Thunderstorm Warning

Red Deer had a fairly decent light show last night. Unfortunately, because it was a cluster of storms and not just a single cell, which makes it virtually impossible to predict any pattern to where the lightning could come from, I didn't feel safe getting out of my vehicle to set up my tripod. It was also raining and seeing how my camera doesn't like rain very much I felt it best that it stayed in the vehicle with me. So I made hand held images. I didn't worry about blurring anything as it was dark out and the flash of lightning is so fast it freezes my motion just like an on camera flash would. This was one of the better images I got from just east of Red Deer.
[Canon 5D, 50mm]

Flooding

What a spring for flooding! This image goes back a few years when British Columbia was experiencing very high rainfalls. I can't remember the year just now, but it was probably about a fifteen years ago or so. This normally tiny creek just south of Wells Gray Provincial Park near Vavenby, was roaring after a week of heavy rain. This small creek entered the North Thompson River just behind me as I made this image. I recall the river being extremely high and Laura and I could here huge boulders, being pushed along in the turbulence, slamming into a massive rock in the middle of the river.
[Zone VI 4x5, 210mm Schneider Repro-Claron, Tri-X]

Verdant Valley

I grew up looking at this scene at Verdant Valley, about 10 miles ENE of Drumheller, Alberta. While watching the clouds shadows moving across the grain fields, I noticed the nice overlapping shapes of shaded and sunlit areas. The Wintering Hills are in the background.
[Canon 10D, 28-135mm]

Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park

I know it's been a long time since I posted. I apologize for that. My computer is sorrowfully done it's duty and packed it in. I cannot work on images for the time being, so I have pulled a scan out of the archives. I made this image two years ago near the Tolman Bridge along the Red Deer river.
[Anba Ikeda 4x5, Fujinon 125mm, Velvia 100F]

Lacombe County

Spring seeding in Lacombe County is now complete and the rain has started in earnest. Soon the small seedlings will spout in the always beautiful spring green! Can't you just smell the freshly turned soil? That is an all time favourite smell of mine. I recall living at Verdant Valley and just loved when each spring a local farmer would come to the country school yard and work the soil all along the windbreak. Then my brother Brad and I would get down to business building roads and bridges with our Tonka trucks and graders. What a blast! I think I could still play among the trees there so long as no one was watching a 43 year old playing with toy trucks.
[Canon 5D, Sigma 80-400mm OS)


"He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful."
Isaiah 30:23 (TNIV)

Lethbridge

I had the opportunity to spend almost the whole of last week working in Lethbridge. In the evenings I went for walks along the Oldman River along nature trails with my sister Marlene and brother-in-law Dave. They were likely just entertaining me each night, but the walks were great. Actually I think they enjoyed the walks just as much as me! Of course I dragged a bit of gear with me just in case - you know - maybe there would be something of interest for me to photograph, possibly even some trees! The Helen Schuler Coulee Centre is at the start of some wonderful trails though the floodplain of the Oldman River. This is a superb example of a riparian zone with some rather large cottonwood trees along the trails along with many birds and mammals like the porcupine and deer. We even saw a raccoon a few years ago along the trails here. The first image was made within a stone's throw from the nature centre where there is some very tall grass and some shrubs for the deer to almost disappear into. The next two images are very representative of what you will see along the trails in the park, the last one made well after the sun had set over the coulee rim to the west.
[Canon 5D, 70-200mm f/2.8L]

"Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
let all the trees of the forest sing for joy"
Psalms 96:12 (TNIV)

Badlands and sysconfig

My apologies for the delay updating my blog!! Our computer crashed last week beyond the "Blue screen of death". this one was black and said something about sysconfig and corrupt etc. etc. Not exactly my language of preference! Anyway, I think I've managed to retrieve all but my e-mail archives, but we have a good friend in Ken Higgins who is looking after us and is confident in a full recovery. Yeah!!

The images above may look completely crazy for colour and contrast as I worked on them with our laptop. It's what I have, so it's what I'll use. If these are really bad, I'll rework them and post them again as an example of proper colour calibration on ones computer.

All that said - these images were made last July in Dinosaur Provincial Park near Brooks, Alberta. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which puts it on par with sites like the Taj Mahal, Petra or Kakadu National Park in Australia! It is a fabulous place for a visit! Getting up a 5am was necessary to capture the sunrise and was worth every second of sleep that was lost. Being 36C during the day, all that we did during the heat of the day was relax anyway. I am looking forward to one or two visits again this year again.
[Olympus E410, 14-42mm)

HDV Stills - Piper Creek Evening

Took out the little HD video camera again the other night close to home along Piper Creek. This is definitely not the camera for me as it is just too hard to navigate the menus to get what I need for the image. I think the Canon XH-A1 will be much better in this regard as it has a great many more buttons on the camera and so requires far less menu cruising and more time shooting. More time shooting is definitely the direction that appeals to me.
[Canon HG10]

Sunset HD Video Stills

Last weekend we were up at my in-laws place just north of Spruce Grove, Alberta. I decided to take along a small HD Camcorder to put together a few images that I might have shot as still images to see if they might make a nice film clip. I pulled a few images as stills from the video that show the story of the sunset on Saturday evening over a period of half an hour. Of course I know virtually nothing about video editing and will try my hand at it once I figure out how to make it work and post a clip hopefully with some music to go with it in the future.
[Canon HG10]

Lightning

As one of my all-time favourite things to photograph, lightning can get me pretty excited at anytime. So here is my first lightning image of the year!! A little tongue-in-cheek maybe, but this image brings back memories of my Uncle Alfred's trailer from a long time ago. Besant, Saskatchewan comes to mind as does Buffalo Lake not far from Red Deer.
[Canon 5D, 24-105mmL]

Church Architecture

A second image of the same church I blogged about back in February. A crescent moon was doing it's best to peek through the thin clouds.
[Canon 5D, 24-105mmL]

Construction

We are getting a seven story high(low?) rise in Red Deer and a crane has been installed to facilitate the construction. I was out shooting it the other day for some stock imagery and came away the the standard shots of cranes and these two which are a bit more on the interpretive side.
[Canon 5D, 70-200mm f2.8L & Sigma 80-400mm]

Big Hill Springs Provincial Park

A couple of images made in Big Hill Springs Provincial Park near Cochrane, Alberta. It is quite a small park and yet it yields some great images to to a nice variety of scenery. Of course in winter you virtually have the place to yourself except maybe a few deer and the birds. The small creek is spring fed and runs year round. A previous post from last August has a bit more info about the park and a couple more images.
[Fuji GX617, 90mm lens, Fuji Velvia 50]

Eclipse

Tonight was a near perfect night to watch the lunar eclipse. Nice clear skies and only -2C. Our next chance to view a total lunar eclipse won't be until December 2010. If you click on the image you can see a few more stars which just get interpolated out at low -res.
[Canon 5D, Sigma 80-400mm}

Tulips

Yesterday at work we got to enjoy a wonderful bouquet of tulips brought in by Cheryl. I could see them from my office all day way across towards the back. Before the day was out I needed to make a photograph of them!
[Canon 5D, 180mm Macro]

Architecture

I made this image tonight as I waited for my boys to finish their music practice. The days are finally starting to get slightly longer and around 6-7pm there is still quite a bit of light in the sky. The image is quite unique as the colour of the sky has taken on a mix of the deep blue after sunset and the red/orange of the street lights creating a nice mauve tinge. The structure itself, which really is white, is being lit with street lights and shows as a great complimentary colour to the sky. There was a small window of opportunity of maybe 5 minutes where the two colours mixed just right to give it this nice shade. Any sooner and the structure was still lit by brighter daytime light and was white and the sky a pale blue. Any later and the sky went a terrible red/orange as though I was photographing a firestorm.
[Canon 5D, 24-105mmL]

New York City

A quiet corner near the entrance to the New York Public Library and a detail of the Manhattan Bridge. Colours, lines, and format all play a part in making us feel that some things belong together.
[Nikon D2X, 12-24mm & 18-200mm]

Adams River

Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park, British Columbia. The Adams River famous for the largest Sockeye Salmon run on the west coast. Many salmon can be seen in the image immediately above. Click on the image to make it larger.
[Panasonic LX2]

Minimalist

An very minimalist image I made yesterday that really shows what the midday sun in winter can look like - BRIGHT!

Brick Wall
Snow
Tree Shadow
Light

[Canon 5D, 24-105mmL]

Tourist

Being a tourist trying to take-in and absorb as much about the place we are visiting can be difficult to accomplish fully. Sometimes it comes together in a collage of things all at once, on one level, all together. Lately I have been listening to the Quiet American (Aaron Ximm)and his superb recordings of sounds made into collages(my words - not his). I can identify with them easily, even though I have not visited in person any of the places he has recorded, and yet I feel I am there while listening.

Hard to explain, but every now and again, usually involving a window with it's transparency and reflections, an image comes to me that explains my visit somewhere. This particular image was made on a visit to Manhattan, specifically the financial district of downtown Manhattan. The more I think about this image and my memories of the trip, the Quiet American's way of using sounds helps me remember many of the sounds from my trip enriching my memories that much more.
[Fuji F10]