Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
Vine Maples (Acer circinatum) &
Silverhope Creek
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Silverhope Creek (near Hope, British Columbia) is one of my favourite spots to photograph fast water and foliage in the Fraser Valley. I have not spent enough time exploring upper parts of the Chillwack River though, and that area also looks pretty promising too. This creek runs along the road to Silver Lake Provincial Park. The creek itself offers many photography opportunities though the area around the lake itself is also quite nice. I really like this scene with the fresh leaves of Vine Maples (Acer circinatum) and the Western Red Cedars (Thuja plicata) growing just above the fast flowing water. I plan to head out to Silverhope Creek again this Spring. I have a few ideas on better compositions than I managed last year. I also hope to be there when the wind isn’t blowing the leaves around so much! I tried many exposures before this one had the leaves at least somewhat well behaved. Next time I will try a few exposures where I leave the shutter open for a long period of time to show the trees moving as well.
Tags: acer circinatum, british columbia, creeks, Fraser Valley, hope, rivers, silver lake provincial park, silverhope creek, thuja plicata, vine maple, western red cedar
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Snowy Owl
(Bubo scandiacus)
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Back in mid February I went to the Boundary Bay Wildlife Management Area to photograph the Snowy Owls (Bubo scandiacus). The Snowy Owls are not normally in this location during Winter. This is an “irruption” year, where the Snowy Owls venture further south than they normally would. There are various opinions as to why this occurs, though most often I see it being related to food supply in the Arctic. As this happens only about once every 5-6 years I made sure I went down to take a look. I figured even if I could not photograph the Snowy Owls as they were too far out in the marsh I would be able to at least see them from afar. I was not disappointed.
Yaaaaaawwwwn!
A Group of Snowy Owls
(Bubo scandiacus)
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The first photo here shows an Owl that was like many of the others sitting on the driftwood – it had to occasionally keep a wary eye on a passing hawk or Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus). The Harriers especially seemed to like to dive bomb some of the Snowy Owls – though I don’t know if they ever make contact. One flew over the head of this owl and it kept an eye on it as it passed. The second photo shows one of the first signs of the Snowy Owls “waking up” from their earlier positions of just sitting on the logs with their eyes closed. There was lots of yawning, though I didn’t see it go through the group in any sort of contagious manner like it does in humans.
Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus)
Warming up for flight
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The last two images here show the Snowy Owls stretching and fluffing up their feathers in preparation for flight. I had seen a few other groups of Snowy Owls further down the trail do this, before they ultimately took off towards the marsh. I presume this was to go look for food, as they were not being harassed by photographers at the time. The group I was following did not take off during the day, so I will have to wait until the next irruption to get some flight photos. Of all the photos I made of this group of Snowy Owls, I do not think I ever had one where they were preening and fluffing up their feathers where all three were facing the same direction. This is part of the fun and challenge though. Two out of three ain’t bad!
Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus)
stretching
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I wrote in my last Snowy Owl post that I was easily able to photograph these Snowy Owls from the trail at Boundary Bay. The individual Owls pictured here were all within about 40-50 feet of the trail. I was going to make this post a bit more about the ethics of wildlife and landscape photography as I see it – but I think that is a topic that I need to mull over just a bit more and probably deserves its own post anyway. As I’ve said before though, I do not see trampling the marsh habitat or approaching the Snowy Owls and spooking them to be something anyone should be doing just to “get the shot”. On this day there were maybe a dozen plus “Big Lenses” wandering around in the marsh no doubt causing much damage – especially as a cumulative effect.
Tags: birds, birds of prey, boundary bay, british columbia, bubo scandiacus, delta, marsh, owls, raptors, snowy owls, wildlife
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And now for something completely different…
Mount Matier
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I have never posted a B&W photo before as this is the first one I’ve ever created. I decided to do a little something different with my processing of this image of Mount Matier. Mt. Matier is just inside the border of Joffre Lakes Provincial Park East of Pemberton, British Columbia. I was on an epic 13 hour daytrip drive from Langley to Pemberton, through to Lilooet (complete with a wrong turn that also took me to Birkenhead Lake), then down through the Fraser Canyon to Hope, then back to Langley. There was no stopping to wait for good light, so this image suffered greatly in harsh sunlight – at least for the colour version. I quite like how it turned out with this B&W treatment though. I have been looking at a lot of the great work by Olivier Du Tré and this inspired me to try processing this way. I used his guide to some of the techniques he uses to create his photographs to process this image. This is the first BW I have ever put online – constructive feedback is welcome!
Tags: british columbia, joffre lakes provincial park, mount matier, mountains, pemberton, squamish-lilooet regional district
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Northern Flicker
(
Colaptes auratus)
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Here is a photo I made a few weeks ago while looking for Snowy Owls at Boundary Bay in Delta, British Columbia. The Owls were the exciting part of my trip there, but I also viewed a lot of other bird species that will have me going back soon to photograph them specifically. There are other owls, various hawks, Northern Harriers, Great Blue Herons etc. I didn’t expect to see a Northern Flicker here, but this one jumped up onto this stump just as I walked past on the trail. I was lucky enough that he sat there for a few minutes while I managed to make a decent photo before he spied something on the ground and jumped down again. I suspect he was popping up for a better vantage point because he heard me coming and wanted to make sure I wasn’t looking for a snack.
I used to ID bird species in my backyard when I was growing up – and at that time there was the Yellow Shafted Flicker, and the Red Shafted Flicker. Science has since determined these to be the same species, just different colour morphs, so they both fall under the category of Northern Flicker now. Confirming this gave me an excuse to read a paper in the Canadian Journal of Zoology related to this, something I don’t do as often as I used to. I kind of miss them. Much more fun reading them casually than having to write a paper on it all after!
Tags: birds, boundary bay, british columbia, colaptes auratus, delta, northern flicker, woodpeckers
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Arctic Lupines & Mount Shuksan
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This is an older image from 2010 that I recently reprocessed. I have always liked this photo of Arctic Lupines (Lupinus arcticus) flowering along Kulshan Ridge with Mount Shuksan in the background. The older version had Lupines that were just not that clear. There was a good breeze coming through there that evening and getting a still shot of the flowers was not easy. In fact, I had thought I had failed that mission, and published one on my blog and website that didn’t have the clearest Lupines. This is a different exposure, though a slightly different composition. It occasionally pays to keep some of my old files around!
This evening was my first outing with my first Graduated Neutral Density filter. I had never used one, but read a lot about them and a bit on how to use it. My photos from this evening were a big eye opener as to what was possible, and this beautiful location was certainly a big help. I also learned what they can do to trees that are on the horizon line but hopefully that is not too distracting in this photo.
The Artist Point area on Kulshan Ridge gets a ton of foot traffic as the parking lot is nearby. As a consequence, a lot of the vegetation gets trampled and destroyed. With the amount of snow that falls here each winter, there is a very very short growing season for these plants, so growing back after a repeated tourist trampling is not easy. Unfortunately I could not get my old tripod into a good position to photograph these so I had to convert myself into a pretzel to get low enough to look through the viewfinder. My old camera had no live view which would have helped immensely. One foot on a rock, a hand on another rock, and one hand on the camera… I only hit the mosses and other plants once with one of my hands. So I was successful in not damaging nature to get my nature photograph, but I did manage to pull a muscle in my leg which didn’t feel right for a week. I think the results make that completely worth it!
Tags: arctic lupines, huntoon point, kulshan ridge, lupines, lupinus arcticus, lupinus latifolius, mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, mount shuksan, washington state
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Snowy Owl
(
Bubo scandiacus)
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I will do a more thorough writeup of my trip yesterday to Boundary Bay, but for now I wanted to quickly share this image of a Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus). Of the over 600 photographs I made yesterday, this one stood out as one that showed the best action of the day. The Owls hunt sporadically, so there is a lot of sleep and relaxing in between. Sometimes they just sit there and barely open their eyes. This one started to warm up for the hunt and hopped around a little before taking off towards the water.
I should point out that I made this photograph from the path at Boundary Bay. Many photographers have behaved badly in this location in the last few months, a fact I will document and speak to in a later post. I was able to hang out for hours within 30-40 feet of a dozen Snowy Owls right next to the path, I have no idea why trampling the marsh and chasing the Owls is necessary for a good photograph. More about that later (and more Snowy Owl photos too!).
Tags: birds, birds of prey, boundary bay, british columbia, bubo scandiacus, delta, marsh, owls, snowy owls, wildlife
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Bald Eagle
(
Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
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This is Part III in my series of posts on my search for Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) to photograph in the Fraser Valley this Winter. My first two trips were to the Lower Stave River and surrounding area. Having seen what that area had to offer, I next headed out to the Harrison River/Chehalis area near Harrison Hot Springs. This area is rich with salmon spent after their spawning period, and consequently the Eagles congregate here in large numbers to eat.
Bald Eagle (
Haliaeetus
leucocephalus) in flight
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The first photo shows an Eagle that has found a salmon carcass to dine on, in the shallows along Morris Valley Road. I managed to spot it from the car, and laying on the side of the road made this photo of it. A large truck went by and it then flew away – and I made the photo on the right while attempting to pan as it flew by. I have never been that successful at this, and this photo is not really any different. I find this sort of photo more frustrating than a complete failure, because it does come close to sharpness. I failed to get enough shutter speed going here, apparently 1/250 was not quite enough. However, when I screw up something I am trying early on – it is a learning experience – and that is why I posted the photographic result.
Canada Geese
(
Branta canadensis)
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After visiting the area around the Chehalis River I visited the beach near the Kilby Historic Site. A ton of Eagles around but often quite distant though I did meet another photographer on the beach. As we were slowly approaching a juvenile Bald Eagle to photograph, we found ourselves in the flight path of multiple flocks of Canada Geese leaving the nearby fields. I managed to make this photograph of a flock flying overhead. You can still see clumps of mud and grasses on the beak of the goose second from the left, though this is more evident at larger sizes. I also managed to avoid being pooped on, though my car was not as lucky! For this photo I increased the shutter speed to make sure I could get the Geese a bit sharper than the Eagle photo. This worked as the photo is nice and sharp – though I did have the benefit of having time to prepare unlike the Eagle photo.
Tags: bald eagle, branta canadensis, british columbia, canada geese, chehalis, Fraser Valley, haliaeetus leucocephalus, harrison river, kilby historic site
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The Border Peaks
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This is a photo I made back in 2010 of Canadian Border Peak and American Border Peak (with Yellow Aster Butte in the foreground) from Kulshan Ridge in the Mount Baker Wilderness. On Sunday I was going through some of my older photo files and decided this composition deserved some reprocessing so I could post it on for “Mountain Monday”.
Google+ launched back in June 2011 (in September to the general public) and has been a big success. The photography community has been especially taken with it – and it is now my main social network for photography related pursuits. I am still active on Twitter and my Facebook Page but Google+ is where most of the action takes place. Every Monday I curate a theme called “Mountain Monday” where many photographers post their mountain photos and “tag” their post with a #mountainmonday tag. At the end of the day I post a selection of these images. Every week there is a substantial amount of fantastic photography.
If you have mountain photos you would like to share – Mondays on G+ are a great time and place to do so. If you are not yet on Google+ you can read my earlier blog post about Google+ and photography back in September 2010.
Tags: american border peak, artist point, canadian border peak, google+, mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, social media, washington state, yellow aster butte
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Mushrooms
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I made this photo in a favourite local park – Campbell Valley Regional Park in Langley, British Columbia. There is not much in the way of wide open scenery here, but it is a great place to focus on smaller things such as mushrooms, wildflowers and occasionally birds. If you have read my previous mushroom posts over on Google+ it will come to you as no surprise that I have not identified this species of mushroom.
I would normally shoot something like this with my macro lens, but in this case I was not going to be able to get close to this log at all without destroying a lot of underbrush, so I setup my tripod on the trail and used my 70-200mm lens to “get closer”. I am not against placing items in a scene, but for this particular photo I did not place the Maple leaf – it was already laying there. I do have another version of this photo without the leaf, but I believe the above composition is stronger with the leaf in place.
Tags: british columbia, campbell valley park, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, fall, fall color, fall colour, maple leaf, moss, mushrooms
Posted in Photography | 4 Comments »
