Photo of the Day – Alberta Landscape Photographer

I normally stick to the shadows and photograph details when the light starts to get harsh, however I wanted to try a few compositions of Mt. Kidd which I had not tried before... so I just went with it! To add a little something to the image I used my blue/gold polarizer to add a gold reflection to the water and draw the eye into the scene. Although I could have simply double processed a single raw file for this one, I chose to make two exposures - one for the main scene and the other for the foreground shadows. By doing this I don't have to push the file too much and compromise the quality. I will have more images to share next week so be sure to check back in!

Photo of the Day – Alberta Landscape Photographer

This shot is from Sunday morning at Vermillion Lakes. As I watched the clouds start to light up it was obvious that the cloud formations were not very pleasing in their shape and size. There was also a bit of a breeze causing the reflection to go a little weird on me. I made the quick decision to go with a longer exposure to capture movement in the clouds while smoothing out the water. My camera was about 6 inches away from the ice for a little added drama, so in order to maintain sharpness throughout I made a second shot focusing on the immediate foreground so that I could blend that shot in later.

For this shot I used a polarizer to cut some of the reflection in the foreground water, a two stop hard graduated neutral density filter to even out the exposure of the sky, and a four stop solid neutral density filter to slow down my shutter speed to 30 seconds and smooth the water and streak the clouds.

My camera setting were as follows:

Canon 5d II, 17-40 f4

30 sec, f/16, iso 100, 20mm

Photo of the Day – Alberta Landscape Photographer

This shot was done about 45 minutes before sunrise the same morning as the last post. It was about -30c that morning and I felt that the blue tones of this shot communicated the cold really well. I avoided using my graduated neutral density filters because I knew that all I had to do is breath in the direction of the camera and the filters would ice up! Instead, I bracketed three exposures and blended them to keep the sky highlights from blowing out.

Here is what I did to get the blue you see here: first I de-saturated the original image a tiny bit (the blue was over the top), then I duplicated the layer, I converted the top layer to black and white and then went to image adjustments/apply image and set the blending mode to screen. This gave me a washed out black and white image that I then multiplied over the original image and adjusted to taste. This deepened the blue and added a little extra density to the image. 

Hope you like this one!

Photo of the Day – Alberta Landscape Photographer

Well, I've finally been able to get out shooting landscape images lately... and it's been a bit chilly! I made this shot at Canoe Meadows in Kananaskis Country this morning after starting out at Spray Lakes before sunrise.

I really liked the warm/cool contrast here as well as the abstract quality about the image. I'm curious to see how it goes over with others! Hope you like it... stay tuned for more images soon!

Photo of the Day - Calgary Portrait Photographer

Here is a shot I really liked from a recent portrait session with the Thumwood family. It was really hot this day and the patches of snow everywhere made it very difficult to avoid a cluttered composition. I chose a slightly lower angle here to hide the snow with the tall weeds.... you would never know this photo was taken on January 2nd!