Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
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.
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.
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 🙂
I spent time with my landscape photography class at Pacific Spirit Park last weekend, taking photographs on the theme of texture and patterns in the forest. It turned out to be a lovely day as the rains had stopped and the occasional sun beam burst through the trees.
I hadn’t planned on posting any photos, but when reviewing my favourites with some classmates in my Photoshop course, I was told that I should be enlarging and printing on canvas my forest photo. It’s not something I’m planning on doing, but I thought it is at least worth a share on my blog.
I spent the Labour Day long weekend at Whistler, enjoying wonderful company and witnessing the marriage of two lovely friends 🙂 The weather was perfect, and the beer and wine were free flowing. I dragged up all my camera gear… and made very little use of it. I was simply too busy relaxing and socializing to spend too much time staring through my viewfinder.
But I did take a few photos…
I’ve been neglecting working on this blog for some time – and even though I don’t have much to say about these photos, I really need to get back in the habit of posting.
I spent some time out in Maple Ridge collecting a few final shots for a photography assignment, here are some of my favourites.
I’m currently taking another digital photography course, so I have been busy the last few weeks snapping photos to meet very specific parameters. I was happy as the assignment this week was for landscape photos, both natural and urban.
I don’t yet have a macro lens, but I do really like the results of the close ups shown below – even though they really make me feel as if fall is on the way.
On a larger scale, I captured this lovely sunset near an area where I normally walk Spencer. I often see ducks, geese, heron and the occasional hawk and bald eagle in the area, as well as coyotes if we head out early enough.
I headed out at 6am on Saturday, armed with a travel mug of coffee, my camera, tripod and ND filter, in the hopes of practicing some long exposure landscape photos at the Pitt River. My intention was to work on techniques that when converted to monochrome, renders the water looking misty and any clouds in the sky ethereal. But the BC weather foiled me again – it was TOO NICE. I won’t complain about that, ever, I just couldn’t photograph what I had hoped to.
I’ve noted the settings that I have used and some of the combinations may seem a bit odd. I was playing around in manual mode and while it was bright, I was in the shade. Since I had my tripod, I went with the one thing my instructor repeated a good half dozen times in class “If you have access to a tripod, you have no reason to use anything other than ISO 100.”
The river was smooth like glass and a lovely Great Blue Heron sat on a pillar in the water the entire time I was out, giving me the opportunity for some lovely shots of both the hills and the water, and the heron. I’m sure I’ll be back to African animals later in the week, but I was pretty happy with these shots, taken so close to home.
