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So I'm back from Vancouver, back to reality, work and all that fun stuff. Thankfully things are slowing down a little in town, a nice mellow pace for Fall. My eyes are pretty sore from editing photos for the past few days, so this will be quick and easy for y'all. Here are a few shots from the trip, there are a couple HDR's in there, one of the Taxi, and one of the Inukshuk on the beach. The pano is not really the one that I was hoping for, I did shoot a night pano when I was there, but I'm not completely happy with my current result, so it needs work, or just to be redone altogether. The Ferrari shot is just for fun, man that's a sexy car! The sunset shot is not really the best shot on earth, but I really like the color and the clouds in the sky, so I'm throwing that up here to. Then there is just a plain ol' shot of Downtown Vancouver, from the 33rd floor of the Coast Plaza Hotel (from the balcony of our room). Enjoy these, and I'll try to get a few more up in the next couple days.
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4(pano)
Not too much new to say today, just going through the paces of packing my gear for the trip to Van., getting batteries charged, cords packed, sensor cleaned, nothing really exciting. I did manage to shoot a bit last night, got a few cool HDRs I'll post in a few days, but what I really wanted to post were a couple of shots I've had ready to post for a month now, but I just keep forgetting to do it. I was in a bit of Black and White mode for a few weeks this summer and it's all I could think about when I composed shots. The first one is of Whistler's Mountain, there is a tramway that takes visitors to the top in about 7 minutes, where they are free to roam the top of the mountain and get a different perspective of the town/area. I was about to get on my bike to head to work that day, it was fairly early int he morning, and the clouds hadn't quite lifted of the mountain.
Next up we have a shot of Pyramid Mountain from the Jasper Park Lodge waterfront, near Lac Beauvert. There were some great clouds passing through the sky that day, and I know this shot is not the greatest, but I enjoy the clouds and I had a good day that day, so it's just a little reminder for me!!
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8.
So it seems I may get to a better blogging schedule very soon. Hopefully it will be a more frequent thing, as I find it keeps me hungry to make new images instead of always putting up something that I just resurrected in PS..(although, photos do need resurrecting from time to time). I was asked a few days ago to drive some friends up to the trailhead for the Skyline trail, a popular trail here in Jasper. Most people would say "No way!" to this sort of thing, but I thought "Hey, why not? Maligne Lake is right there and I'll be there just before sunrise, sounds like a good time for a sunrise photoshoot." So around 5:30am Sunday we left town and dropped the girls off at the trailhead around 6:20, then waited for the sun to come up. Normaly you get to play the game of "hurry up and wait", but that day we walked down to the shoreline to check out what we had in store, and there was the Boathouse, with all the outside lights on, with a PERFECT reflection in the water, with the most awesome blue twilight behind it. So we ran back to the van to get our kit and starting shooting right away. Turns out they were some of our favorite shots from the morning, and also the shot I opened the blog with today. I also had a great chance to use my Blue/Yellow Polarizer from Cokin too. There doesn't seem to be many times when this filter is the most useful, but then there are times when then light is just right and I think it totally made a difference in the Pano you see here.
I'm heading to Vancouver this week, spending about 4-5 days there. I have a few shots I would like to take while I'm there. I have ideas for a few shots in the downtown part of the city with my 10.5mm, I would really like to get a nice night time pano of the city as well from across the water, I'm gonna have to do some scouting for that one I think, but it'll be worth it for sure. Then I'll just shoot whatever I think is interesting. So until next time all I have left to say is Happy Birthday MOM!! Hope you had a great day!!
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8.
I believe that the fall season is upon us, and for most photogs that mean getting out as much as we can to shoot the changing of the seasons. It has alread begun here in Jasper, as I found out in the last couple days. Now that the hours have been cut back at work and I get out at a decent time to still go shooting, I imagine that I'll be getting out early most days and trying to get out after work to catch the last rays of the day. There are two things I absolutely love about fall, first; that the colors are so vibrant and interesting to shoot, two; the sunrises start a bit later!! That's great, now I don't have to get out of bed until 6:30am instead of 5am!! This means great things for me, sleep wise anyway. Yesturday I got to play around with the Nikon 60mm f/2.8 Micro lens. It's a pretty nice little lens, pretty sharp and produces great color, but methinks I may hold out for the 105mm f/2.8 VR lens, yes it is much more expensive, but it gets a bit more reach that I like in my macro shots. So today I leave you with one of my shots from yesturday from around Cottonwood Slough, just outside of the Jasper Townsite.
Photo: Nikon D90, Nikon 60mm f/2.8 Micro
Things have been busy in my neck of the woods these days, and I mean REAL BUSY!! All of the crazy and stressful planning my wife did for our wedding was all put to the test during the wedding week, and it could not have gone any better. She did an amazing job of keeping both families on track and had lots for everyone to do and see. I give her 100% credit for everything that happened during that week, my job was to be at the ceremony on time and that was it, and to make it more sweet I was actually a few minutes early!! WOW. So after all that fun with the families and lots of activities, everyone was gone as fast as the arrived, and we were left as a newlywed couple ready for our first adventure as husband and wife. And what was our first adventure you may ask? Very simple...GET A VEHICLE!! Man did we need some wheels. So after a few days research we rented a car and drove to Calgary to check out a few vans. We ended up getting the main one we went down to see, a 2002 Chevy Astro. Man am I stoked. We used to own a GMC Safari a few years back and I built a bed/couch in the back so that when we traveled we could sleep in the van at night and didn't have to set up the tent or get a hotel room. It is definitely one of the best ways to road trip and I can't wait to get back on the road to explore some new places to shoot photos and get back out climbing again!
So I leave you with two photos today, one of the Calgary skyline from 15 Ave. We stayed at a friends condo in the downtown area and we had access to the roof, so I shot a few photos before heading to sleep that night. Pretty simple 3 exposure HDR, all exposures were pretty long. Processed it in Photomatix Pro and that's about it. The second photo is not mine! Two great friends of ours shot photos at our wedding, this one is from Jeremy Salisbury who was also a Groomsman as well as the photographer, and when he had to be in a photo his partner Lisa shot photos for us. They both did an amazing job and I couldn't have asked for two better people to do the job, they were awesome!! Thanks guys!!
Photos: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8 (top), Nikon D700, 17-35mm f/2.8 (bottom)
So for the past few months I've been without a car, which in reality isn't that big of a problem in this town. I can bike to work and I'm there within two or three minutes and if I don't bike, I can walk to work and be there in less than ten minutes. So why would I even need a car you may ask? Well, since I do live in a national park it is nice to go explore and see some sights every once in a while, most photogs get to do this on a daily basis, but I've been working in town a lot lately so I haven't been able to get anywhere for sunrise or sunset. The sun is usually setting when I ride home from work, and I usually get to see enough that I wish I hadn't worked so late and had a car, but then I get home and forget about it until the next day. Well today was another one of those days, except today I was at home and had no wheels to get out for sunset as I watched the whole sky turn so pink I think the inside of our apartment lit up as well!! At least I was keen enough to get the camera and point it out the window for a few frames. I like the shot I have here, but it definitely would have been nice to be sitting at Edith Cavell or Medicine Lake this evening too! In the next few weeks our first job is to get a vehicle once we have the wedding put behind us and things calm down a little!
Photo: Nikon D90, 17-55mm f/2.8
It's been a while, so I've got two photos for y'all. An HDR from June of a shoot I did of and old GMC truck at a local hotel in town. I really wanted to do more car and old vehicle HDR's so I went out and worked this truck a few times one day. Turned out to be a great day and I got a few shots that I really like. It was my usual HDR setup, 3 bracketed shots at 2 EV apart. Shot this one with the 10.5mm f/2.8 aimed slightly up towards the sky, so it sorta looks like the truck is smiling. I think it gives it a bit more character.
Next up is a pretty straight forward 25 shot Mega Pano. This is something I still need lots of work on, as I'd like to perfect it and do a series of panos from around Jasper National Park and hopefully sell them in a number of stores here. I've been working a lot lately, mostly to make up for the time I'll be taking off for the wedding at the end of the month, which is fast approaching!! The excitement is building and I hope to shoot tons of photos that week, so I'll have material to blog for quite some time after that. We've also got a short trip planned to Vancouver in September, can't wait for that either, lots of photo ops to be had in that town!
Photos: Nikon D90, (top) 10.5mm f/2.8, (bottom) 50mm f/1.4
