Symbiotica — A collaborative exhibition of poetry and visual art.
Thursday from 6:00pm – 8:00pm at the Daffodil Gallery
Philip Jagger and I will have a piece on display that we collaborated on over the last month or so. There are a bunch of other collaborations there as well — should be fascinating! Hope to see you there!
And, completely unrelated to Symbiotica, here’s a shot from Vancouver Island last fall.
300mm, f8, 1/250 of a second
A burnt log in a mountain forest. Taken in Banff National Park.
100mm, f5.6, 1/1600 of a second
A photo from a long time ago that I completely overlooked. Today it looked sooo good to me — in winter the grass is always greener on the other side. I’ll have to get out to the mountains and remind myself that I really do like winter…
24mm, f5.6, 1/15 of a second
Sometimes the light hits an un-extraordinary subject in just the right way and creates an extraordinary scene. My favorite part of this photo, though, is going to depend on your monitor being a reasonable brightness. In a print this is something you can easily control but online it gets harder — I love the dark fall tones and subtle evening light in the background.
Taken in Elk Island National Park, 150mm, f2.8, 1/800 of a second.
I’m not doing many shows this summer – in fact only one. I’ve had to narrow them down, but the one I’ve managed to keep is Folk Fest, which I’m super excited about! It’s always a great time, with lots of amazing music and friendly people. And I’ve got lots of new stuff this year. So if you’re one of the lucky ones who managed to get tickets, I’ll see you there!
17mm, f5.6, 1/200 of a second
Taken in Bellis Natural Area
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.
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.)
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.
Taken in rainforest of British Columbia. Until we see green outside again, we’ll have to either enjoy photos and memories or the greyscale palette that nature gives us for a few months every year.
