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The past few days shooting has been a blast. It all started off with a cool HDR shot I did in town on Monday night, followed by a great sunrise shoot the next morning. After shooting the sunrise I went a short way down the Icefields Parkway to a place along the Athabasca River, just passed Athabasca Falls and shot the morning light on Fryatt Mountain. That mountain always looks so great in the winter, the snow sticks to the mountain in such a beautiful way. The next day I made the 2 and 1/2 hour drive to Abraham Lake for a sunrise, but the sun didn't really show up, but I shot a few frames anyhow. At least now I know where to stop for the next time I go there. And finally yesterday was great too!! I woke up to -11 Celsius temps in town and lots of fog, which made for great Frost conditions. Everything in town was covered in frost....and I mean everything. I lucked out around lunch hour when the sky cleared and there was blue sky all over. Frosted trees against a blue sky with cool clouds... yeah, it's as great as it sounds! Anyhow, hopefully I can keep this motivational streak going and keep pushing on with the 365 project. I've only posted a little poster from yesterday's shots here, but look back for more later today or tomorrow to see results from the previous days.
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8
This is just a quickie here to keep in touch. I've been keeping up on my 365 Days project, so that's good. I got outside this week which was great, got a little bit of a winter sunset on the Athabasca River, which is what I've posted here. No HDR in this photo, just a single raw image touched up in the digital darkroom, and processed with a few Nik Filters to make it look really contrasty. I've been playing with my speedlite and my softbox a bunch lately too, so I'll post a few of those outtakes in the next day or so. I'll have more free time in the next couple days, but just wanted to get a quick photo up for today!!
Photo: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8
I was driving out to Jasper Park Lodge the other day, and as I passed the last hotel in town, The Sawridge, I noticed that they had a bunch of ice sculptures in front of the hotel. Then I noticed that they had a bunch of lights around them to light them up at night. Well, this past Saturday night I went down there with a friend to check them out a little closer, and of course we brought our cameras. I shot a couple hundred different frames, I went for some abstract shots of just the colors reflecting in the ice, and I shot a few of whole sculptures with out of focus lights in the background. Overall I had a pretty good time and I think we stayed there for almost an hour. That may seem like a lot time with only a few ice sculptures, but I didn't even break out the flash!! I thought about it, but I was pretty happy with what I already had, and I'm sure they'll be there for another week or so, so I may be able to go back if I want. So here are a few shots from the night, not too sure which I like best, but I think it would be one of the Inukshuk shots.
Photos: Nikon D90, 50mm f/1.4, 70-200mm f/2.8
Well, there we go, the first whole week of 2010 is behind us. Hope everyone is off to a good start. My start has already had a little bump in it, but in terms of photography, I'm off to a good start. In my last post I mentioned that I'd be trying to do a "Photo A Day" project....so that started on Jan. 1st, and I've made it through the first week with little trouble. It was cold trying to take a few pics outside, but I toughed it out and get done what I wanted...with a few mistakes, but we'll call them lessons...and now I've only got 51 weeks left!! If I do keep this up I'll definitely take way more photos than I did in the past year, and that wasn't a small amount. At this rate we're looking to break over 30,000 or more shots this year. I know some pros can shoot that in a couple trips, but I don't think my camera was built for that, and I've got a job to, so that keeps me inside sometimes. For my 365 Project I started a Flickr page. You can find that right here, and keep tabs on me for every once in a while to see if I'm slacking off or not. I hope to learn a fair bit through this project, and get to play with some fun gear too! I posted a bit of an "outtake" from my Day 1 shoot. I got to put my new Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe to good use with this shot. I put my SB-900 in the Ezybox just to the left of the camera and about a foot higher than my head, the SB unit was @ 1/4 power to light me, and I placed another SB unit camera right and just behind me with a blue gel on it for some rim light. I had fun with this and I'm pretty pleased with the result.
Yesterday I drove my wife to work and then headed south of town to catch the end of the sunrise. All I had with me was my camera and wide angle zoom lens, and a tripod as well. I stopped near the Athabasca River and ran out to the edge of the ice, in about a foot of snow, in my skateboard shoes and sweatpants... I know, I wear some real technical clothing when I go shoot. I spent enough time to fire off about 100 bracketed frames in a few different compositions, and this is the one I liked the most. Not bad for being totally unprepared and under dressed for the -24 Celsius weather.
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8
The other day I saw a post on Darwin Wiggett's blog which provided links to other photo sites that were displaying their best photos of 2009. I had been planning on doing a recap/2010 plans post, so I thought this would be a nice way for me to say goodbye to the past year and welcome the new one. The only problem with choosing the "Best of" for me was that I have taken a number of photos that I really like this year, I've also taken lots of photos that are total crap, and no one will ever see those, but of the ones I like, it's very hard to narrow it down to the best. In the end I thought it all out in a reasonable way and I chose a few that may have marked a bit of a photographic milestone for me, others I just enjoy looking at because of color or composition, and a few I just seem to have a bit of an emotional tie to. All of these photos mean something different to me, an with a little luck they may have some sort of appeal to you as well.
As for the coming year I have a few plans. I have started a bit of a "Photo A Day" project...that I hope to run all year.... all 365 days of it!! We'll see how that goes. I have started a Flickr account to try and reach a slightly larger audience. Hopefully I'll get more backpacking trips in this year, all of which will be based around photography. My biggest goal of all is to learn more about this craft and hopefully better myself as an artist. So good luck and best wished to all of you in the new year, and lets all have fun on our next adventures!!
