2018-04-08: Wide Angles Only – Cottonwood Park

It’s only the second instalment of my wide angles only topic for the month, and I was honestly ready to bail on it already.  The days when it was nice this week, I was knee deep in work and couldn’t sneak off with my camera.  Then the weekend arrived with the promise of more free time to get out and explore, and for the most part, dull, grey skies have been the order of the days.  Add to that the slowly melting snow carpeting the landscape in a dirty blanket and you’ve not really got the recipe for epic landscape images.

But, despite all that, I went out for a wander in one of the local parks yesterday and I had a great time.  Sure it was muddy and slushy and lots of paths and areas were inaccessible, but it felt awesome to go out and shoot.  It was also fun to be limited by only having one lens with a small range, and having to focus on things that wouldn’t probably be my first inclination.

I’m definitely going to have to get creative though if I am going to come up with something for each Sunday of April.  Stop by next weekend to see what I have come up with.

I hope you enjoy the selections for this week.

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A foot bridge heading into Cottonwood Park in Prince George.  1/150 sec, f13, ISO 400 at 10mm.
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Do you feel like you are being watched?  The park features several carvings in the massive trees that line the paths.   1/180sec, f6.4, ISO 400, 10mm
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Another view of one of the carvings in the trees.  1/450sec, f6.4, ISO 400, 10mm.
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This is as colourful as the day was when I was out wandering.  Even then, I still applied a “colour boost” filter during editing.  1/5800 sec, f4, ISO400, 10mm
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The trees reaching their barren limbs up towards the sunshine.  Soon, there will be leaves to obscure all the birds that chirped and sung as I wandered along.  1/340 sec, f20, ISO 400
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I had never contemplated photographing a small, fast moving bird like a chickadee with a wide angle lens.  But the birds in the park are so tame and used to people, that I had one land on my hat while I was taking images of the face in the trees.  I crouched in front of this stump after seeing the birds landing on it, pre-focused, and waited for one to stop by.  1/680 sec, f4, ISO 400 at 24mm

2018-03-06: WPC – Out of this world

The photo challenge topic of the week is out of this world.  I’ve chosen to share a stitched panorama image that I shot while exploring the Skeleton Coast in Namibia.  We flew to the coast from camp for a day of exploration, and as we were driving through the dunes we came across this beautiful oasis in the middle of vast tracts of featureless sand dunes. It truly was an out of this world landscape to see.

WPC: Out of this world

2017-11-30: WPC Experimental

I am a few days delayed in posting for this topic, but I wanted to play along anyways.  The photo prompt last week was experimental, and it gives me an opportunity to share some of the images I call my Artistic Impressions.

It’s timely, as I was just listening to a wildlife photography podcast that I really enjoy, discussing photographic art as opposed to straight “documentary style” wildlife photography.  I thought the comments of the host, Gerry Vanderwalt, were absolutely spot on.  His take on it was use your wildlife images in whatever way you choose to create the art you want to make, but just be very clear when presenting it to let people know that what they are seeing is not reality.

Now, I don’t think anyone would mistake any of these images for reality, and the comment was more aimed towards compositing work, but, I really do feel that people should create whatever moves them.  If reality didn’t match how the moment made you feel, then turn your images into something that does invoke the feeling of the moment.  Just don’t try to claim it is something that it’s not.

Anyways, on to the images 🙂

 

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A watercolour style take on a ground hornbill at sunset.  I loved the posture of the bird and the shadow on the termite mound, but found the image to be less sharp than I would have liked.  Turning it into one of my artistic impression images allow me to play up what I liked most about the image.
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If an elephant visited one of my dreams, I think it would look something like this.
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A cormorant perched on the edge of the Atlantic, with seals frolicking amongst the waves.  
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A small part of a large seal colony in Namibia.  The weather along the coast was dull and blustery, and many of my images left me flat.  This take on the scene reminds me of surveying the area through the fogged and misty windows of our vehicle.

 

Please visit:
www.jennifersawickyphotography.com for wildlife, landscape and nature inspired artwork.

and

https://shopvida.com/collections/jennifer-sawicky for textiles inspired by my photography.

 

WPC: Experimental

2016-11-25: Feel Good Friday

These are the pictures that jumped out at me to post today; I’m not sure why, but I decided to run with it. 🙂

These are from my time in Damaraland, Namibia.  We had the opportunity to explore the Twyfelfontein World Heritage Site to see the bushman rock art.  The rock art depicts people, the animals and birds of the region, and even the location of both permanent and seasonal waterholes.

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A view from the pathway around the rock art site.
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Giraffe, oryx, humans, and I am going to guess a bird like the Kory Bustard are depicted here.
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Giraffe and antelope carvings and the landscape beyond.

If you’d like to learn more about the area, here is a link to a wiki page about it.

2016-10-22: WPC H2O

I could have shared any number of photos taken along the river near my old home, with lovely sunrises and mountains… but this spoke to me more.  I recently took a bird watching trip along the Kazinga channel in Uganda, and this village was at the turn around point for the tour.  For a photo challenge topic of water, a photo shot from the water, of a village that completely relies on the water, seemed fitting.

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Hopefully these fishing boats were safely moored for the night, as the storm that rolled in about an hour after I shot this brought with it some intense wind.

WPC: H2O

2016-10-20: WPC Edge & Nostalgia

Here’s a blog post that hits two of the WPC photo challenge topics at once.  When I read the description for the edge challenge, I knew that some of the shots I took while flying between camps in Kenya would be a great choice to share.  But being on those planes ties so well into the topic of nostalgia for me.  Being in a small plane (especially up front) takes me right back to being a kid, heading up with my Dad in a two or four seater plane, and flying around either sightseeing, or heading to my Grandparent’s cottage.  Great memories and such fun times 🙂

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During my transfer from Nairobi to the Selenkay Conservancy adjacent to Amboseli, I was lucky enough to be the only passenger on the caravan plane, and the pilot was nice enough to invite me to sit up front with him. As you can see, there is a reason that bush pilots buzz the runway nice and low before banking and coming back around the land. Hitting a zebra would not be good!

 

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The camera was level, honest!  Taken during a steep bank after buzzing the runway at Selenkay Conservancy.
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Air transfer between Nairobi and the Masai Mara.  I wasn’t lucky enough to get a seat up front on this one, but the views were still awesome.

WPC: Nostalgia

WPC: Edge

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