Season

Against a Reflective Surface – Christmas Lights

Canon 50mm, Canon 50mm Lens, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Prime Lens, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Winter

Leaving school, against the blackness of night, I encountered beautiful hoarfrost on an Aspen Willow tree – a reverse silhouette (white against black). I started my pickup truck and used the engine’s warm-up time to explore the silhouetted Willow. Again, the camera is atop the tripod and again I’m using the 60D’s live view to ensure that I find crisp detail in manual focus. I took three shots of the tree – one I include here; the composition needs work but I’m happy to have captured this image. Consideration – my shots are better and more well-composed when I’m warm and taking time to look seriously around the frame to see what’s there and to capture the image; in winter photography I’ll have winter outwear on … something I didn’t have leaving school tonight.

Later, at home, in front of our Christmas tree the recommendation of photographing Christmas lights against a reflective surface came to mind. Our Christmas tree, like most others, stands in front of our window as Christmas beacon to others in our neighbourhood; this evening, I just needed to recognize its beauty and its potential. I put my Canon 50mm prime f-1.4 lens on my Canon 60D and attached the 60D to my tripod; I worked with live view to find focus detail and to establish bokeh (blurring of lights). I turned out lights in our living room and kitchen making all dark except for our Christmas tree and its lights. I began exploring bokeh, using a small depth of field (lens aperture f-1.4) and blurred Christmas lights against the reflective surface of the window. The images I include appeal to me in terms of shape, colour, texture and mood.

Tonight (15 December 2011) – listening to Martyn Joseph’s ‘Have an Angel Walk with Her,’ from his ‘Evolved’ album http://www.martynjoseph.net/ .

Christmas Lights – Balancing Ambient Light

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From school I drove home on streets that are slick, polished ice. They are not quite treacherous, only difficult to begin moving on in a half-ton truck without weight in the box.

So … Christmas lights – I arrived early and had good post-dusk light.  The homeowner did have the Christmas lights on already and clouds feathered against a silver blue sky as background.  I framed the shots taken to include more sky but ended up cropping to balance things out in the images. In terms of setting, I had the white balance set to Tungsten and the blue derived from the sky was more tending to a dark turquoise than royal blue.

The matter of having a reflective surface in the foreground is really the idea that reflection of lights within a foreground surface should artfully double or duplicate the subject photographed doubling the number, size and shape of the Christmas lights. As I thought this through the hood of a vehicle was my first conceptualization of this technique; but, Kyle Thomas www.kylewith.com has demonstrated that the side of a vehicle can be used artfully to bounce or reflect different subjects … the side of a clean, glossy vehicle should serve to reflect among other things … Christmas lights. The snow does reflect light, but it does so more in an atmospheric glow of the dominant colour among the Christmas lights.

I did use a tripod to steady my 60D.  But, using the tripod is forcing me to think through composition because manoeuvrability of the camera on top of a tripod has some limitations; usually I see and understand the composition as I move toward it and find it. The movement of the camera to the best composition on top of a tripod is more mechanistic and I suppose I have not only to think through the lens but through the tripod structure and its movement, as well. I’ve been using the live view display with the pistol grip to position the camera in terms of composition; then I’ve been using manual focus with the plus ( + ) settings within live view to focus accurately upon the subject.

Tonight, I worked with an ISO of 100 and f-stops between 8 and 11. The duration of the exposures is anywhere from 8 seconds to 30 seconds. I did shoot once every minute or so and can track the sky’s darkening through the pictures. I took fifteen shots tonight, three of which I include here. Point of Consideration – in these town shots the mix of Christmas lights and ambient light combines with street lights that light the roadway, the yard and the house. The effect of Christmas lights against ambient light should be more striking if street lights are excluded; I may need to find a farm in the vicinity that has used Christmas lights well and on their own, away from powerful farm lights.

Other thoughts – I am taking public shots of Christmas lights around town; watching someone photograph your home and its lights must be a bit awkward if it’s not happened before.  Maybe I’ll present a photo of the sight to the homeowner as a positive, goodwill gesture.

The shot I like is the one with grey skies; my daughter and wife like the other two.

Bokeh (Blurred lights) & Shallow Depth of Field

Canon 50mm, Canon 50mm Lens, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Prime Lens, Season, Winter

The shots taken last night explore bokeh; I’ve used a shallow depth of field for the subject and worked to blur the background light. Bokeh refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur, the out-of-focus areas of an image, or, the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light (Bokeh – Wikipedia).

11 December 2010 – Photo Look-back

Canon 30D, Canon Camera, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Winter

A few years ago I had a job requiring travel among the back roads of Alberta’s MacKenzie Municipal District No. 23, a region that would encompass three smaller European countries. It was a job in which I could pay attention to the region’s movement through the seasons in terms of weather, light and darkness. One year ago today, I took my camera and tripod out and away from High Level to revisit these same backroads, though for an afternoon and evening I remained oriented to the rural landscape between La Crete and Fort Vermilion, Alberta. I began taking photos in the mid-afternoon working my way from La Crete toward Fort Vermilion and then rounded out the evening with photos of main street High Level and its Christmas decor. Here’s a look back to photographs taken a year ago today.

Santa Day Fireworks

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Uncategorized, Winter

Midway through this December, Saturday afternoon, my daughter and I were in the Cab of my white 2000 GMC Sierra half-ton working our way through town and our list of errands. Not having read this week’s newspaper, The Echo, and without the town of High Level having a Twitter-feed we chanced upon the Santa Parade moving through mainstreet. Later, at supper, I learned about fireworks being among today’s events – at 6:00 p.m. the High Level Fire Department would begin a fireworks display. With all the night photography I’ve done, I hadn’t yet captured fireworks.  I found my blue folder of Night Photography notes from Darlene Hildebrand (Her View Photography http://www.herviewphotography.com/ ), skimmed them, briefly, put my Canon 60 D on top of my Manfrotto tripod, changed lenses to my Canon 15-80mm zoom and set the shutter release for a 2-second countdown.  The camera settings for the photographs I took are ISO 100, f-8 with an exposure of 13 seconds. I got to the fireworks site, aimed my camera into the sky toward an anticipated fireworks target area and made rough calculations for focusing to subject; using live view I adjusted composition area against where fireworks were bursting open and fell from; each of the 79 pictures taken are at a range of approximately 200-300 metres from the camera. Above, you’ll find some of the better exposures I snapped.

Refit & Refuel

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Shell Service Station - High Level, Alberta

I’m going to study this picture.  It does capture a sense of this being an outpost and a place to refit and refuel in night’s darkest hours. The intent, however, was to capture something iconic, a gas station lighting the night … it being more of a beacon for a point of rest before continuing on, more something you’d expect listening to John Mayer sing ‘Route 66’. High Level’s Shell Service Station is open 24/7 year-round and is midpoint between Edmonton, Alberta and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. In terms of the shot taken, it may be that the 50mm prime lens limits what can happen with plane of focus and composition; more movement on my part would be needed to find the right location and composition. Still, I like the crispness of most parts of the photograph.  I may try a few shots looking more straight across to the service station one of these nights.

Winter Sunset

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Winter

Sunset through Playground Swings

At day’s end, this fiery sky confronted me. I gathered my tripod and camera. Making an image would be about camera placement and framing an appropriate foreground, then working out which aperture settings best served the image. I tried several shots with varying apertures, exposure times and lens lengths. Wide open, the lens limited cloud movement and the sharpness around lights within the scene. At f/22, a sharper image was possible, but lights on the school building blew out at the center and a star effect was produced via the lens shutter leaves.

The scene – a tall tree and playground swings in front of an elementary school.  A warmer start to winter has yielded little snow on the ground and a cloud-filled day. The camera faces southwest, and at 3:45 p.m., the sun has fallen beneath the horizon yet is reflected briefly along an interesting billow of clouds producing a fiery red outcome above. High Level is at 58 degrees north. In December, we are familiar with diminishing sunlight. At the winter solstice, we may have the sun for less than five hours in our day. This sight is quirky and unusual at the start of the year’s twelfth month.

Later that night, I would photograph firefighters at a nearby lake – their training for ice rescues would see them plunging into the icy, frigid water and pulling each other out from the ice for their practice.

Quote to Inspire – “To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand (José Ortega y Gasset).”

Listening to – David Gray’s ‘Shine,’ ‘Flame Turns Blue,’ ‘A Clean Pair of Eyes,’ ‘The Other Side,’ ‘My Oh My,’ ‘Babylon,’ and ‘Sail Away.’