Harebells and Forest Lanscapes

Composition, Editing, Flowers, Forest, Photo of the Day, Plants
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

In the interests of geographical diversity, today’s photo is from Morden, MB. I went for a great hike with my family around Lake Minnewasta this past summer. For those who have not been here, the park is very nice for people who like the resorty villages, but the trail is absolutely beautiful. These are harebells (Campanula rotundifolia — as opposed to the hairy flowers like this which are bluebells) against a lichen covered tree trunk.

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As I was getting this photo ready for the post today I kept having problems. I like the photo – the complimentary purple and orange, the contrasting textures, the brightness of the flowers. But something didn’t feel quite right. I kept on going back and trying to edit it differently. I think I finally figured out my problem with it, which can’t be fixed with processing – there’s no clear focal point. The eye has so many places to go, but there’s no clear line to follow, no one point to rest at. I was going to scrap the whole post and start again, but I thought you might be interested in my thoughts and processes on how I reject photos I’ve taken.

And now, in the interests of posting a photo I’m actually happy with, here’s one from the same hike.

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Harvest Moon

Composition, Night Photography, Photo Gear, Photo of the Day
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Shots of the moon are hard to get. With a wide angle lens, the moon is a dot in the sky. With a telephoto, you have to make sure your exposure is short enough – the moon actually moves pretty fast. While keeping your exposure short, you still want enough depth of field to keep some detail in the foreground. If the moon is exposed correctly, everything else is too dark, and if everything else is exposed correctly, the moon is completely blown out (although both of these can look good). And then you have the whole chromatic aberration problem unless you have an amazingly expensive lens, because the scene is so high contrast. So I’ve never shown these before. These are not the sharpest photos in the world – I didn’t have the highest quality telephoto lens at the time. But I’m pretty happy with them too. They have a great feeling to them. This was at Cooking Lake Natural Area last year the night of the harvest moon.

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Camrose Sale

Business, Design
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

All done the Camrose Spirits of Christmas craft sale. It went well, and our new products were very well received. Here’s a picture of our booth. If you look close you can see the lamp in the back center, the jewelry on the left table in front, and tags in the wooden bowl. We’re working on getting these all up on a website available to purchase.

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Abstract Ice Edge

Composition, Photo of the Day, Water, Winter
Monday, November 29th, 2010

Back from Camrose with a minimalist photo for you. Keeping almost everything outside of the frame of the photo puts much more emphasis on what is there – the tones, the quality of line. And in photography especially it is difficult to keep a composition simple. It is easy for little things to sneak in – the world is a busy and complicated place. It can be a sort of zen exercise to focus on a simple subject and to remove everything else.

This is the Saskatchewan River last winter.

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Split Rock at Red Rock Coulee

Business, Landscape, Photo of the Day, Prairie
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Today’s pic is a little late. I might even miss a few days over the weekend while I’m at the Camrose Spirits of Christmas craft sale. I’ll have a bunch of prints, cards, and tags for sale there. Also, if you want to see a few new products I’m working on, I’ll have a few of those there too.

And in case you can’t make it to Camrose, I also have prints and cards for sale through this website. I’ve updated the way I do things, so shipping is much less expensive and every print and card you get will be signed (and prints mounted or matted). On the downside, it will take a little longer to fulfill orders. I’m guessing around 1 month, unless I happen to have that print or card already in stock, in which case you should be able to get them in a week or so.

Finally, today’s photo – a cold and snowy early spring evening at Red Rock Coulee in southern Alberta.

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