Another photo from the vault. The direction of the sunlight made the original black and white conversion I did in Lightroom look washed out. I re-edited this with Silver Efex pro, and the harsh highlights have been minimized without losing detail.
Elephants at Chobe
I decided to go back and re-edit some old photos, as I wasn’t inspired to get out and shoot this weekend. Here is a photo taken at Chobe Park in Botswana while on a boat tour. I see lots of possibilities for editing it.
1/250Sec, f10, ISO100
April 8, 2013 at Chobe Park, Botswana
To me, the elephant at the far left of the photo looked out of place. I cropped it out, and edited the photo with Colour Efex adding a polarizing filter effect.
- Edited with Colour Efex Pro
For the edit above, I used the same polarizing filter effect, but cropped in just to focus on the elephants crossing their trunks.
Finally, I did a black and white conversion with Silver Efex Pro, on a cropped version of the photo showing several elephants with their tusks in alignment. I added in vignetting and a border to help obscure the elephant far right that was heading out of the water.
Thanks to my landscape photography instructor Jim for reminding us to always look for the picture within a picture. 🙂
Silhouettes
The clear, cold weather over the weekend brought with it a lot of shivering, but also a lot of great photos opportunities. I had Spencer with me, so I was more concerned with his well-being and enjoyment than getting the perfect shot… but, I still managed to get a few that I really like.
I hadn’t set out with a theme in mind, but the strongest photos of the weekend were all silhouettes (a clear topic for the blog – hurray!)
1/1250, f4.5, ISO100
I had to adjust my exposure slider 1 1/2 stops in processing, so I guess I should have bumped my ISO to start or waited an extra 10 seconds or so during the exposure. 61sec, f22, ISO100
34sec, f29, ISO100
2.5sec, f22, ISO100
6.0sec, f25, ISO100
Things I missed
Sunday morning walks with Spencer are my very favourite. When we get up and head out early, we can find, for a few brief moments, a bit of quiet space. On Sunday mornings, the trucks aren’t moving around in the gravel pit along the river, and fewer people are out early in the mornings. There are gaps when we don’t hear a train in the distance or the hum of the airplanes on the landing path into YVR – and we can hear the birds chirping, the geese honking, the ducks quacking and the breeze rustling the trees.
It was in one of these blissful gaps that I realized how much I miss while out walking the same stretch of dike. How did I fail to notice the blinking light on the top of the buoy in the channel? I’ve seen it every weekend for months, I’ve been past it on a jet ski and on boats, but until today I never actually looked at it. I know this is true in all aspects of my life – how much gets done or accomplished in busy-ness without really thinking about it, rushing around without really seeing what’s happening, being consumed with mental clutter and stress…
So this morning, I took photos of some of the things I have missed, over and over again.
Zebra
The weather on the weekend was not conducive to having my camera out, and none of my indoor projects have inspired me this week. So, I decide instead to experiment with new software on a photo I have worked on before.
Frosty Morning Walk
The light this morning was stunning. I don’t even have words for how beautiful it was, and doubt the photos do it any justice. It was crisp this morning, with all the trees and grasses covered in thick frost. There were banks of fog swirling around close to the river; alternating between showing the water and mountains, and obscuring them. The sky was dotted with fluffy clouds, and the mountains all had a generous coating of snow… the early morning positively glowed and showed off the most subtle colour palate of pastel tones. And, it was blissfully quiet, without another person around, just the dog with me and the birds singing their wake up songs.
All in all, the perfect start to a Sunday.
Prisms
I’ve decided to start 2014 off by committing to taking at least one photo per day. While I also want to commit to more regular blog posting, it certainly won’t be on a daily basis. Today, I didn’t feel like heading out into the drizzly afternoon, and found myself wondering what photographs of my chandelier would turn out like. Standard photos, it turn out, are not interesting at all, and only serve to remind me of how much I need to dedicate an afternoon to cleaning it.
The thing I like so much about this light fixture is the way it throws tiny rainbows over the walls and within the fixture itself, depending on the vantage point. When I stopped trying to have sharp focus on the fixture, but instead concentrated on capturing the colours, shapes and textures, I liked the results a lot more.
When I removed all focus, I liked the results the best 🙂
Birds at Finn Slough
It’s been several weeks since I went on my last photo walk with my class, but life has gotten in the way of putting together a post of my favourite photos.
The purpose of the trip was to concentrate on the altered landscape, but instead I was focused on all the birds. I rarely see swans in the local area, and on the drive in went past a field filled with them. There was no where to pull over to take a photo, and I was glad when I arrived at Finn Slough and had another opportunity for a photo.
Cooper's Hawk
I was lucky enough to have my camera while out on a walk early yesterday morning along the dikes. It was quite foggy, and I was hoping to capture a few shots for a project I am working on. I saw some moment in the tall grasses along the edge of the river, and managed to capture a sequence of a Cooper’s Hawk hunting. I didn’t manage to see in the end if he or she was success in the hunt, but it was still a great thing to witness. The thick fog adds a bit of a vintage feel to the pictures.
Autumn Days
Each year, the transition into autumn hits me harder and harder. I find the grey skies and rain day after day a bit much to handle (the colder temperatures don’t impress me that much either). However, we have recently had some gorgeous weather, and I’m glad I had my camera with me to capture a little bit of it.
I had my “photo assistant” along to enjoy the lovely weather. While I took photos of the river, he dug in the sand 🙂
