Winter Feast

From a winter hike along the Trans-Canada trail in Fort Smith NWT...
an overcast day that carried into the night and obscured any chance 
of catching the northern lights. 

Red Polls(?) picking seeds.

Wait and they will come.

 

 

Highway 16 east of Japer has  two areas where the sheep come down to drink - or to lick the salt from the roadway and vehicles that stop to check them out.  I photographed this ram at the end of October using my Sigma 80-400 OS lense from my vehicle.  We waited on a roadside pullout and just let them wander up and down the shoulder until the light was right and we got the poses we wanted.  Patience paid off today before the rain came.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  copyright Fred Rushworth 2010

Fort Edmonton Christmas Lights Outing

Fort Edmonton runs a Christmas Lights tour in mid December.  The stores and buildings in the 1912 block are lit and have Christmas displays.  A young visitor stops to enjoy this teddy bear emporium. 

Year End Hike

Another year has come to a close seemingly all to soon. We celebrated today
with a hike at Elk Island National Park and a lunch of cheese, crackers and
smoked sausage cooked over the fire in one of the trail head warming huts

Here's wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all the best for 2012.   

Eye Shadow

What is a convalescing photographer to do, housebound,  on a sunny winter day?   Well, how about playing with shadows? 

This image was created while working with a needle and thread and looking to an "eye" themed shot.   After multiple closeups of the eye of the needle that just lacked interesting angles and light, I came up with this image. Bright winter sun streaming through the patio window created a strong shadow of the needle and thread on a plain white piece of paper.  I viewed the shapes from multiple angles until I found this one that really accentuated the eye and that I felt was visually interesting. A little playing with the path of the thread to create 'S' shapes against the linear needle resulted in this shot which I titled Eye Shadow.

Playing With Fire

A recent club competition was on the theme "Playing With Fire".  It reminded me of this firey sunrise over a small farm pond last fall.  The morning was just cool enough to create a light fog in the low laying valley.  The whole area came alive just as the sun crawled over the horizon.

A day with the horses

WILD ROSE EQUINE RESCUE AND SANCTUARY

 A morning spent with the horses just at sunrise a couple of weeks ago was a reminder that we wouldn't hold off winter for much longer.  A week of freezing temperatures at night has set the horse troughs and the little pond at the back of the field. 

The biggest challenge of photographing these guys was to keeping my distance.  I was almost always greeted and nuzzled for attention.

Night Watch

A 30 second exposure of the night sky from The Crossing Resort at  the border of Grasslands National Park.

Nothing fancy for equipment. A simple radio remote to trigger the shutter of my Canon XSI (although the self timer would have worked to but I didn't want to run in the dark) ,a 18-55mm lens at f3.5, shutter at 30 seconds, iso 1600 - and of course a tripod mounted low to the ground to give more presence to the sky. That isn't smoke about the cookhouse, that is the Milky Way! 

  A quick dash over to the light switch then standing in the door for 10 seconds before dashing back to kill the light created more blur in my profile that I intended.  Lesson learned.  Next time I will have an assistant or use a remote triggered flash to light in interior.

Set The Sky Free

Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan is a dark sky preserve.  It's relatively remote location far from large cities and the conservative use of night lighting from surrounding neighbors create fantastic clear night skys.  We traveled there at the end of August with misgivings as we watched the sky for any sign of the last two days of rain giving way.  Incredibly, just before sunset, the clouds cleared and gave us an incredible clear sky.  The new moon set just after sunset and we were left to enjoy the show.

We camped on the northern border of Grasslands at The Crossing Resort which is where I found this corral fence line to give a foreground to the wonder of the sky.

Night Falls In Camrose

After an evening photographing at the Canadian Balloon Championships in Camrose last Friday, I stopped at Mirror Lake, one of my favourite spots in Camrose, for this long exposure shot. 

Image was exposed for 20 sec at f16, ISO 800, 18-55 lense at 18mm.  The long exposure smoothed waves on the water and the larger  aperture created the star blister from the street lights.  A September evening and the temperature was still almost 20 - perfect end to the day!