Photographing Vancouver Island

The road to Tofino….

Chris — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:56:01 +0000

For me, the road to Tofino starts as I leave Port Alberni and ends at the Tofino/Ucluelet junction.

Last saturday I drove to Tofino to make a business call on the gallery selling my prints, LoveCrafts in the main street.

I never tire of driving the windy road which provides many opportunities to photograph. Our variable west coast weather is full of surprises and opportunities.On saturday my first surprise was at the summit of Sutton pass. The road from Pt. Alberni had been foggy. Then, all of a sudden the cloud cleared…

Returning in the afternoon, the sun was shining up the Kennedy River Valley and the silvery white alder trees were glowing. Behind them the valley was in shadow. Here are three shots showing this magical effect.

I am planning to publish a series on photographing the Tofino Road as a PDF in the next year.

Courtenay Estuary on a misty morning

Chris — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:50:42 +0000

Driving along the dyke road between Courtenay and Comox on a recent morning, I noticed interesting light from a low winter sun and a fog bank swirling around the estuary. I knew there were interesting pilings supporting the CoastGuard navigation lights that could be incorporated into a composition. Although not on a specific photo shoot, I had my Panasonic GF 1 beside me in the car.

After manoeuvring my self and camera into position I was able to come up with this composition.

I had some luck as ducks swam into the picture. I took this image to my art composition lecture and critique with Don Farrell. He pointed out the compositional importance of the integration of line between the top of the fog bank to the right of the front piling with the bottom of the light housing. The highlight at sea level in the angle of the piling bracing was also seen as an important compositional element. I continue to learn so much about composition from this excellent teacher and painter.

I must confess, I missed these refinements when shooting the image being more concerned with shading the lens from direct sunlight and positioning the pilings. I gratefully accept the good luck of capturing these elements ! I also got lucky with the three sloping diagonals.

Once again I made my luck by having the little camera along and by having previous knowledge of the location.

More refinements to the Coffee Mug image

Chris — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:35:58 +0000

After looking at last weeks version of the coffee mug , “Developing a Composition”,I decided to make more refinements to further strengthen the composition.

I am directly influenced by Don Farrell’s “Talking about Art” lectures. I have removed the Miele logo from the bottom panel and then applied grid lines in varying tones to pick up and strengthen the lines apparent or suggested in the original.

Coffee Mug revised February 10 2010 Grid Applied

My first “Where to Photograph” article. De Courcy Island.

Chris — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:17:47 +0000

The first of these artiles is published on Dave Ingram’s Vancouver Island Nature site.

You can read it at http://islandnature.ca/2010/02/nature’s-abstract-gallery/

This and many subsequent articles will be posted on this blog site.

Delicate patterns in snadstone cliffs.

Developing a Composition

Chris — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:37:35 +0000

I was in N.Vancouver last weekend visiting my son and family. They had just remodelled their house and the kitchen boasted a fancy coffee maker. As Chris Jr. made me a coffee I was struck with the compositional strengths of the coffee maker and mug. I immediately took some exposures, trying to include steam and milk streams in the image.

Here is my first image rendered in color.

Original version. One milk stream. Color

I wanted to compare the color version to a Black and White copy. In making the conversion I darkened the red channel to make the Mug really black and provide contrast.

Original version. One milk stream. B & W.

I printed these two versions and studied them for a day or two. I decided to strengthen the milk stream. I had a spare image that had a more intense version of the milk and used Photoshop to add the stronger stream.

Then I made a copy of the milk stream to have two showing. For compositional reasons I wanted the two small vertical marks to complement the vertical highlights on the left of the machine.

Then I strengthened the vertical at the right hand edge of the image to support the vertical marks and hold the right hand edge of the composition. Here is how the final versions looked.

Developed Composition Color version

Developed Composition B & W version

I welcome any comments on the compositions. In a future article I will write about the relative merits of color and black and white images and the reasons for making choices between them.

Which way up ?

Chris — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:35:02 +0000

I took this image recently and displayed it on my Pages. It a simple but interesting composition.

While I was making some prints of the image and looking at them more critically I happened to turn on upside down. I liked the upside down version as an abstract composition.

What do you think ?

Do I need to buy a wide angle lens for my GF1 ?

Chris — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:24:10 +0000

Since I purchased my Panasonic GF1 last year I have been pondering and procrastinating about which lenses would be essential for a lightweight outfit. The motivation behind the purchase was to acquire a compact and lightweight outfit for hiking and backpacking. Weight becomes an issue at age 77. I had a Canon 5D kit with three good zoom lenses which became a struggle to backpack especially when a good tripod and head were added. The Canon outfit is a “keeper” , great for roadside and helicopter shooting. I started out with the 40mm f1.7 lens for the GF1. This is a beauty and I try to use it as much as possible. Walking forward or backing up gave me a medium range zoom ! I bought the 45-200mm zoom for the longer range shots when a tele was required or necessary. A good friend purchased the wide angle zoom. I have seen the results and it is a good performer. I balked at it’s price and the added weight and complexity. I remain determined to keep this outfit as simple as possible. In the past I have made many panoramas, stitching multiple images using AutoPano Pro and Photoshop. These were large panoramas where a wide angle lens on my Canon 5D would not do the job. Most of these panoramas were shot with a tripod mounted set up. So I decided to experiment with the GF 1 40mm 1.7 lens shooting panoramas (wide angle) hand held to see if I could save the expense of the wide angle zoom. There will be many experiments but here is the first “stitched up” wide angle shot. I used AutoPano Pro.

Small creek between Mt.Washington and Lake Helen Mackenzie

It looks pretty good to me. My next tests will be with more architectural subjects.

Another Sunrise !

Chris — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:32:28 +0000

Are there just too many sunrise images on display ? Although these images can become a cliche, every now and again a special combination of coloring and composition does occur and justify being shown. I believe this image is such and have posted it today when it is dull and pouring with rain. One morning last week, my wife noticed the sky lighting up and alerted me. A few minutes later, a quick walk down our road, I found the tide was suitable for a nice reflecting shot. Taken with my GF 1. If you read my article in the Pages menu column , http://vanislelandscapes.visualsociety.com/tidal-treasure-troves/ you will realise this is another situation where a knowlege of local tides and shorelines is valuable. The image with out the reflection would be more “ordinary”.

First Snowshoe Trip in 2010

Chris — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:05:53 +0000

A heavy snowfall over the New Year has improved photographing conditions when snowshoeing. At least a foot of clean fresh snow has refreshed the appearance of the snow. Yesterday was foggy but I still managed a few new images and variations on this theme. How many haystacks did Monet paint ?

This first image has been processed in two different ways. The first with normal settings for exposure, contrast and clarity using Lightroom.

New snow and diagonals

Here is the same image processed to make it look more “wintery”. I backed off the clarity slider in Lightroom to a minus value and then recovered the texture of the snow hanging from the slanting tree with the brush tool. I will have to print both versions to evaluate the experiment.

Wintery scene version

The next image is of icicles hanging from a rock face. I have tried shooting these before but yesterdays version is my most encouraging effort so far. The foggy conditions reduced contrast (excessive light from the top) and with some brushwork in Lightroom I was able to adjust the values to suit my visualization.

Icicles on rock face.

Al these images were taken with my Panasonic GF 1 and my love affair with this small and light camera continues.

Christmas in North Vancouver

Chris — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:51:21 +0000

Christmas 2009 in North Vancouver

I spent Christmas in North Vancouver visiting with my family. Between the family events I was able to sneak away to photograph the waterfront at the bottom of Lonsdale Avenue where the old Burrard Dockyard is being re developed. An excellent location for a wide variety of photo opportunities. Here are a few of the images I took. All were taken with my Panasonic GF 1 . I will have more to write about this soon but I am experimenting with stitching vertical format images to substitute for the lack of a wide angle lens.