On the way home..

One great thing about winter is how low the sun is all day. During the summer months when the sun is high in the sky, most photographers would never be out shooting in the middle of the day..shooting landscape images anyhow. High sun makes for harsh shadows, which makes for crappy, bland images. A low sun can cast long soft shadows and the light is not nearly as harsh. On my drive back from Abraham lake, clouds started forming in the sky and I had an immense urge to shot a lot of black and white images of Highway 93. I ended up with about 5 or 6 shots that I really like. The clouds were nice and interesting, and there was lots of contrast in the landscape. Hopefully I'll have a chance to drive a bit further south on the highway in the coming weeks to add to this series, and have a few images all the way from Jasper to Banff. Enjoy what the drive so far....

Abraham Lake - Feb. 23

On Feb. 22 I spent the night camped in my van next to Abraham Lake, in the Bighorn Wildlands. The area is also known as the Kootenay Plains,and is just east and bordering Banff and Jasper National Parks. I have only started exploring this area this winter and I am completely amazed at how many times I've driven by Highway 11 and never thought to explore! The area is gorgeous and more people should go there to explore it's beauty. The couple of times I've been there this winter I have barely seen more than two cars on the road and have never seen another person hiking around! Last Tuesday I woke to clear skies and what appeared to be a beautiful day ahead of me! Well I was right. I first headed out onto the lake to shoot the sunrise with all the ice formations leading into the mountains, I've seen these shots before, from Darwin Wiggett, and have wanted to got shoot this stuff for a while now to add to my own library. So here are a few of the shots I came home with....



PS....the second and third images are made from a single exposure, no HDR...just smart use of Graduated Neutral Density filters. The first image was a 20 second shot, done at f/4 @ ISO 400. The moon was over my right shoulder to illuminate the valley and road.

Where have I been?....

It's been almost a month since my last post...guess I've been out doing things!! I've been shooting a lot. A lot more than any other February in the past. If you were to look at my photo library, Feb. is always the month with the least amount of photos. In my efforts to make sure I take at least on picture a day, that changed this year, in a major way. After a bunch of deleting out of focus, or just plain crappy shots, I have still kept a few thousand images in each of he first two months of this year. That may not be a lot for some, but it's a bit of a step up for me...am I'm happy about that. Each one of those frames is helping me to become a better photographer. I'm also starting to notice that certain types of photography are becoming a little easier now as well. The other day I did a product shot, and within a couple frames I had my lighting down, and then shot a bunch of different compositions until I got just what I wanted. This time a year ago that may have taken me the better part of an evening, but this time, my set up and breakdown of my gear probably took just as long as the shoot. Things like that are my goal for this year, and so far, I'm pleased.


I'm also making greater efforts to explore new places outside. I've been to Banff National Park at least three times already this year, a couple of those days I haven't come away with photos that I absolutely love, but I was there, trying to make it happen. The last trip payed off big time for me, I got the conditions I've been waiting for, and in one day shot a number of frames that I'd be more than happy to hang on my wall. So after two full months of this "365 Project", I think I've only missed one day, and that was this past week, and I'm going to use the excuse that I was pretty sick this week. Sleeping in your van in the middle of winter is never a great idea....there's another lesson! I've already learned a few things about myself, photography, and where I would like my photography career to take me. Hopefully the next couple months will bring more lessons, more photos, and more experience behind the camera. The photos on this post were taken early in Feb. and I will do a couple of follow up posts with recent shoots from the rest of the month.