These fireflies seemed to like the swampy areas, but as the night went on they spread out to fly through the trees and around the meadows.
Taken in central Manitoba.
21mm, f5, 13 seconds
Tag: light
Keeping the Fire Burning
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
Rays of Light
Just taking a small break from matting, signing and bagging prints to share a photo I took a few days ago. Enjoy!
60mm, f8, 1/400 of a second
Split
From a recent trip to Jasper.
300mm, 1/2000 of a second, f5.6
Trio In Ice
On my latest trip to the Rockies, Eric and I found some pretty great ice. This is where we found it — under snow.
Ice may not have the same movement as water, but it still causes the light to dance.
Wild Asters
150mm, f2.8, 1/1250 of a second
150mm, f2.8, 1/640 of a second
Interesting Macro Fact of the Day:
These pictures were taken a few seconds apart at the same iso, aperture, and in the same lighting conditions. So why the different shutter speeds? Macro lenses, when they start focusing really close are actually a lot darker than the aperture suggests. If we measured the amount of light coming into this lens when it’s focused really close, it is probably about half the light (around an f4 value), even though the aperture blades haven’t moved from their open position. This happens with all macro lenses.
Aspen on a Clear Night
This was a 20 second exposure on a clear, still, moonless night in Dillberry Lake Provincial Park. This took some accurate esimating of the distance from me to the tree and a focus distance indicator on my lens. I’m not sure if some modern SLRs could autofocus in this kind of darkness, but mine certainly can’t.
I’m starting to enjoy night photography more all the time. It forces me to slow down — once it’s dark there’s really no rushing necessary. Sunsets and sunrises can be a little more stressful as they’re very time-limited. Finding the balance between enjoying the outdoors and becoming a professional photographer can sometimes be hard. There’s always pressure to get a better shot, a different composition. But coming up with something new is also extremely rewarding.
Wildlife and Wedding Photography
When you see an elk, what do you do? You stop and take a photo of course. And if the elk stays there, you get closer. After all, wasn’t it Robert Capa who said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”?
But for some reason your brain starts to throw up little red flags. Wait a minute, you also want context — the animal acting in its habitat. And maybe you don’t want a photo of an elk eyeball, maybe you want the whole elk. And anyway, isn’t it bad for animals to get accustomed to people? And dangerous for the people?
And then, for some strange reason, you start to think of photographing weddings, of posing and of lighting. Direct evening light is pretty good — it’s warm and lends definition to shapes, but what if you backlight this? That would wash it out and give it a dream-like quality. But animals are not as cooperative as people who hire you to take their photos. You have to do the moving, and there’s no adding light. You know that flash would bother this elk and disrupt his feeding, possibly making him aggressive.
So you do the moving, far enough away that the animal is not disturbed. You wait for the animal to move into a position that works, you get the sun at just the right angle, and you get a photo. You don’t know if it’s a good photo or a great photo, but you’re pretty sure it’s not a bad photo. And that is satisfying.
Abstract Water Photography Explorations
These photos were taken at the same place, facing the same direction, within 1 minute of each other. The difference is part of what fascinates me about water. Small changes in the viewing angle completely change the photo. The top photo is almost purely reflected light, while the bottom is a mix of reflected (which bounces off the water) and refracted (which goes through the water) light. Add to that the constant variability of the wind creating different wave patterns, flowing water creating more stable ripples or even falls, and you have a subject that never gets old. I find flat water like this a little bit harder to find compositions in. Waves from wind are transient enough that you don’t know exactly what you’re going to capture — you have a general idea, but the specifics are up to chance. Flowing water is much easier to compose, and you often get more interesting lines. Often these lines and ripples are stable enough that you can see exactly what you’re going to get. But to get refraction in flowing water, it has to be flowing pretty gently — this works best with quite small amounts of water. Otherwise you get whitewater (full of air bubbles), which is great in a completely different way.
These photos don’t have leading lines to add depth or direct they eye (which generally I prefer), but they do illustrate some of the possibilities.
The First Grass of Spring
Things are finally turning green and the sun is shining.
