Jasper In January

At the 4 o'clock position on this photo is the Jasper Sky Tram upper terminal.  And at the 10 o'clock position is the moon.

Jasper In January

These four evergreen trees were observed to look like sentinels along the shore of Lac Beauvert in Jasper.

Jasper in January

Taking photos of canoes on the dock in winter - or anytime for that matter - is sort of low hanging fruit photographically.  But it's a photo opportunity that
s pretty hard to walk past too.  These canoes are on the docks at the Jasper Park Lodge.

Large Group Photography

Taking photos of large groups is a challenge; often times the location is not pre-scouted and trying to get the group assembled is hard because somebody always seems to be missing.  Then there is the matter of placing everyone so their face is not hidden.  For this shot I used two 500 watt Elinchrom strobes with 30" x 40" softboxes.  The strobes were remotely triggered using Pocket Wizard transmitters.  I took the photo with my Canon 1DX with the Canon 24-70 lens.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

Here's the last photo in this batch taken with the venerable Canon 5D2 fitted with the 40mm f/2.8 lens.  The first few photos in this series were taken in the Commerce Place parking garage and the last handful were taken at the abandoned Molson Brewery in central Edmonton.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

The rigid geometry of a brick wall provides a bit of test for the distortion inherent in a lens.  The $230 Canon 40mm f/2.8 lens passes the test I think.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

Here's a detail photo of this abandon building in central Edmonton.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

I suppose of you really tested it you'd find some short comings with the Canon 40mm f/2.8 lens, but at the price point I think it takes great photos.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

If you;ve been paying attention these past few years you'll know that I'm drawn to doors as photo subjects.  In this shot I was struck by the potential for arranging all these rectangular shapes into a cool composition.

Canon 5D2 with Canon 40mm f/2.8 lens.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

Next up in this series of photos taken with gear I don't use much; taken with the Camera 5D2 using the Canon 40mm f/2.8 lens.  ISO 3200, f/5.6 at 1/10 of second exposure.

Good Gear That Rests Too Much

I have a lot of camera gear.  There's nothing I'd part with but the fact is that some of it gets out a lot and some of it doesn't.  So I decided to give myself a little assignment to put some of it to use.  Here's the first of a short series of images gathered.

This photo was taken using my Canon 5D2 camera fitted with the Canon 40mm f2.8 lens.  The 5D2 is a great camera; I've taken loads of great photos with it.  It is now my spare and I would not part with it for a variety of reasons.

A preferred fixed focal length lens for photo journalists using range finder cameras in the 1950s and 1960s was 35mm.  It provided a wider field of view than a 50mm lens (the lens most often thought of as 'normal' on a 35mm camera) without any eye-catching distortion.  The Canon 40mm lens was introduced a couple of years ago and when attached to a full frame digital camera body it yields images of comparable focal length to the 35mm lens on a rangefinder camera .  A unique feature of the 40mm lens is that it is really small; when attached to the camera body it projects just 1" making it a very discrete lens that takes up almost no room at all in the camera bag.  They are inexpensive lenses coming in around $230.  It's a fairly fast lens too at f2.8.

When I bought this lens I thought I'd use it a lot.  It's not the sharpest lens in the world but that's OK.

Recent Portraits

This is one of my favourites from a recent series of work place portraits.

Black and White Details

I took this photo of some crinkly old leaves using the macro mode on my Canon G15 camera.

Footprints in the Snow

My first instinct is to always crop a landscape photo to a 2:1 aspect ratio.  In this case I wanted to keep the footprints in the snow so a 1:1 aspect ratio was called for.

The Landscape in Black & White

The question with this photo was whether to include the tree on the far right.  My choice is rather evident....

Just One Thing

This birch tree has an interesting bark pattern but what really caught my eye was the swirl of snow where the tree emerges from the frozen ground.

Just One Thing

This is a fairly straight forward  photo; just one lonely twig poking through the snow.

Just One Thing

In the movie 'City Slickers', Curly (played by Jack Palance) delares that the secret to life is 'just one thing'.  The meaning of this is to stay focused on one thing rather than being chasing multiple objectives.  So that's the theme of this photo - just one thing.

Industrial Abstracts

We'll let this be the last in this series of industrial abstract photos.

Industrial Abstracts

I like the swirling background to this photo created by the inclusion of the manufacturing gauges upon which this eye bolt is laying.  iPhone Hipstamatic image.

Industrial Abstracts

I converted this photo using Oloneo Photo Engine to give it a slightly grungy appearance.

Industrial Abstracts

This photo was taken through a welding screen.  I converted it to cyanotype in Nik Silver Efex pro software to highlight which resulted in a sort of duotone image.

Industrial Abstracts

Not much to say about this photo; the subject is a portable welding screen.  If you look closely you'll see that it is transparent giving the image a three dimensional quality.

Industrial Portraits

When I was reviewing the images from this shoot the thing that jumped out about this shot was the magenta reflections in this fellows safety glasses.  I decided the effect would be more powerful with the rest of the photo converted to black and white.

Industrial Abstracts

These pipe elbows look like giant pieces of macaroni.

Industrial Abstracts

For me, the charm of this photo is that there is both everything and not much going on all at once.  The composition is simple using a fairly straight forward 'rule of thirds' layout and if you squint there's really just three shades of grey in the photo.  But if you stop squinting you'll see a broad range of texture and subtle details in the photo.

Industrial Abstracts

The importance of a levels adjustment in Photoshop cannot be overstated in my view.  The ability to make fine adjustments to the dark and light areas of a photo and then tighten up the contrast using the levels adjustment is something I do on virtually every photograph.  Levels can also tweak the colours ever so slightly and in fact the levels  can be adjusted on a colour by colour basis.  It's a very powerful tool. There's an 'auto' levels correction feature that I'll usually click on just to see the effect.  With unusual photos like this one the auto feature can yield a startling but quite appealing result.

X Marks the Spot

I've no idea what this object is but it makes for a cool photo I think

Industrial Portraits

The lighting in this shop is bright enough to work in but not for low ISO photography.  I set the ISO to 6400 thereby increasing the sensitivity of the camera sensor.  The slightly grainy appearance is a consequence of the high ISO setting and the fact that this photo has been seriously cropped (I could not safely get too close to the action and I did not have a chance to go get a lens with a longer focal length). The slightly grainy look doesn't bother me in the least; in fact I think the photo is all the better for it. Cyanotype conversion made using Nik Silver Efex pro software.

Industrial Details

Raw Carbon Steel is sort of a mottled grey-brown colour.  It has a slight sheen to it which causes it to take on a bit of colour from whatever is reflected in it.  This particular pipe had some cryptic markings as well which I chose to capture in the abstract photo.

Industrial Details

I think my escort during this industrial photo shoot wondered what was going on when I took this photo; seriously - photos of plastic jugs with sloppy writing all over them?  One never know from where inspiration will come....