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!

Canola Zephers

The canola is in bloom across the prairies and although the fields are wet and and muddy there are some great images to be found.  Here I was working with my shutter speeds to capture the wind blowing through the plants.

This is a composite of two shots and shutter speeds shot using my Canon XTI on a tripod.

The wind motion was shot at a shutter speed of 1/16, aperture of f22 ( both for depth of field and to reduce the shutter speed).  ISO 100, 18mm, ISO 100, and using a  graduated ND filter to darken the sky. 

This image was layered over the same scene shot with a shutter speed of 1/100 , f5.6, 18mm, ISO100 focused on the plants right in front of me.  I made this my base layer.  I then added the wind motion exposure on top and masked  off the area to the far left and a little on the right edge to allow the detail of the canola stems and flowers to be a fixed base against the blur created by the wind and slow shutter speed.

Shooting In The Rain

With all of the rain we have had lately, ( sorry but I think I brought it back from Winnipeg), I dug into by camera bag of tricks and pulled out my rain sleeves.  This was shot out at Cooking Lake, Canon XSI. ISO 800, Canon EF 75-300 lens tripod mounted.  The sleeve slips over the camera and lense and has a small opening where I clip the eye piece over the viewfinder.  There is an opening at the bottom so I can get my hand inside to handle the camera controls.  Everything stayed dry.

You may be able to see the rain drops on the lake.  I loved how the flat overcast and the rain allowed a clean canvas behind these two birds.

2 of my photos place in Waterton Wildflower Photo Contest

I recently found out that 2 of my images from Waterton  placed in the 2009/2010 photo contest from the Waterton Wildflower Festival.

False Hellebore - 2nd Place B&W

 I took this False Hellebore photograph after taking the "Flowers In Black And White" workshop with professional photographer Paul GIlbert.  This was one of three workshops I took during the 2009 Wildflower Festival.

Previously. when I thought about flowers, I traditionally thought colour.  Once we started to work in B&W, I had to put more empasis on lines,  shape, texture, pattern and contrast to create my images.  


The False Hellebore leaves have such great lines and curves for the eye and I created many images that only focused on them.  I liked this image because I was able to find three separate elements in terms of lines,patterns and sizes.


This was photographed using a Canon XTI and a 75-300 lens zoomed into the bank to isolate these elements form the rest of the growth.

Spotted Saxifrage- HM Close-up

 The Spotted Saxifrage is actually a very small flower - probably less 3/4 of a centimeter across.  

I seem to recall this particular one being a challenge to photogragh.  I had two close up filters screwed on to the end of my Canon 18-55 lens.  I had the feet my very basic tripod wedged under one foot and propped diagonally over my camera bag to allow me to 'boom' into the flowers while I reached across several other plants to get in close (within 2 inches).  As you can see, the closeup filters also create a fairly shallow depth of field .   

I have since added a set of extension tubes for my lenses and  Manfrotto xprob tripod that allows the legs to articulate independent of each other and the column can be boomed horizontally to provide a stable plaform for these kinds of shots.  Much nicer than the 'mad photographer yoga pose' that I used when I tried to make do with the simple joined leg tripod I had.




Here is the link to all of the winning images:
http://watertonwildflowers.com/gallery.php?g=5