Tag: tree

Perfectionist

I’m a perfectionist in everything I do. And I’m twice perfectionist in photography. In the field I keep taking photo over and over changing my position, perfecting composition, and changing settings perfecting my exposure. In post I can spend endless hours on a single photo perfecting every pixel of it to tell a clear story with my photo.

This was the case with this photo. It looked like illuminati sign for me. The problem was that pink spot in the sky was too weak. I wanted to make it clearly visible. Except I could not get it too stand out more without color shift and without impact on surrounding clouds. I’ve spend many many hours on it, printed proof after proof all of them going to garbage.

Finally, I think I got it. One thing is that it is unlikely you’ll be able to appreciate it since it pushes the limits of what uncalibrated regular monitor can show. That’s the problem with subtle color variations. Even on my laptop where I type this post I cannot see pink in the sky. I can see it on wide gamut calibrated monitor that I use for photo editing and on prints that I produce.

Illuminati
Illuminati

Simplicity of a Curve

What can be simpler than a single curve in snow. It is like an artist calligrapher drew a hieroglyph with a single movement of hand.

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What’s interesting is that I found the same curve in a track of foot steps that a fellow photographer left behind.

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Tough Climate

I think these two quite different photos capture the same feeling of the tough climate of Canadian Rockies in winter. Deep freeze ice with temperatures well below zero kept clean by sweeping winds so strong at times that it is hard to stay in one place on the ice.

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Up on a Hill

Sometimes you need to get up on a hill to see a view. Just like I did when we drove thru Canada.

We drove thru places of snow and ice that were picturesque enough. But then I saw a hill with a parking lot next to it. I stopped and climbed the hill. The view that opened up to me was breathtaking.

The vast flats of frozen river covered with snow, the soft spots of sun light breaking thru clouds, the blue hazy mountains in the distance and a cloudy sky above it all. The view was worth photographing, the awe was worth sharing. I called up the other guys and we spent some time photographing.

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Rear-View Mirror

One of the useful photographic tools: rear-view mirror. I often see a landscape there that makes me stop, jump out of the car and take a picture. Here is one of those photos from the last trip to Canadian Rockies. You can even see tire track from my car as I pulled to the side of the road.

What’s also interesting is that this light was gone in a few seconds. So, catch your moments!

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Only Mountains

There is a saying in Russian culture: only mountains can be better than mountains. So, in this post I’m presenting of photos of mountains and only mountains from my recent trip to Canadian Rockies.

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Texture on a Grand Scale

A month ago with a few fellow photographers I went to Canada. We visited a few places in Banff, Jasper and several places in between. The weather was mild, favorable to me since in chaos of packing I left winter shoes at home and was wearing my summer all-around shoes.

On the way there an interesting texture caught my eye: a side of a mountain was covered in trunks of burnt trees with a dust of snow powder on the ground. It created rather interesting texture on a grand scale. It looked like the mountain was covered with a shimmering fur. Changes in slopes steepness were creating an interesting patterns in this mesh. After short discussion we turned around and stopped to photograph them. Below you can see my take on it.

One interesting thing about them is light. It was an overcast day and the light was very flat but I think it was perfect for this type of texture. It made photos more abstract.

Black and White

I do like color. I have whole collection of photos with nothing but color in them. But there is still room for black and white photos in my heart. Sometimes black and white is what’s needed to bring out a drama in a photo. Photo like this one.

Snow Storm

Storm, be it by the ocean or in the mountains, presents the most interesting opportunities for landscape photography. (It also presents the most challenges.) The sky is changing rapidly and all kind of light show can happen.

One early morning, which most would still consider night, I went to Gold Creek at Snoqualmie Pass hoping to photograph a sunrise. The weather was not cooperating. There were too much clouds. Then the snow fall began and it was heavy. It stopped as suddenly as it started and the clouds started to clearing up.

Eventually, the sun started breaking thru and highlighting parts of landscape. It was the kind of thing I like the most about landscape photography – watch with fascination how light changes the landscape.

Of cause, I was photographing as conditions were changing. They were changing so rapidly that I did not have time to form the idea. I was photographing purely on intuition. Only when I reviewed my photos at home I noticed that I could a fleeting moment of sun streak by the tops of the tress. That’s the photo I liked the best:

Speaking of Gold Creek area I find it very interesting in winter. I’ve went there several times already. Here are some more photos from there.

Haiku

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One of my friends on a recent trip to Canadian Rockies threw in an interesting concept of haiku in photography – a minimalistic simplest image capturing the essence of a story. At first we were amused with it but now I think it is pretty neat concept. I find a lot of images that I’ve captured in that style, such as the one above.