Posts Tagged: photography

Business / Mountain / Photo of the Day / Winter — No Comments
16
Jan 12

After a Long and Barren Break

I’m finally back! With pictures! Happy New Year!

December was (as always) too busy, with far too little time for hiking and shooting. Thankfully I’m starting to recover, and last week I was able to go out to Jasper for a couple days, camp in the freezing weather, and completely enjoy it.

I also have some pendants back in stock after almost completely selling out at Christmas. I have many plans of updating websites and galleries, of taking lots of photos, of enabling online stores, and far too many more ideas to list here or ever complete. But I’ll work on stuff, and try to keep everyone updated.

Here’s a photo of a dry and dusty Jasper Lake from last week just after sunrise. I was getting blasted with a super cold wind, and even bundled up I had to run back to the shelter of the van after a few minutes.

jasper-lake-dry-lake-bed
Canon 5d with 17-40 lens.
Taken at 24mm, f8, 1/200 of a second

I’m planning to start adding these technical details below my photos. I know people are interested, and I’ve resisted for a long time because I believe they’re not really important. I think people place way too much emphasis on what the right settings are and way too little on getting a good composition. But to do photography well, you do have to at least know what all the settings do, and which are important in any particular instance. So for those learning, I hope this extra information helps, but know that the photo is the important part — the settings just help you get there. For example, I took this photo at f8. Would f5.6 have worked? Pretty well. Would f11 have worked. Yup, even a little better than f8. Did it ruin the photo that the aperture wasn’t as high as ideal to get everything perfectly in focus? Not at all, this will print beautifully at 20×30, and I’m really happy with it. Photography is about creating a feeling, not about an aperture. It would have mattered far more if I had angled my camera up or down a degree or two, or if I’d taken the photo from a foot lower or higher — those things could have easily turned it into something I wouldn’t look at twice.

At this point I think I’m rambling, and I’m impressed if anyone actually read this far. Cheers.

Business / Composition / Macro / Photo of the Day / Plants — No Comments
20
Oct 11

Definitions and Desires

I get to meet a lot of photographers. I know photographers who shoot weddings for $400, and I know photographers who shoot weddings for $4000. I know people who only shoot one kind of event or subject, and I know people who will shoot anything. There are a lot of people out there clamoring for any shoot they can get.

I often describe myself as a photographer. I don’t make my entire income from photography, but it is a significant portion. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and there’s a lot of hard work ahead of me. It might seem strange that this month I’ve been turning down paid shoots.

Shoots are bragging rights. Shoots are proof that you really are a photographer. If you have a client, you are a professional. There are a lot of people who want to be a Photographer with a capital P. Photographers, by definition, take photographs for a living. This is so general that it hardly describes any successful photographer I know, but some people seem to want to do anything that involves clicking that shutter. More often, photographers like interacting with people and making them feel good about themselves. Some photographers want to help people remember important events. Some photographers want to travel and share their discoveries with others. Some photographers want to be well known as artists, and photography is their way in. There might be some photographers who just love turning those dials and pressing that button, but that’s not me, and it’s probably not you.

It’s a lot of work figuring out what you love. It takes a lot of experimenting, and a lot of going down the wrong path. Once you find what you love, it takes a lot of work to articulate it. Once you’ve done that, it takes a lot of work and courage to pursue it. I’ve tried a lot of things over the years and a few things have become clear. I love being outdoors. I love playing one color off another, finding a line that curves just the right amount, that leads into the just the right amount of confusion. Creating beauty and adding to the beauty in the world, these are things I care about. (my constantly changing definition of beauty could be another blog post entirely, and I suppose it’s hinted at in every photo I post) I want to find natural scenes that abstractly resonate with our human condition. These goals change over time as I discover more about myself and the world, but they don’t change dramatically. And by knowing these few things, I can continue to enjoy life and photography. And I don’t go chasing after every shoot – I leave them to people who want to make a living doing what they love.

green-willow-leaves

A willow leaf, still green in October, when only the last few yellow poplar leaves are left.

Photo of the Day / Prairie / Travel — No Comments
4
Sep 11

Trip Turbulence

Thunderstorm in southern Saskatchewan. This is one reason I love the prairies.
thunder-storm-mammatus-saskatchewan_1

Anna and I just got back from Manitoba where we were visiting family. Family trips are not exactly conducive to photography, especially when they are rushed, but I managed to take a few photos. I’m almost looking forward to winter, when everything can slow down a bit, and I get a chance to go through my photos.

Mountain — 1 Comment
21
Aug 11

Floating On a Bank of Clouds

I suspect every kid dreams of being able to ride on clouds. Photography just lets me dream a little more vividly.

ridge-on-a-bank-of-clouds
Composition / Forest / Photo of the Day / Wildlife — 3 Comments
12
Aug 11

Wildlife and Wedding Photography

backlit-grazing-elk-in-jasper_0

When you see an elk, what do you do? You stop and take a photo of course. And if the elk stays there, you get closer. After all, wasn’t it Robert Capa who said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”?

But for some reason your brain starts to throw up little red flags. Wait a minute, you also want context — the animal acting in its habitat. And maybe you don’t want a photo of an elk eyeball, maybe you want the whole elk. And anyway, isn’t it bad for animals to get accustomed to people? And dangerous for the people?

And then, for some strange reason, you start to think of photographing weddings, of posing and of lighting. Direct evening light is pretty good — it’s warm and lends definition to shapes, but what if you backlight this? That would wash it out and give it a dream-like quality. But animals are not as cooperative as people who hire you to take their photos. You have to do the moving, and there’s no adding light. You know that flash would bother this elk and disrupt his feeding, possibly making him aggressive.

So you do the moving, far enough away that the animal is not disturbed. You wait for the animal to move into a position that works, you get the sun at just the right angle, and you get a photo. You don’t know if it’s a good photo or a great photo, but you’re pretty sure it’s not a bad photo. And that is satisfying.

Business / Galleries and Shows / Wildlife — No Comments
9
Aug 11

Folk Fest Recap

First of all, I want to say how awesome folk fest was because of all of you — customers, fans, friends, family, and some amazing musicians who entertained me on my lunch breaks. This was by far my best sale ever.

Thanks to Leah for being there to cheerfully cover breaks for me and Anna, thanks to Liz and Nicole for being around and ready to lend a hand. Thanks to Aran for being a great new patron. Thanks to C. from Manitoba who was super excited about photography, and good luck with the underwater photography.

I enjoyed talking with so many of you, and it was interesting to see the sets of photos that people picked out. I might do a blog post yet showing some of these sets.

canada-goose-in-flight
Since I can’t resist posting a photo, here’s a Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) taken during my Wildlife Biodiversity and Ecology course field trip in Whitemud Park.

Composition / Editing / Flowers / Photo of the Day / Plants — No Comments
11
Jul 11

Dogbane Explorations

Below are a series of photos exploring a field of Spreading Dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium). These are all taken from the same place, at the same time of day. As I’m taking photos, I often move from the literal – capturing a scene as one would usually see it (hopefully with a pleasing composition) and move towards the abstract. Often what I’m after is the abstract photo, but sometimes the original, more traditional landscape is the one that wins out when I’m evaluating them afterwards. It often takes me months to discover if I’m happy with a photo or not. And blogging them is part of this process. I blog photos that I initially think are pretty good, and the ones I’m still happy with in a couple months will likely go in my portfolio.

Dogbane after a Forest Fire
Dogbane and Grass
Dogbane Against a Sunset
Abstracted Dogbane

Galleries and Shows — No Comments
15
Jun 11

Thursday. Show Opening. Come.

You are invited to the opening of 3, where I will be one of three featured artists, along with David Shkolny and Marjorie Thomson! I’d love to see any and all of you there! Featuring landscapes in photography, pastel, and watercolour.

6pm to 8pm
Thursday, June 16th
The Daffodil Gallery
10412 – 124 Street
Details on Facebook

If you can’t make it Thursday, I will also be there on Saturday June 18 between 12 and 4pm.

Daffodil Show Invitation
Galleries and Shows / Landscape / Photo of the Day / Travel — No Comments
12
Jun 11

Photos at Elm Cafe (and other news)

If you go to the Elm Cafe (on 117 Street just north of Jasper Ave) in the next couple weeks, you’ll be able to enjoy a few of my photos! And you’ll get to enjoy their awesome coffee!

And, as always, you can see my art at The Daffodil Gallery (on 124 Street at 104 Ave).

After a great camping trip in the mountains, I’m back with lots of photos to share. Turns out that with the heavy snowfall this year, we were a couple weeks too early to do a bunch of the hikes we wanted to, but it was a great trip anyway. Apparently I’m starting to become a bit of a birder, but I’m not quite sure how that mixes with my photography yet. I really enjoy being aware of what’s going on around me and knowing what all the sounds are — it makes me feel just a little more connected and less like an outsider when I’m “alone” in the woods. Maybe one of these days, if people are interested, I’ll post some of my bird photos that I took mostly for identification (being a photographer and not a real birder, I have a fairly long lens, but no binoculars). But for now I’ll be posting photos I’m happy with for their aesthetic qualities.

River Winding From Sofa Mountain
Taken near Sofa Mountain, in Waterton National Park.

Photo of the Day / Water / Wildlife — 2 Comments
29
Apr 11

Beaver Pond

I find wildlife photography difficult — not necessarily the photographing of an animal, but the photographing of an animal artistically. I’ve been watching these beavers (Castor canadensis) doing all sorts of interesting things over the last couple of weeks. I’ve watched them chew through trees, drag them down to the water, talk to each other, slap their tails on the water, and all sorts of beaver behaviour. But photos of these fascinating activities often end up as a standard photo of a beaver. Even in beautiful evening light, a lot of shots seem to be average or only mildly interesting shots.

I’ve been trying to challenge myself to take an artistic wildlife photo. To mix my landscape aesthetic with animal subjects. This is what I’ve come up with so far. This beaver created some beautiful sunset reflections in his pond for me.

Beaver in Reflected Sunset
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