Remnants

I suppose I could have called this part of my tree series, bit there are no branches - small technicality. Laura Lee and I were out for a walk and caught the last few remains of fall colour here in Red Deer. Only a block from home along the sidewalk and what a find!
[Panasonic LX2]

Wind on the Water

One of the challenges I give myself is trying to explain the action of wind with a photograph. It's not very often that I feel I have been able to capture the right effect. Here is an example of a chinook wind blowing over the Bow River in Calgary. This one I feel works nicely. I did need to play with a few different lengths of exposure and wait for a fairly strong gust of wind to catch just the right amount of movement.
[Panasonic LX2]

Late evening

I went out for a short walk with my son Thomas last night close to dusk. It was perfectly still and without the slightest breeze which allowed for fairly long exposures. This area along Piper Creek here in Red Deer is one of my favourite areas to go exploring if I don't want to go far from home.
[Olympus E-1, 50-200mm]

Waskasoo Creek

Alright, two more then! I forgot I had this image ready for the web as well. I made this image a couple of weeks ago before we left for B.C. on our vacation as I wanted to familiarize myself with the little Fuji F50 camera before leaving. The image was made along Waskasoo Creek here in Red Deer.
[Fuji Finepix F50]

Mount Robson

OK, just one more for tonight. I'll have to start digging through the files again as all the new images are posted tonight - oh well.

What a magnificent mountain is Mount Robson! I don't remember actually seeing the top of this mountain before as usually, at least when I've been travelling there, it's covered in clouds. We just had to stop and document it. A little bit postcardy maybe!
[Fuji Finepis F50]

Fun, Fun, Fun

If photography was just to document things, although likely important, I would have to think twice if it was really worth pursuing. Start playing around and count me in! I made this image in Penticton last week and then played a bit in photoshop. this is definitely not a document of said building.
[Fuji Finepix F50]

Forest Fire

Thanksgiving is when my family goes on our annual trip out to Kelowna, B.C. to visit my parents and usually end up driving through the Kicking Horse Pass and Rogers Pass to get there. This year however, due to some other commitments in Edmonton, we ended up going through Jasper and Kamloops along the Yellowhead Highway instead.


Just a bit north of Kamloops lies the small town of Barrier where a devastating fire rolled through in 2003, nearly destroying the town . It took out huge areas of forests as well of which these images show.
[Fuji Finepix F50]

Autumn Too

The day before the big wind and we still had a fair bit of colour as you can see. One day later it and it looks like the end of November. I caught the sun just breaking through the tops of the trees as it lit up the yellows in the background. I literally had time for two images and it was all changed. My plan was to explore this scene for a bit with the digital and see if I could find a composition worth setting the whole rig up for. I searched alright for two quick snaps and that was it. I'm still quite pleased with this image as it feels really complex and yet has some order to it - just the way I see. Remember you can click on the image to enlarge it - there is quite a bit of nice detail and colour contrasts that show up when this image is enlarged. I especially love the way the bottom of the foreground tree trunks, being in the shade, are reflecting the pure blue sky from above, while the tops are warm from the rising sun.
[Fuji Finepix F50]

Autumn

Well wouldn't you know it, autumn has arrived in full fury. What was with the snow this morning!! Granted the colours are spectacular now and honestly autumn is my favourite season. The smells, colours, and change are about the most dramatic of them all. I especially like to capture the change of seasons - not quite autumn, not really summer anymore either. You know, a little green is still around, it's raining(mostly, except for last night!), not snowing yet, but definitely a chill about. Makes for a rather cool ride to work on my bike, and what better way to observe the seasons than to ride the trails in Red Deer 5km to work from April to November(if that snow stays away - how can you tell I think winter should wait a while?).

This image was made in a light rain at the Chikakoo Lakes Recreation Area just north and west a bit from Spruce Grove, Alberta. When this image is enlarged, thousands of tiny raindrops can be seen hanging from all the branches and leaves.
[Anba Ikeda 4x5, Fujinon 300mm C, Fuji Velvia 100F]

Abstracts in Geen and Blue

A bit of a departure from the regular for me, but what a riot!
[Panasonic LX2]

Abstract Diptych

I found some interesting shapes and lines while on one of my lunch break walks during the summer. Presented this way they make a nice diptych.
[Panasonic LX2]

Frank O. Gehry - EMP

It has been awhile since I last entered anything here and being that I was just in Seattle lately, I thought it might be appropriate to include some images from there. These images are of the EMP (Experience Music Project) designed by architect Frank O. Gehry. He is from Toronto originally but now resides in Los Angeles. He uses warped forms that are so original it is hard to keep your eyes from them. Check out the link I've provided as there is an abundance of information about the man and his world famous designs.
[Panasonic LX2]

Athabasca Falls

My wife and I travelled to Jasper some years ago in January for a weekend of cross-country skiing and sightseeing, including a stop at Athabasca Falls. This image was made in pouring rain which was a bit difficult, but the effort seemed worth it. I have seen these falls many times(OK a few times) previously, but hadn't seen them with the natural ice bridge. The colour of the water added a beautiful contrast to the ice.
[Pentax 6x7, 105mm, Fuji RDP]

Big Hill Springs Provincial Park

Big Hill Springs Provincial Park is a short drive, to the northeast, from Cochrane, Alberta. The park is located between parkland and foothills natural regions; the main attraction is a series of small waterfalls that flow year-round over rocky terraces covered with a lush growth of shrubs and grasses; the park is also the site of an historic fish hatchery and Alberta's first commercial creamery. There are many hiking trails leading through this small park making for some great site seeing opportunities. Because of a constant breeze and the need for quite a long exposure it took great patience and the better part of a complete roll of film to get one image where the grass is still.
[Mamiya 7II, 50mm, Fuji Provia]

This second image was made a different visit the fall previous from 5 individual images and stitched together creating a panorama which encompasses close to 180 degrees vertically. My feet are just outside the image at the bottom and you are looking nearly straight up at the top. This was the first digital camera back I owned, in 1999, with a whopping 1.3 MP sensor!
[Canon A50]

Trees 6

Staying with the theme of trees - again, I have this image I made back in January in Calgary along the Bow River. Carburn Park is a wonderful place for a hike any time of year and lucky for me, it's close to my brother's place, so virtually every time we're there for a visit, time is taken for a stroll in the park. Our family had been together for New Year's celebrations this past year in Calgary and my brother-in-law Dave and myself went for a walk and discovered this gorgeous cottonwood growing only a few metres from the river. All I had with me was a little digital point and shoot which actually did a pretty decent job. We did go back down and I hauled the 8x10 camera down and set up a shot, but unfortunately it's still a bit new to me and I didn't allow a small enough aperture to cover the depth of field required for the image. next time I'm down there you can bet I'll be re-shooting this image on a rather large piece of film! I made the image in colour and converted it in Photoshop to a B&W. The quite like the colour image but feel the forms presented work better in B&W.

This second image is another one from the same day which is very representative of Carburn Park and lets you know what you can expect to see there, in winter at least.
[Panasonic LX-2]

Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park

One of my longtime dreams was to photograph using an 8x10 camera with transparencies. I purchased a Wehman 8x10 camera and some boxes of Fuji Velvia 50 film. Using a camera this large requires a concerted effort and takes far longer to set-up than any camera I've ever used. This can be good and bad. Good, because it forces me to slow down and really examine the scene in front of me , and it's worthiness of making an image. Many times I have gone through the ritual of setting the camera up and making all the adjustments necessary, only to discover that the scene doesn't cut it for me, or the light has disappeared. With a digital, 35mm, or medium format, I would likely make the image anyway, but when looking at the expense involved with 8x10 transparencies and development costs, I sometimes think that pressing the cable release isn't worth it. The size of the camera can be bad too, as transient light doesn't wait for me to get set-up, and I miss the image only because I am still fiddling with the camera. Practice is helping me speed my times and I'm sure I will become more proficient with more experience.
[Wehman 8x10, Schneider 240mm G-Claron, Fuji Velvia]

Looking at an 8x10 transparency on my light table is amazing, and the level of detail stunning. The image presented here is a 4x10 crop from an 8x10 and the smaller detail below is what a print would like at 60". This small detail is taken from the mid left side of the image. Remember, you can click on any photo on this blog to make it larger.

Abstract

Abstract paintings have always grabbed my attention, and I am gradually starting to see this way myself. It is my aim with this type of image to alienate the viewer a bit, almost making them uncomfortable, because they can't identify immediately what it is they are looking at. Many abstracts grab our eyes simply due to interesting patterns and colours and it doesn't have to be anything, or it can mean anything we want it to.

Dogrib Creek Burn was a massive forest fire back in 2003 along the Forestry Trunk Road west of Sundre, Alberta. Gerard(good friend) and myself were out exploring as many small forestry roads as we could without getting stuck and after travelling maybe 10km along one particular road happened on a dead-end. We got out and hiked up to the nearest ridge to explore a bit and here was this amazing pattern created from a devastating fire. I zoomed in to eliminate all the surroundings that helped make this an easy interpretation.
[Canon 10D, 100-400mm]

Leach Lake

Leach Lake along highway 93A in Jasper National Park is so small it doesn't show up on any but the largest scale maps, but what a gem! A perfectly calm evening with loons calling and a beautiful sunset, you think you are in a dream. Whirlpool Mountain is reflected perfectly and thankfully a few clouds joined in. A perfectly blue sky would make for a rather bland sky. This image is made from three images which were stitched together in Photoshop(Thank-you Dan)
[Hasselblad 501C/M, 50mm, Fuji Provia 100F]

Cool temperatures

I thought I would dig up an image of cooler days. I am writing this about 9:00 pm and the humidex(the opposite of wind chill) is around 36 C. The image presented was made on a day trip with my friend Gerard along the forestry trunk road(734) near Seven Mile Flats after traversing Corkscrew Mountain. It was quite a trip and one we both fully expected to be digging snow after getting stuck, but Gerard managed to keep the vehicle on the two hard packed tire tracks and thankfully no one came along driving in the opposite direction. The image was originally made in colour and converted to a B&W.
[Pentax 67II, 55mm, Fuji Provia]

Snow Dome

Located on the continental divide on the Columbia Icefield between Dome Glacier(centre) and Athabasca Glacier(off left side of image). The mountain's summit is entirely covered by the Columbia Icefield. The glacier is about 30 m thick.

Norman Collie named the mountain "The Dome" in 1898. In 1919 the name was modified to "Snow Dome."

The day after climbing Mount Athabasca, Norman Collie and his party ascended the right side of the Athabasca Glacier and bivouacked for the night. Setting off at 1:30 the next morning they headed for the chisel shaped, glacier draped mountain (Mount Columbia) they had seen towering above the opposite side of the icefield. At noon, when they seemed no closer to their goal, they turned back, more aware now of the size of the icefield they had discovered.

Collie and Hugh Stutfield later wrote, "To the eastward of where we stood, and almost on our way home, rose a great white dome, and we determined to ascend it. After a hot and very tiring climb through snow that broke under our feet at every step, we finally reached the summit at 3:15. We have named this peak The Dome."

The broad, smooth summit of what is now called the Snow Dome is the hydrographic apex of North America. This means that water from this point flows to three oceans; through the Saskatchewan and Nelson Rivers to the Atlantic, through the Columbia to the Pacific, and through the Athabasca, and eventually the Mackenzie to the Arctic.
[Olympus E410, 14-42mm]