Vacations… bring such wonderful memories. These are the images from our week long trip to the Waterton National Park. There is not much to write that I haven’t wrote before. It’s a beautiful country, where flat prairies turn into high rocky peaks. Where clear streams flow through almost blood red canyon. It’s beauty is unsurpassed, and I just hope I gave it justice with these images.
Enjoy!
Do fairies exist? I wanted to find out with my camera. The results are a little different from the norm. The session proved to be a lot of fun specially when working with a professional model. Kate was just plain awesome! She knew exactly what to do, how to pose … it was perfect. The fuji cameras I was shooting with did not disappoint in the least. The two lenses I was using, 56mm f1.2 and the 23mm f1.4 were great for the task and worked really well. I also had a Canon 580EX flash on hand, but that’s coming up later…. Enjoy!
Having beautiful weather is not always good for landscape photography. The clear blue skies, are great for camping and general merriment of being outside. Personally I prefer a little more things to be happening in the sky above. This though was a perfect day. Rain, sun, clouds rolling in and out of existence. It was almost a matter of pointing the camera in the right direction and just capturing everything. Having a wide angle Fuji 10-24mm f4 lens helped as well. Most of these images are HDR or high dynamic range. I feel that shooting HDR gives me a lot more control over light, specially when shooting sunsets, and pointing the camera towards the sun. I don’t shoot on a tripod, as I find it too restrictive. All are hand held. Enjoy 🙂
Going to the mountains is always associated with a risk of having rain, cold, and not a very pleasant day for photography. Specially when you have to drive about 4 hours. Yes there are weather forecasts, but as more weather “forecasting” becomes almost common place (all you have to look is your smart phone and there are hundreds of apps trying to tell you what the weather is going to be like), the quality of said forecasts diminishes exponentially. So getting up in the morning for the nice long drive to the mountains is always associated with a bit of a surprise of what mother nature can throw at you.
This was exactly one of those days. The clouds hung low, spitting rain from time to time, and then all of a sudden a happy sun would peek out for few minutes. Actually in my opinion is a perfect day for photography in the mountains. Much better than clear blue sky with no cloud in sight. It gives a lot more interest to the beauty of the Rocky Mountains in Jasper Alberta.
Going on trips like that with a fellow photographer (my wife Kasia) brings a bit of a challenge. It’s quite easy to get almost the same images from a trip. Even though we both have different camera systems, she shoots mostly with Sony NEX, I shoot with Fuji X, the lens line up for both is very similar, and does get into the problem of capturing almost the same landscape images. This is where the thinking begins, and not just being trigger happy with the beautiful scenery. After a trip like that I usually end up with far less images. Which is a plus… less editing, less storage needed on the computer, and better quality images overall… I think 🙂
I have completely forgot about out BC Trip last summer. I guess I didn’t finish telling you all about it, and the pictures were just sitting in my dropbox collecting layers of dust. Silly me. So here we are a few last posts from that trip.
We met up with a good friend of ours, Michael Van Der Tol and decided to go for a little stroll down Qualicum beach. It was nearing sunset, so a perfect time, for water, mountains, and sky. Great times!
So it came down to this, last night of vacation, and last night in Nuremberg. It was a good time as any to take go for a little night walk around the old town. Brought the tripod, Fuji XT1 for it WiFi control from the iPhone, and…. a wrong lens. Yep. I thought of bringing the 10-24, but then I thought, that anyone would bring that lens. So I opted to be different, and brought te Fuji 56mm f1.2. It was a struggle. I had to look at things differently, and frame my shots differently. No more wide open space, the frame was tight and long, so I had to think a little more, and cursed under my breath. At the end I even gave up on the tripod. It was taking too long to frame anything on it. So I took the camera off the tripod and relied on the excellent ISO noise control from Fuji, and I wasn’t disappointed. These cameras are wonderful for shooting at night even without a tripod. After all 28 posts and looking through all the images shot, I have learned a bit about the new Fuji XT1, and how it compares to the old X-Pro1… For one it’s not that much different. Of course it’s newer, faster, different design, but the feel of the camera and the pleasure of using it, at least for me, is the same as the X-Pro1. I love using both, and I don’t see myself changing anytime soon. I know that in reality a camera is just a tool, but with Fuji it’s something else. Something special. I feel that every time I pick up the camera.
Most importantly though, it’s not the cameras or the places I’ve seen. It’s the great hospitality of wonderful friends. Being hidden behind our screens, being “social” on various social networks, nothing compares to the human contact. Being there with great friends, means so much more than being “friends” on the interwebs. So a heart felt thank you to you all at Hooked on Europe.
Here are some last photos from Nuremberg.
