the life of a nature photographer

Spring Going On Summer

birch-and-green-poplar-trunks-in-the-rain

Today was a beautiful day. The rain was steadily dripping from the leaves with an occasional heavier shower when a gust of wind came along. The loons were laughing and calling and the yellow warblers were busy in the branches overhead. I was out hiking with my camera, getting thoroughly soaked, taking lots of photos, searching for the birds whose calls I didn’t recognize. I went out prepared, with a mug of warm coffee for my morning breaks, and neoprene socks on (for the record – they are amazing. I will never hike in the rain without them again). It was the best morning I’ve had in a long time.

This summer I probably won’t have a lot of time — for hiking or blogging or all my other activities. I’m sad about this, but happy about the trade-offs. I’ll be learning lots and hopefully saving up some money. And I’m hoping to be a bit more free come September. So I’ll post updates as I can, but know that I’m learning things that will hopefully make this blog more interesting and give me a wider range of photo opportunities in the future.

Random Updates

On Saturday in the afternoon (between 2 and 4pm for sure, and probably a little longer) I’ll be at Tix on the Square if you’d like to stop by. I’ll try to bring more cufflinks too (just have to package them up)!

The Daffodil now has my first extra large square pendants which have been requested by a lot of people! I just dropped them off yesterday.

Today I’m going to pick up my new Olympus OM-D! I’m super excited about this camera. It looks like it will have really good image quality, and because it’s light and weather-sealed it should allow me get to more places and take more interesting photos. I’ll report back once I get a feel for it, but I think it will be good. Now I just have to save up for a couple more lenses. Speaking of which, anyone interested in a Panasonic 14-140 or a Canon 50 f3.5 macro? I’ve used both of them very little, and they’re in great condition.

The photo above was taken at Beaverhill Lake with a Canon 5d and 300 f4, at f4 and 1/400 of a second.

Wildlife — 6 comments
27
Apr 12

Long-Eared Owl

OK, this is much of an art photo, but I just saw my first long-eared owl (Asio otus)! Here it is in all it’s camouflage-ness. There were actually a pair of them, but this is the only one I got a photo of. I could have stalked them and maybe got more photos, but especially in spring when birds are breeding I prefer to leave them alone to do their thing.

Taken with a Canon 5d, 300mm, f5.6 at 1/160 of a second.

Forest / Galleries and Shows — No comments
26
Apr 12

Art at Fresh Cafe

I’ve now got some photos up for sale at Fresh Cafe & Espresso Bar, a new coffee shop on 116 Street just south of Jasper (10038 – 116 Street). Go check them out and enjoy a coffee and amazing snacks and sandwiches.

You still have almost a week to see “Water”, my exhibit at the Stanley Milner Library. I’m really happy with it, and hope you all get to see it! If you don’t get a chance to go see the prints, you can see a poor substitute here: http://joelkoop.com/pwater.php

Photo taken with a Canon 5d, 150mm macro, at f2.8, 1.6 seconds. (This isn’t one of the photos up at Fresh, but it’s one I wanted to share at some point. You’ll have to go to Fresh to find out for yourself.)

Business / Galleries and Shows — No comments
18
Apr 12

Gallery at Milner on Saturday

I will be at the Stanley Milner Library this Saturday the 21st, from 2:00 to 4:00pm. I’d love to see you all there. Everything there is for sale (both on the walls and in the display cases), but has to stay up until the end of the month. Looking forward to it!

Composition / Design / Photo of the Day / Plants — 3 comments
14
Apr 12

Drawing in Space

In my design studies at university, we had a fascinating sculpture assignment called “Drawing in Space”. We used strips and small blocks of wood to create a sculpture with interesting lines when viewed from any angle. Both the lines and the negative space they defined were equally important. I really enjoyed framing spaces and cutting into volumes of space, and that is something that I don’t get to do quite as much with photography. But when opportunities present themselves, as they did this last week, I get lost in the creating. I’m not sure how long I spent in this particular treasure trove of grass curls. The shallow depth of field I’ve used here really adds to both the ethereal-ness and the depth of the photo, letting you almost feel the space around the grass.

All taken with my 5d, 150mm macro, f6.3, 1/200 – 1/640 of a second.
Taken on the Beaver Pond Trail in Elk Island National Park.

If you’re still reading and interested, I’ll just write a quick note about composition. In the last two photos I’ve done something that is generally disapproved of in standard compositions – there is a strong line running vertically through the frame (even directly in the middle of the frame! the horror). In these cases I think it works as an unusual visual device to emphasize the depth of the photo. If the grass curls did not wrap around the vertical line it would not work.

Forest / Winter — No comments
04
Apr 12

Birch Trees In a Spring Snow Storm

I got the chance to head out to Chickakoo Lake a couple weeks ago during a big spring snow storm. There was very little snow around at the beginning of the day, but by the end it was a few inches thick (I think Environment Canada said 10cm). This made for wonderful photo conditions and horrible driving conditions.

Birch (Paper birch around here — Betula papyrifera) trees always catch my attention. They can be so colorful or almost pure white, but they always have great contrast — light trunks and dark branches. They’re a lot less common than poplars around Edmonton, and often a forest will have a birch tree or two in it, but mainly consists of more common trees. At Chickakoo Lake the situation is almost turned around. There are still a lot of poplars around, but the birch trees outnumber them.

Galleries and Shows — 1 comment
02
Apr 12

Stanley Milner Library Gallery Show

I now have a 14 prints up at the Stanley Milner Library. It’s a solo show and all the photos are in the main foyer between Second Cup and the Library. They will be up for the whole month of April, so I hope you all get a chance to check them out! I just finished hanging them all and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!

More photos will be coming soon, but April is turning out to be really busy for me, so forgive me if the posts here are a little sparse.

Abstract / Composition — No comments
21
Mar 12

Visual Design in Abstract Nature Photography

In some ways this is very similar to my previous post. (You may need to click on the photo to see the entire photo more easily) This photo was taken very close to where the last one was on Abraham Lake. They are both abstract photos of nature using very strong design principles. They both play with positive and negative space, but instead of being very organic, this is very angular. The composition is almost entirely based on the rule of thirds — the dark line in the ice is about 1/3rd of the way down and protrudes about 2/3rds of the way into the photo. The ice in the photo covers about 1/3rd of the area, and the snow covers the other 2/3rds. This visual weighting based on the rule of thirds generally works very well, even if the dark and light areas of a photo are not seperated by a straight line (although here they are clearly seperated by a horizontal line). So, while the rule of thirds is almost over-popularized, it is still effective for creating interesting and new compositions.

Abstract / Composition / Water — No comments
14
Mar 12

Abstract Geometric Nature Photography

Finally starting to make my way through photos from the last few trips. This is from Abraham Lake, which has been extensively photographed by many Alberta landscape photographers. It’s easy to come up with the standard compositions here, but it’s also easy to come up with new stuff. There’s just so much variety in the ice, water and rocks. These are methane bubbles from decomposing organic matter. The bubbles form in the ice as the water freezes layer by layer.

In a shot like this, composition is everything. It has to balance the visual weight of light and dark. The three smaller bubbles on the left have to balance with the two larger bubbles on the right. The negative space and positive space both have to be interesting — here the textures in the ice and bubbles add visual interest. And because it’s nature and you can never control it completely, there will always be random elements to deal with. In this picture, the shadow of something deeper lies near the top of the frame. I like the visual reminder that in photography, art is created between the artist and the subject: you never have complete control.