Camping – Page 4 – the life of a nature photographer

A Month of Camping

Camping, Mountain, Night Photography, Photo of the Day, Travel

Tuesday, June 21st, 2016

This last month has been full of trips for me – a couple weeks of backpacking near Abraham Lake and a canoe trip down the North Saskatchewan. They’ve been unusual trips for me though. Instead of the normal peaceful quiet of nature I was in the middle of roaring stoves, surrounded by laughing, yelling, talking, and singing students.

Despite the dramatic departure from my usual outdoor experiences, I really enjoyed these trips and the people who made them what they were. The few nights where I had the energy left to stay up into the night were my little oasis of quiet in these busy and fun-filled trips. Thanks to all my fellow leaders and travelers who made these trips memorable!

Ski Touring Introduction

Camping, Mountain, Winter

Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

This winter I got my first taste of ski touring and backcountry winter camping! Besides the blisters from borrowed boots, it was incredible and I look forward to many more trips. This trip I fell a lot, so not a whole lot of picture taking happened. I promise I’ll get better at skiing and deliver more photos in the future.

Taken in Molar Meadows, Banff
23mm, f7.1, 1/1000 of a second

Memory and Promise

Camping, Landscape, Mountain

Thursday, February 18th, 2016

The prospect of backpacking this summer has me pretty excited. It’s come up a few different ways in the past few weeks and it has me studying google maps, reading trip descriptions, dreaming, and remembering past trips. It’s not the most immediate thing, but it is a familiar thing I can come back to. In a couple weeks I’m going ski touring and winter camping for a few days, which will be new for me. New things come with both excitement and nervousness. But backpacking will be like climbing into a warm sleeping bag, like curling up with a purring cat. This photo is from quite a while ago in Banff National Park. I was looking through some old photos and reliving some old trips.

Banff National Park
32mm, f6.7 1/180 of a second

Keeping the Fire Burning

Camping, Night Photography, Water

Monday, November 3rd, 2014

Everyone has a drive to do something, but this drive is so easily overwhelmed. Depression makes you question it. Other projects distract you from it. The stresses of making a living crush it down. In this light, it sound fragile, but in my experience it’s anything but. It never goes away — it’s always there waiting to be acted on. And life becomes so much more fulfilling once you start to push some of the distractions off to the side and make room for the things you love.

This is just a long way of saying, “If there’s something out there you love doing, go do it.” Lately I’ve been cutting out some things I enjoy that were distracting me from the things I REALLY enjoy. And this has made a big difference.

7mm, f5, 13 seconds

Memories of Summer

Camping, Landscape

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

Just a quick snap today from Grasslands National Park this past summer. This storm should have been a clue not to camp here — the roads are impassible after much rain. As it was, we had a blissfully ignorant night in our tent with thunder rumbling us to sleep. In the morning we barely made it out.

Quiet Mornings II

Camping, Photo of the Day

Friday, November 8th, 2013

This is more of an explanation of yesterday’s post than anything else – mostly because I don’t feel like this is as strong of an image, but it does add a lot of information. Its both proof that we got a fire going when everything was completely soaked, and a view of the lake, showing the contents of yesterday’s picture. The lake is fairly small, and the dark lines you see coming in from the sides are the trees on the other side of the lake, mostly obscured by fog. As all good campers should do, we kept the fire on the beach, where it is well away from our tent (bear safety and “sparks melting the tent” safety) and where there is no fuel around or under it to catch on fire. I wouldn’t advocate making new fires on the beach unless they’re small and you can remove all traces of them, but this was in a well established fire pit.

One slightly disturbing thing about Davis Lake is the amount of trash lying around. We tried to clean up a lot of it, but there was still lots remaining. Please, if you go out in the woods at all, pick up at least a little extra trash and pack it out (I’m assuming no one reading this would actually leave trash behind). If everyone does this, eventually we could all have well travelled and unspoiled woods.

And just because I’m not sure it warrants its own post, I’ll add a picture of my tent taken from the beach.

Enjoying Winter Again

Abstract, Camping, Photo of the Day, Water, Winter

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Last weekend Anna and I finally got a chance to get out to the mountains, and it was a trip for trying new things. For the first time ever we tried snowshoeing together, cross-country skiing together, and winter camping. I was also giving my Olympus OM-D a torture test to see how much it could replace my Canon 5D kit for hiking.

Snowshoeing works great and is my new favorite way of getting around in winter. It lets me get wherever I want in any conditions with my hands free for photography, which is perfect for me. Skiing was a lot more fun as an activity, but I found it quite hard to mix with photography. Winter camping actually worked a lot better than expected and we slept cosily through the whole night!

I’ll post a review of my little OM-D in a bit, for now I’ll just start posting pictures from it. This photo is from Panther Falls — icicles forming against an overcast sky. I’m looking forward to printing this pretty large — the details in the ice are fantastic!

f7.1, 1/1600 of a second, 100mm
(I’ll be stating actual focal length here, not equivalent – more on this in my OM-D review)