Enjoy!

The church is very impressive.

The huge ceiling inside the church.

The above and below middle were taken in the base of the bell tower at this church. The concrete posts really intrigued me and it took me some time to get some compositions that worked.

The Grotto is quite interesting. Build to look like it’s a stone castle.

Enjoy!

The top photo and below left we taken at Camp Morton, Manitoba.

The Matlock Pier. This pier is build by one family every year with only hand tools. During construction they do not touch the sand or the water.

The pier wasn’t the only thing of interest. I managed to find some more culverts and the posts below made for a great subject on a 10min exposure.

While taking longer exposures it gave me time to think about the next shot. This washed up log made for an interesting subject. I had to soak my shoes to set this one up.

Enjoy!

Here are some extreme close-ups. Can you guess what they all are?

January 10th I had great exploration. After a super cold stretch of weather it was nice to get out of the house. I revisited a few spots I have been before and found some new locations in the process. I finally stopped to get a shot of this old house that is barely standing (see below, right). Strangely, I found this old house (top, below left) just down the road from another abandoned place I found last spring. Why I didn’t find it then is beyond me but I am glad I did find it.

On the way home I took a different route then I normally do. The sunset was started to really pop with color and to my luck I found myself near my favorite tree (see above middle & below) just in time to catch the colors.

January 16th was probably one of the best explorations I’ve had in a long time. Not only was the weather great but the finds were plentiful. One of the first things I found I can’t say I’ve ever seen before. Sunflowers in Winter. Needless to say, they made for some interesting shots.

The blue sky really helped these sunflowers pop. On this exploration I found many lonely trees in the fields. Here is one of my favorites (see top right). Below is a macro of a sunflower plant.

I ended up getting so many shots I decided to convert a bunch of them to black and white. Here are a few of my favorites.

I decided to revisit one location since I was close. I found this old homestead last fall just before the snow came. Now here is a shot with snow (see below).

An exploration just wouldn’t be complete without a culvert photo. These culverts were big enough for the snowmobile riders to drive through. Near the culverts were some bales which looks like its on a drag strip waiting to take off.

My last find was the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake. I was hoping to find something in time to catch this great sunset. To my luck, I came around a corner and spotted this old Massey Ferguson Tractor. While composing this shot and getting my camera set up I was blessed with a little bird that came and landed on the steering wheel. At first it was bouncing around too much to take a photo but then it stood still long enough to get a capture. Then flew off.

January 23-25th was an interesting weekend. We were hit with a ton of wet snow that started on Saturday and continued on through to Sunday. During the day Saturday I didn’t venture too far from home but I did manage to get a couple shots of the storm.

Sunday I decided to venture out a little further. Although the roads were pretty bad I still needed to get out. The trick is, drive according to the road conditions. Apparently someone didn’t know this. While I was out I passed the ambulance and sure enough, on the way home I saw a van that had rolled in the ditch. Something which could have easily been avoided had the driver slowed down. The start of Sunday’s exploration was a quick drive-by shot of this really need looking tree I call the Guardian Tree. If I didn’t already have a favorite tree this one would be it.

Stuartburn Auto Service closed it’s doors in 1960. I have driven by this old garage many times and many times I’ve wanted to shoot it but for some reason it was never the right time. This time it was. Since it was an overcast day I decide to try some different processing on these. I really like how they turned out.

As you can see there are some interesting textures on this old garage.

Monday we were snowed in due to a blizzard. The winds were too bad to drive into work so the boss told me to stay home. Yes, a free day! My only trip out was to the store in town but I did manage make one quick stop. Here is a 360° (14 image) panorama of the main intersection in my town.

January 30th was my last exploration of the month and a good one. Definitely the coldest day I’ve been out shooting. Even though I thought I was going to freeze my toes off at one point it was still worth getting out. Sometimes the coldest days make for great photo opportunities.

A good friend of mine collects animal skulls. He has a wide variety in his collection. He said I could use what ever I liked for props for photos. This expiration I chose one of his bison skulls. One of the challenges with using a skull like this in a scene is to get it to look natural and not placed. I had to make it snow with my hands to get a natural look. Below is my favorite shot of the day. I had to go back to my car to warm up and let my camera battery charge before I could get this shot. The cold cuts right through you like a knife and eats batteries like nobody’s business. My toes were so cold at one point I could barely feel them so I turned the heater on full and stuck them in the vent below the dash. Eventually they came back to life. I waited until the light was just right then returned to catch this sunset.

Here are a couple from my neck of the woods. This was one of the first snow falls of the season.

One of my photo explorations was in The Whiteshell area. I was hoping for some decent landscape shot but after not really finding anything I was looking for I decided to return to a familiar spot.

These are shots from 2 trips to The Whiteshell.

This is a great example at some of the beauty that mother nature can produce.

I’ve never seen ice formations like these before and am really happy I decided to return to this spot.

Above is an interesting site. A farmer has stock piled feed and covered it with a giant white tarp and used these bales to keep it in place.

Sometimes when you can’t find an interesting location to shot you have to improvise. These two shots are some of the roads I’ve traveled looking for something to shoot.

These buffalo were kind enough to pose for a shot and this old building was located in the middle of a cemetery.

On this particular exploration I found only one shot. These snow drifts caught my eye.

The Adventures With Garfield continues….

Enjoy!

On the photos for November 2009. I definitely didn’t get out as much as I would have liked. I did get three explorations in including one with some fellow photographers.

This was a staged shot. I found a very large rock quarry and while setting up this photo, some people were target shooting. I swear they were shooting a canon. Not a camera LOL. While there I found six .22 cal. unused shells. If only I had a .22 gun.

After the rock quarry I found a few abandoned places. One of which was quite spectacular. Unfortunately there were ‘no trespassing’ signs everywhere.

Here is a panorama of this old farm.

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More culverts! This one was a nice find as it was large enough to get into and wasn’t too full of water. The middle section was partially caved in so the over shape was distorted. It made for one of my personal favorite photos.

Even though this little spot had a lot going on, it was actually too busy to really get a good shot. A black and white conversion saved this panorama as the color version was too much to take in.

While exploring I came across several field fires. One made it into a ditch where there was much more to burn. It made for a great photo opp. This color spectrum concept is by no means new or original but its something I’ve wanted to try for a while. I’ve just never had the right photo to try it on. That is until this fire shot.

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While exploring with two other photographers we came across a few abandoned places.

I called this exploration “Dead Eagle Tour” as we saw a dead eagle on the road. First time any of us seen that. We also saw at least a dozen eagles in total. That would have been a great time for a 600mm with a 1.4TC.

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Adventures With Garfield!

This month I started a little on-going project I’ve wanted to do for a while. For years I had these Garfield figurines and since getting into photography I though of doing something with them.

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I believe this is a ‘53 Chevy. This cool looking rat rod has was numerous awards. It was a battle of the mosquitoes to get these shots but worth it.

Some rural farming shots.

A view in my rear view mirror as I rolled into Ste. Leon area.

Some of the massive wind generators in the area.

Rural sunset in black in white.

Some more rural Manitoba shots.

As I drove by this barn I had to grab another photo. This was a photo find from last winter.

Below is a sunset from Whitemount Lake.

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Enjoy!

Fans of the Fibonacci Spiral will appreciate this image.

During the height of the recent meteor shower I was out hoping to get photos and instead got surrounded by 3 thunderstorms.

One night I decided to head out for a quick sunset shoot. The photo on the right was featured on CTV Weather News.

August was a colorful month.

A group of us from a local photo forum all headed out to Ste. Elizabeth. All that is basically left of this town is the Catholic Church. The church is maintained year round and used only once a year.

While on my way to Ste. Elizabeth I was given quite the show from some local fowl.

This is the last part of my Jasper series of updates. See my photos section for the full gallery. After a foot blistering adventure to the 5 Lakes and back we decided to go to Athabasca Falls before heading to camp for dinner. Unfortunately, we were there pretty much at peak tourist time. So there were hundreds of people all around and made taken shots of the falls a little more challenging.

After dinner we decided to return to The Lodge. We took our time and enjoyed the view and surroundings while waiting for the right light.

This guy was swimming into the golden light just before the sun dipped behind the trees.

After the sun dropped behind the trees, we headed just outside the entrance to The Lodge for a magic hour shot.

Our last morning in Jasper we really didn’t have any time for photo. We did stop to take some photos of this big elk on the side of the road grazing. As you can see, he had a little partner.

White in Jasper I took a couple of panoramas. Most were pretty average but this one I was very happy with. Click here for a larger view of this panorama.

Be sure to view the full gallery as there are over 60 images.

Our second morning in Jasper got off to a later start. We only got out the door at 7:30am instead of 5:30am. We drove over to The Lodge for the early morning light.

We decided that we would hike the 5 lakes Trail. It is a 4.6km loop trail to these beautiful green crystal clear lakes. Unfortunately it was windier then I’d have like it to be. At the beginning of the trail we made a wrong turn  down another trail and it costs use a few km’s and about and hour. I did get one shot while on Wabasso Trail below.

The green was pretty breathtaking. This lake had a complete ring all around it.

Maligne Canyon was our next stop after a great start to the day. This hike along the canyon is very beautiful and was pretty busy with tourists.

I got a lot of great use of my ND8 and ND4 filters.

By the time we got to the bottom of the canyon, we were pretty hot and so we cooled off by putting our feet in the water. It was literally ice cold. I could only keep my feet in a few seconds before they would start to go numb.

This day was all about Maligne Road, Canyon and Lake. While having dinner a thunderstorm rolled in. We couldn’t eat fast enough and get out there. We ended up driving the pouring rain back to the valley along Maligne Road and then waited for the rain to stop. Nothing like listening to the thunder bounce off of all the mountains around us. Needless to say, it was well worth the wait and ended up being a great photo opportunity.

Luckily, there was break in the storm clouds right where the sun was.

The storm clouds made for a great sunset opportunity.

First sunrise in Jasper. We were up at 5am and out the door by 5:30. We headed out to Maligne Road. This wound up being the main spot for the whole day as we returned later, after dinner, for more shots. For now, I I’ll just post the morning shots. This is something I’ve wanted to see and capture for a while. The early morning sun light touching the tops of the mountains.

While sitting in the middle of the big valley, I spotted this drift wood from a far. From a distance, it didn’t look big and I thought I could walk over, pick it up, and bring to where I was shooting to use as a foreground object. When you are surrounded by mountains you kind of lose all perspective on size/distance. I walked, and walked and walked to get to the this drift wood. As I got closer it got bigger until I arrived and it was as tall as me and probably weighed over 300lbs. So I scrapped the idea of carrying it and now had to make my way all the way back to my camera and them come back. I must say, it was worth the early morning workout.

I really love how you can face a different direction and get totally different colors. This photo there is just a touch of pink light on the top of this ridge.

After an early start to the day on Maligne Road, we were getting hungry and decided to head to Maligne Lake for a bite to eat. We arrived there too early so we grabbed some shots while waiting for the deli to open.

After a quick bite to eat we were off. I can’t remember what lake this was but there were some fishermen heading out and it made for a great shot to show how huge the mountain is in the distance.

Maligne Road, is pretty beauty from start to finish. My friend was beside herself when we came across the only bear we saw on our trip. We didn’t have much time and were shooting from the truck. I got lucky and this bear turned my way just as I pressed the shutter button.

Where to start. A great friend of mine bugged me for a while to come out to Jasper.  Due to a tight budget it wasn’t looking hopeful until she offered to cover my flight out there. How could I pass that up?  So booked 2 days off work flew out for a few days. I arrived at the airport around 7:30am and we rolled into Jasper about 3:30pm. We had a tire blow out on the trailer and we had to stop in the next town to get it repaired.  Above was the first photo I took in Jasper before we got to our campground.

After we got the trailer set up at our campsite we got our supplies and were off. We drove North of Jasper up to Pyramid Road to Pyramid and Patricia lakes. The 2 photos above and the one below were taken along Pyramid Road.

More photos taken around Pyramid Road and Pyramid and Patricia lakes.

My friend called this unique tree “The Bonzai Tree,” I call it the “Tarantula Tree.” Either way, it was one of the highlights of the evening for me.

After a good 5+ hours of shooting we cruised around for a sunset spot. Not really finding anything the highway made for a great shot.

More to come…

I was too busy this weekend shooting an event and didn’t have time to get out and shoot some landscapes. I didn’t think I would have time with getting ready to go to Jasper, AB this Friday to get out and take some shots since I have about 1000 photos to edit. Well, last night I stopped by some friends and on the way home quickly stopped for a sunset shoot. The mosquitoes were absolutely INSANE. I really had to rush through the compositions, take the shot and get the **** out of there. One thing I learned, this weekend, while shooting a sporting event was that you have a split second to compose and shoot. This helped when taking these shots as the I thought the mosquitoes were going to carry me away!

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