Life and Loss

Happy and sad hold hands.

Beautiful Brereton

Be Present

This photo was taken in Bird's Hill Provincial Park several years ago. From one week to the next this scene changed drastically. Returning a week later for some follow up pictures, the landscape was void of the yellow tucked into the woods. The golden splash was what made the shot.

Sometimes life is like that. I am reminded to be present, capture the moment and hold it close. When I move on to hold the next moment, and I must, this one is gone. But if I have paid attention, it is not forgotten.

Autumnal Days

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. ~P.D. James

Autumn's light was perfect for this shot. Summer's temperature made it easy; no chilly fingers to contend with.

I shot at f/7.1 with a shutter speed of 1/60. 1/60 is about as slow as I would opt to hand-hold my camera. Any slower and the risk of camera shake increases.

The path brings our eye into the picture and guides us through it, without allowing us to leave the scene. Once we reach the top of the image, the yellow leaves welcome us and then the evergreen brings us back down to the foreground brush. And then we begin again on the path...

Beholding Beauty

Just before I was about to cross the Louise Bridge this morning I made a quick decision to pull into the parking lot for the boat launch by the river.

The leaves are starting to change colour and drop...the skies are a deep grey today. It is the last day of summer and it feels like autumn is already here. I'm giving summer her due and am posting today's picture in sepia tones. We'll keep autumn in the waiting room for another day.

I used my 24-70 mm lens for this shot. With a speed of 1/200 and aperture of f/5.6 I kept the ISO at my predictable 100.

Choosing to shoot from a lower perspective resulted in an interesting composition. The trees seem taller and more bold. Or...I feel smaller...in awe of what I am beholding.

Pulling the colour allows for this scene's subject to be something other than autumn. If the strong yellows and oranges remained, fall would dominate, rather than the scale of the trees in relation to me.

Grassi Lakes, Alberta

Clouds

Moonlit Pass

This shot was taken near Oakville, Manitoba. It was a beautiful late autumn day. Many leaves had already found their way to the ground. The grasses were dry and the fields were mostly stubble.

Though pleased with the initial colours and tones in the daytime capture, changing this up in Lightroom also changed the entire mood of the image. Adding a moonlit preset brought a mystery to this scene that wasn't there initially.

Stories are woven. Imaginations soar. We play and explore.

Showing Heat

Yesterday it was a blazing hot thirty four degrees celsius on the prairies! By 9:00 in the evening the temperature was still high as we drove over the dusty roads. We pulled over as the sun briefly found its way behind a tree. The sun's flare and evening's haze were brilliant alongside this weathered home and tree's lattice.

Sometimes it is difficult to show temperature in an image but it wasn't yesterday. The haze and flare both lent themselves beautifully to speak of the heat. Making sure that the sun wasn't 'full on' was important. The tree's leaves gave just enough of a filter without shielding too much of the light.

Landscape Photography

Around the corner we drove and then we began descending the hill. Seeing this view disappear as we drove on, I needed to see it again. Backing up, there it was. The evening sun touched the landscape, turning it to gold. How beautiful!

To capture this landscape scene with fairly good clarity both in the foreground and the background, I used an aperture of f/13 which afforded me a greater depth of field. In processing I bumped up the exposure a touch in the shadows. Had I not, the dark horizontal centre mass would have overwhelmed the image.