Author Archives: Michael

Vermillion Lakes, Banff

Vermillion Lakes, Banff

Most of yesterday the weather was not kind to this photographer but perseverance paid off and just before sunset the clouds finally started to break up and the sun peeked through for a great evening shoot at Vermillion Lakes. I don’t use my Nikkor 10.5 fisheye all that much but I like the effect here. It looks like you’re on top of the world. I have to say, though… looking at that foreground ice now… I’m wondering how it supported my weight.

Huh.

Mount Rundle, BanffThe spot was perfect as it allowed for several shooting opportunities. Nearby hot springs had kept this body of water open and the stillness made for perfect reflections of the nearby mountains — including Mount Rundle shown at the right. Ice around the edge of the lake provided a good surface to shoot from as well as some nice leading lines and foreground elements. in other areas patches of golden reeds broke the surface of the water giving some nice warm color and a very different look than shots that were dominated by the ice. In the end I was able to grab lots of different images that don’t all look like they were shot in the same place or on the same evening. A very versatile location. What a great way to end a day.

A quick word of thanks to Bob for stopping by and leaving a comment yesterday. It’s always great to hear from you. Hope to see you again one day soon.

Why photographers are late

Moon over Banff

Still having a great time here in Banff on the pre-tour to the Society of American Travel Writer’s Freelance Council conference. Although it says “writers” in the name, there are many photographer members — myself included. This morning a vanload of us were on our way to breakfast when one of the photographers spotted the full moon setting behind these two mountains. The driver was strongly encouraged to stop the vehicle and he politely complied (it is Canada after all).

Insert sound of shutters tripping madly.

A few minutes later, the moon was gone and we made our way to breakfast. A terrific plate of smoked salmon scrambled eggs for me. And we weren’t really THAT late…

Orion over Lake Johnson, Banff

Orion over Johnson Lake, Banff

I arrived in Banff in Alberta, Canada yesterday afternoon to beautiful, clear skies and temps in the 30s (F). Much better than the below-freezing temps and ice storms I left back home.

I took this shot of the constellation of Orion on a moonlit hike on frozen Lake Johnson last evening. I haven’t done a lot of night photography and was surprised by how much difficulty I had focussing (time exposures can mislead — it was much darker out than it appears in the photo). I had to switch to manual focus because it was too dark for the autofocus to lock. Knocking the focus all the way to infinity didn’t result in sharp images, however. I needed to “pull back from the edge” a bit and stop down to use the depth of field to widen my in-focus area. It still seemed hit or miss at times (cold and increasingly numb fingers — and brain — might have also been contributing) but I managed to get a few reasonably sharp images.

Another photographer I was with, Michael DeFreitas, suggested using a fluorescent white balance — something he had learn on shoots in the Antarctic. I have to admit, it did give fairly clean whites and nice rich blues in such dim light. Thanks, Michael. I look forward to getting these back to the big screen in the office to see what detail and color I can pull out of them.

Anyone for ice skating?

fire hydrant

runoff from open hydrantDear city water workers,

I don’t want to tell you how to do your job — and I’m sure that you gave this a lot of thought — but… when the overnight lows are predicted to be 20 degrees below freezing do you really think that it’s the best evening to open the fire hydrant in my yard and let it gush for a few hours? I’m just sayin’.

Oh, and if you see the phone company guys, tell them I LOVE what they were doing with the underground lines last Fall. They will come back in the Spring to fix the massive holes they dug, right? Again… just sayin’. Might make mowing fun come Summer.

Your loyal tax-paying customer.

Life is a blur

Warming up the thoroughbreds

I think I’ve shown other shots from this series on my previous blog but I don’t think I’ve shown this one in particular. It’s from last Spring in Lexington, Kentucky. The jockeys were giving the thoroughbreds their morning warm ups at Keeneland. I was looking for a blurry, almost abstract image and experimented with several shutter speeds to get different amounts of blur. This one was 1/5 of a second at f/14. With speeds that slow I was only getting two or three shots on each pass so it was a bit hit-or-miss.

I’m posting this photo today because – 1. I didn’t want a week to go by without posting (bad me!), and 2. this is kind of how my life feels this week. It’s all a blur. As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be leaving for the Canadian Rockies at the end of the week and I have a lot to get done before I can head to the airport. Usually I use weekends as my compression valve to get things done that I know I won’t have time for during the week but this was a busy weekend as well.

Saturday we attended PodCampMidWest in Kansas City. We met lots of great folks (hey everyone!) and learned a lot about the podcasting industry. This will make more sense to you as the year wears on but consider it a clue to some of the exciting new projects that I hinted are in the works for 2008. More on that later.

Sunday was my chance to hit the office and make some progress but a freakish rain/thunder/snow storm hit and as I was driving downtown around 8:00 in the morning the ice and slush was terrible. I was driving on a straight section of road, not accelerating, not braking, and the car decided to suddenly go into a spin (Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m okay). Time went into slow motion as a brick retaining wall was coming closer and closer but, luckily, no traffic. Finally, my tires got enough grip that I could stop but I was now facing the wrong direction. Seemed like a sign that I should head back home… so I did. Nothing got done at the office that morning but I was able to make it in around noon and crank out a few projects.

Today’s been a blur, too, and looking ahead at the calendar it looks like I’ll need to be at full-power for the rest of the week. Maybe I can sleep on the plane.

So, I’ll try to post again soon and definitely — technology willing — several times from the road. Wish me luck!

Aperture 2 released

Aperture 2

Apple has released a new version of Aperture. I’ve never tried Aperture myself. It looks interesting enough but my poor, aging G5 has never met the minimum requirements to run it. Now, however, it seems Apple has lowered the requirements to the point that I just sneak in. Or I’m reading something wrong. At any rate, I look forward to downloading the free trial and seeing what it can do but it will have to wait. Too much work right now with my trip to Banff just over a week away. Patience, patience…

Odds and ends…

It’s been a busy week with not much time for blogging but I thought I’d add a few links to things that I’ve seen in the last few days that are of interest to the frequent traveler…

• United Airlines is starting a new policy of charging for a second checked bag.

• There was this news that the TSA was insisting that all electronic devices be removed from bags when going through security. Then this clarification on the TSA’s blog. Who knew the TSA had a blog?

• A possible answer to that portable computing device I’ve been wanting? (can you take a possum carcass as carry-on? Would that count as your one personal item?)

Kansas Democratic Caucus

Kansas Caucus

I attended the Democratic Caucus last night and tucked my little Panasonic LX1 into my pocket to grab a few shots of the scene. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it certainly wasn’t the swarms of energetic folks that I encountered. We had over 900 people crammed into one room not counting media and observers. People were chanting and shouting for their candidates — it was great to see so many people excited about politics and the future direction of our country. Let’s hope the enthusiasm continues. It’s going to be an amazing year.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the guy on the chair was listening to the announcements being made on stage and then shouting them into our crowd that was standing to the side. It was impossible to hear the speaker herself. You can also pick out our Governor in the pink jacket behind him and down to the right.

Heading for Canada

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

In just a couple of weeks I’ll be on my way to the Canadian Rockies. I will fly into Calgary (seen above in a two-shot pano I made on film in 2000) and head west to Banff and Jasper National Parks.

I don’t usually get to shoot much over the winter — my areas of focus don’t tend to include winter sports or much of anything snowy — so I tend to get itchy to be back on the road. This year I welcome the chance to make that happen a little earlier than usual. I’ll be attending a meeting of the Freelance Council of the Society of American Travel Writers and assisting with a couple of professional development sessions. And, of course, making time to get some photography in.

So, in addition to my usual workload, I’ll be tracking down anything that’s wandered off from the camera bag over the winter and getting things packed up for what should be a great trip. I’m also trying to get a few more things done on the new website before I go. Today I’ve posted a new slideshow of images from Switzerland. You’ll find the link on my “images” page here.

Nikkor 24mm tilt-shift lens

Nikkor 24mm PC lensNikon has announced new products including a D60 DSLR as a follow-up to the popular D40X. Interesting to a smaller segment of the population is the addition of a 24mm Perspective Control lens. Canon has had one of these for some time while Nikon only offered an 85mm PC lens.

Perspective control, or tilt-shift, lenses have movements that allow you to correct for perspective distortion (Wikipedia has more info). For instance, when shooting architecture from a low angle, you can “straighten” the building so that it doesn’t appear to lean back. Happily, that particular function is now also available in Photoshop. I use the “distort” function to do this but there is also a “perspective” option.

An additional advantage of tilt-shift lenses is their ability to distort the plane of focus. By tilting the front element you can angle the plane that is in focus to artificially create deeper (or more shallow) depth of field. Landscape photographers have been doing this with bellows movements on large format cameras for decades. And then there is the ability to use this effect to take shots that look like tiny models.

Whether any of these uses allows you to justify the rather steep price is up to you but at least those of us on the Nikon system now have a wide-angle, tilt-shift option.