I suppose if I were one of 30,000 poinsettia in the greenhouse I would have to do something to standout too.

Thank You to Salisbury Greenhouse for a great day shooting.

12 Days Of Christmas - A Polar Nativity

Just a simple post today from our nativity outing.

12 Days Of Christmas - The Santa Blahs

The big day is over.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, the turkey was stuffed,  cooked, and devoured, and we now we all jiggle like a bowl full of jelly.  Boxing Day madness has come and gone.  No wonder you feel a little deflated, like the air has been knocked out of you!

Imagine how Santa must feel after his global reindeer tour.......

The light was a little flat today, but then so were these Santa yard balloons.

This is day seven of my 12 Days Of Christmas. Five more days until the New Year.

I hope you are enjoying your ongoing Christmas Card.

12 Days Of Christmas - Christmas Tree Angel

One of the things I enjoy about being a member of a camera club is the places we are able to access to photograph.  Today's image was taken at Salisbury Greenhouse in Sherwood park who have graciously given us access to their Christmas displays these past two seasons.

12 Days Of Christmas - Away In A Manger

Nativity scenes from West End Christian Reformed Church.

This event runs for 3 days in December.  Members of the parish bring in their nativity scenes that they have collected from around the world to display.

This year there were over 500 nativity sets on display.  Here are but two today but more will follow during the week

Merry Christmas to all.

Thanks Bill for arranging for us to come in and photograph before public hours. 

12 Days Of Christmas - A Beary Merry Christmas

Families develop traditions and holidays are filled with traditions that carry forward even as those families spread out.  Several years ago, we bought each of the kids a stocking stuffer from Sears; a small stuffed animal with the year stitched on the pad of the paw. Bears, mice, and moose later we are in 2010 and the tradition continues even though they have to come home for their stockings. 

Here are this year's stuffers.

Kids, don't open until Christmas!

12 Days of Christmas - Luminaria at Devonian Gardens

One weekend in early December the Devonian Gardens, east of Edmonton, line the paths of their Japanese Garden with luminaria, a weighted paper bag with a candle votive inside. This year the garden paths were lined with 3200 luminaria.

At various points around the gardens there were portable fire pits and hot apple cider to take the chill off the evening. OK it was -15C and a little more than chilly but better than last year's -35 deep freeze!

Either for photography or for a stroll, check this out next December.

12 Days of Christmas - Alberta Legislature Grounds In Light

Finally got the last of my Christmas tree lights up this year!

It was -20 that night. Thanks for the hand warmers Quincey!

12 Days of Christmas - Lunar Eclipse

Let's see if I can manage 12 consecutive days of posts through the Christmas season starting with the winter solstice.

Here is this (early) morning's lunar eclipse.   See you tomorrow!

Time After Time After Time

Here's a little extra time as you rush about this Christmas season. 

Taken in Wostok General Store at the Ukrainian Village Cultural Center east of Edmonton.

Ukrainian Village is a favourite location for capturing pieces of our history from button jars to old farm machinery and outhouses to grand churches.  It is a working museum with character actors throughout the village bringing us a glimpse into the life of the early  settlers with examples of sod huts, early frame houses, an elevator and train station, hotel, hardware, blacksmith, school, gas station and general store and more. There is never enough time to cover everything!

Yellow Bug, Black Sky

IMAGES ALBERTA CAMERA CLUB's

annual fall outing to Alden's Salvage was a great success again this year with over twenty members in attendance.

Every year that I go to these events, I am fortunate to find new material or new approaches to presenting a piece of our automotive past.

This was a fortunate find at almost the end of the day.  Something caught my eye, either the oddity of the little car, its sad little face or the fact that it sat apart from its large North American peers.

A low angle shot and a circular polarizer proved the approach to separate this car visually.  Finally, a quick bit of post processing using curves allowed me to blow the blue in the sky and pull the faded yellow in the paint.

Moon Over Yellowknife Bay

Sitting in the Yellowknife airport waiting for a weather delayed plane and the camera batteries are dead.  Not much to share from today as it is snowing creating a low flat light.  I made a few images down at the pier in Old Town, a favorite spot for me.   The house boats are freezing in for another winter but a few hardy souls are breaking the think slushy ice with their motor boats as they commute from home to work across the bay.  By noon, the water has a fresh layer of soft ice set again marking their path.  Soon the house boaters will have to stay put or camp out with friends in town until the bay freezes hard enough to cross by foot or snowmobile.  A few dogs manage to romp back and forth across the ice further down the bay, the ice strong enough to support their play.



These shots are from April this year as the ice was just starting to melt.  People were still running snowmobiles across the bay but there were temporary gangways bridging the 2 or 3 metre gap between the shore and solid ice.






And finally, a Cross Fox - named for the lighter cross shaped marking across it's shoulders and back

Playing in Photshop with new graphics for 'imagery' newsletter

 

 

 

 

Created a mask using text them erased the rest of the image, embossed and shadowed

Mask of text over Downtown Reflections in Scotia Tower

Time Warp

Just back from an IMAGES ALBERTA CAMERA CLUB outing to Alden's Salvage Yard with a card full of rust and old paint.  This is my second visit and I decided I needed a theme to my shoot to keep me interested and looking for new details.  Today I decided to go after hood ornaments, lettering and design.  It made for an interesting day exploring the old cars from the 40's 50's and 60's.

Here is a multiple exposure of the trunk of a late 40's Buick 88.  It's interesting how the chrome has still retained most of it's shine on the globe.

Here is a single exposure of the same ornament - taken at a slight angle.  The 'ring' around the globe normally is horizontal.

Images at the Alex

Twenty four Images Alberta Camera Club members have photographs on display and for sale at the Royal Alexandra Hospital Galleria from August 3rd through the 29th.

Photographs may be purchased with twenty percent of sales go to the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation.

These works represent the diverse photographic style of Images members who range from beginner to professional and includes Alberta flora, fauna and landscape, world travel, fine art, and industrial images.


The Galleria is on the basement level of the Active Treatment Centre, and is open to public viewing during hospital hours. The Royal Alexandra Hospital is located at 10240 Kingsway Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta.

My Pelican Mist is for sale, framed and with archive double matte  for $125.  This image was shot last summer shortly after sunrise at Hasting Lake, Alberta.  The combination of a high ISO and the mist created a grain in the photograph that gives the photo the look and feel of being a watercolour painting. 

Chasing the Aurora

RED ALERT! my email read - 90% chance of viewing Aurora activity due to increased sunspot activity August 1st .  A glance at the sky didn't hold much promise at 7pm as it was raining again.  I quickly checked the Environment Canada forecast and there was hope of clearing later in the evening.


11PM rolled around and the stars were peaking around cloud with some promise.  I quickly loaded my gear into the car, stopped by Timmies for a hot one to-go, and headed off to the dark sky preserve of Elk Island National Park east of Edmonton. 

The cloud cover was now only patchy as I set up my tripod and camera in the dark.  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I spotted the big dipper with a foreground of spruce trees but no sign of the northern lights yet.  I tried a few different settings and shot several exposures while I fine tuned my manual focus before finally setting the camera to BULB for some exposures over 30 seconds using lower ISOs for less noise. This image was shot at ISO 800, for 30 sec, aperture 3.5 and overexposed by 1 2/3 stops.  

I shot a several more starscapes and played with the half moon rising through some more spruce boughs until the moon started to light the fine, high cloud reducing visibility again. I finally abandoned my search - for now.  Another night I will receive a warning and return to catch the dancing lights of the Aurora with a little more experience to assist me.

Current Aurora activity can be monitored and you can subscribe to receive email alerts when there is a high probability to sight the aurora at
http://corona-gw.phys.ualberta.ca/AuroraWatch/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/. 

Prairie Storms

A business trip to the border town of Lloydminster (Alberta or Saskatchewan depending on your point of view) presented me with fields of canola.  I worked a couple of fields on the morning trip out but they lacked anything really dynamic until this evening when a series of severe storms rolled through the  region.  No tornadoes here tonight but heavy rain and scattered hail pelted the area.  These image was taken between downpours south of Lloydminster.



Low shutter speed for the wind.......

There is nothing like a bold dark sky to give a counter point to the yellow of the canola field.

 

Life Imitating Art

June 12 &  13  I was one of seven volunteer photographers (5 from Images Alberta Camera Club) who documented the MS Leduc to Camrose bike tour.  Almost 2000 cyclists raised over 1.6 million dollars in pledges and rode the 180 km round trip course with an overnight stop in Camrose. 

We started shooting a 530 Saturday morning at the Richie Brother's staging area, followed the cyclists through to Wetaskawin and into Camrose.  We culled about 250 photographs from the 2500 shot and prepared a 10 minute musical slideshow featuring the riders, sponsors and volunteers by 4pm for their evening supper, then continued to photograph events through the evening.  Sunday morning we were back behind our viewfinders for the return leg.

It was an incredible experience to work with such a group of dedicated volunteers, riders and organizers.

This shot was taken at a farm that hosted one of the checkpoint/watering stations on day 2.  Most everyone's spirits were high even if legs were cramping and other parts were saddle sore!

Hope and Care Take Flight

Article for Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton Newsletter   It was a wet misty day, threatening to turn into an outright downpour, as I made my way to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton (WRS). Rain or shine, I was not going to miss this visit. Visitors and tours are not the norm in this facility that provides assistance to injured, contaminated or orphaned wild animals. I had been invited to the release of a Swainson’s Hawk that had been recuperating in their care and I planned to photograph the event.

Inside, I was greeted by the Development Coordinator, Caroline Barlott, and learned that the WRS is assisted by over 220 volunteers in roles like animal care, pen maintenance, public education and drivers to pickup their wards from veterinary clinics from around town.

Animal Care Manager Stephanie May led me out the back field to the ‘flight pen’ where the hawk was kept. WRS does all they can to keep their animals wild and that means limiting interactions so wildlife do not become habituated to people whenever possible. With what must be practiced efficiency, Stephanie and her assistant deftly and gently cornered the hawk and transferred her from her perch in a spruce bough to a soft-sided carrier for the trip to a release site east of Edmonton.

The mist had turned to a light rain once we were at the release site but the mood was upbeat in anticipation of releasing a healthy raptor back into the wild. This hawk had come to the rehabilitation centre last year at the time she would have just been learning to hunt. The release site and timing were chosen to provide a habitat with lots of open rolling fields, a healthy gopher population and a mature tree line to provide perches.

I chose a spot well off to the side so I could photograph the hawk’s release but not be a concern to her. At first she was reluctant to leave the confines of her carrier but once Stephanie tipped the carrier upward to provide a perch, she stepped out of the carrier and took a minute or two to view her new environment. 

Finally, she hopped from the carrier, stretched her wings, and lifted into the air. We were rewarded with a long sweeping flight out and arcing back towards us – perhaps a final parting gesture as she flew off to resume her life in the wild. 

The WRS is a non-profit organization which relies on donations to be able to care for injured wildlife. For more information, please go to: http://www.wildlife-edm.ca.

Fund Raiser

May was a hectic month for me but productive.  I started with the usual creation and publishing of the Imagery newsletter.  Then early in May,  I attended a presentation by Alberta Wilderness Association about Alberta's Lakeland Provincial Recreation Area that featured photos from Images club members.  These were shot for AWA in and around the Lac La Biche area in late 2008 and 2009.  

It was there that we met Ian Urquhart, the editor of AWA's journal, Wild Lands Advocate.  Ian invited three of us to write photography related articles for their June edition.  I chose to write about photographing wildflowers and one of the photography workshops at the WatertonWildflower Festival that runs every June in Waterton National Park.  The Advocate should publish June 17.

I also became involved with a fundraiser for Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of  Edmonton which is a charitable organization that provides compassionate care for injured, contaminated and orphaned wildlife and educates the public on the importance of wildlife in our community.  This photo and another will be part of a Silent Auction and Art Show at the Smart Gallery in David Morris Fine Cars.

This lead to an invitation  to photograph the release of a Swainsons Hawk that had been in their care.  Since writing this post, the article I provided to WRS's newsletter has been added in a recent post..

,  

 

Framed photo sold at WRS Silent Auction

Pelican Mist: Hastings Lake Alberta, Fred Rushworth 2009

Who You Looking At?

Did you know that in order to be falconer in Alberta, you must apprentice for a year under an experienced falconer?

This was as close as I dared get to this 6 year old male Peregrine falcon.  I'm not sure if he was watching his reflection in my lens or was just waiting to grab my finger.  Either way, I had to respect that steely look not to mention his sharp beak.

Goose Stepping

I borrowed a friend's 2x teleconverter and tried it on my Canon XTI with  my Canon 75-300 zoom.  It gave me a really tight zoom but I had to manually focus when I pushed the lense past it's 200 point.

I went down to a couple of ponds where I knew the Canada Geese would have their goslings and played with the lense/teleconverter for about an hour to see  what it would do for me.  This is one of the shots untouched except for crop/frame/title.  EXIF says ISO 400, aperture 5.0 zoom 160(x2=320). Shutter 1/200,  hand-held because I had left the tripod behind.

I couldn't resist adding a caption to this one.

Frosted Veil

A warm late fall followed by a hard freeze and snow left most treees with a full load of leaves in November.  The next week we had heavy fogs through the mornings that left this aspen in Elk Island National Park bearing a fine frosted veil of leaves.

This image was a 2nd place winner in the Medium Print category in January.

Aspens In The Wind - First Place

I was thrilled to have two of my images place in the Medium Format Print category in January.  This one was a 3 way tie for 1stt but I will take it!



This shot of an aspen grove in Waterton National Park was taken last summer following a workshop at the Waterton Wildflower Festival.  Our instructor, Paul Gilbert,  had been talking about the power of lines and patterns and breaks in patterns.  I felt that this stand of aspen are on the Red Rock Canyon Road worked with those prinicples.. 

I wasn't pleased with the initial photograph because I felt the wind had created too much movement and caused a loss of sharpness inthe image.  After I did a little sharpening and a touch of selective dodging to bring out the light in the trunks and grasses, I was much happier accepting the motion  - and focused on the cause in the title.

Morning at Gibbons Creek

I've been too busy working on the Imagery newsletter and prepping shots for the Images Alberta Camera Club competitions to do a decent job staying  current here. Let's see if I can fix that with a few shots I submitted at the club competitions..

This images was shot last fall in a small creek that flows under the west hiway bridge into Gibbons. I deliberately left early in hopes of finding some fog in the low lying areas and finally found some in this little valley. Once I hiked down into the valley, my eye was caught by these ferns and the ripples of water as the creek crosses a small weir.

I guess I came for mist and stayed for the light.

Look into your future

Look into your future with this crystal ball. Is that "Tall, Dark and Handsome" in your future or something sinister lurking just beyond the light?   Really, it is one of 3 polished ice balls on top of the Ice Fountain at the entrance to the castle.

Ice On Whyte, Early Morning Visitors

I think this year's ice castle far exceeds last year's.  The walls have been more intricately carved and it has been left open on the 4th wall avoiding the congestion of the traditional 4 wall box.  The furniture has a higher level of finishing - complete to a 4 place table setting, king size bed, fireplace and benches.

The open wall also for far better photos.  This was taken on Saturday morning against the sunrise and using a double warming filter.

More photos to come I hope!

Ice On Whyte

January is such a brutal weather month for winter festival activities.  We are subject to nose tingling cold then fickle melts, sometimes only days apart.  I always watch in anticipation as events such as Ice On Whyte prepare their ice sculptures.  The sculptors tell us that -5C is the perfect temperature to work their special clear ice blocks.  This is when the ice is stable, the small amounts of water and friction used between  the blocks freezes clear and the air temperature doesn't create melts.

This year, the artist have battle temperatures from +3 to +6 and have protected their works with tarps for shade,  insulated mats, and the smaller pieces are covered with boxes. Last year they fought similar conditions in the week that they created the castle and sculptures, then within a day of opening, we dropped right back into the -20's making it less appealing to go and play.

Here are some shots from the 2009 Ice on Whyte.  The 2010 festival has just opened and Images camera club has an outing there tomorrow.  Go early and catch the morning light playing in the ice or go at dusk and see everything lit.  Enjoy and stay warm.

Playing in the Snow.

There have been lots of opportunities over the last few weeks to get out and shoot in the snow.  Here are a few favourites.

From another trek through Elk Island National Park.  This one begs for some serious editing - perhaps inserting a fall image into the mirror to play in the work "Heated"

 Winter Wonderland - WE got a great little snow flurry during our outing at the Legislature grounds that just begged for some flash to light up the flakes!

The Ice Sculptures From the Legislature Grounds in Edmonton.

Tobogan Ride