Photo Explorations
Sunsets are lovely. Sometimes they are spectacular! I don’t often take sunset photos, though I have watched many sunsets from inconvenient places – that is, I was driving, or indoors or not otherwise near a photogenic location. And once the sun starts to set, the whole show is over in minutes, so at that point there’s no time to find a good viewing spot.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Often the sky is more colourful after the sun has set.… READ MORE
I am not a portrait photographer, although I am fascinated by faces and I love taking pictures of people. But getting a good photo of someone can be challenging. For one thing, despite the popularity of “selfies”, many people still shy away from the camera. At the same time, I think we are all drawn to images of faces, including our own, as they can reveal a lot about us.
These two images are both portraits of strangers and are taken using natural light and my X100F, a 35-mm-equivalent fixed lens Fujifilm camera.
I took the photo of the man on the right during a Street Photography workshop with Eric Kim in Montreal this past November.… READ MORE
It started with one word: “cold”. I was browsing Instagram on Saturday morning and found a photography challenge on the theme “cold”. I pushed aside my cosy throw blanket, stood up from the couch and looked out the window — snow and ice and bright sunlight — it was a beautiful winter day! So I thought, easy, I just have to step out the door and take a photo.
But snow doesn’t always mean cold. It can be above zero in the winter – I was overheating last week on our snowy walk through the park – and if I was going to go outside on a frigid day, I wanted to show how cold it actually felt.… READ MORE
After days of bitter cold, the temperature has risen to above freezing, and we are glad to get out of the house. The ice that coated roads and sidewalks is melting, the snow in the park is perfect for walking, and the dogs are full of energy. We follow a trail down into a valley. I see a frozen brook in the woods, and stop to take photos…
This could be a post about the reasons to always carry a camera with you (Reason #1: to record memories). Or I could write about Rockwood Park, one of the largest (if not the largest) municipal parks per capita in Canada.… READ MORE
As much as I love exploring new locations, there are some special spots that I visit time and time again. The Sackville Waterfowl Park is one of my favourite places.
The park is easy to find, it is right beside the Trans-Canada Highway near the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border. We always pull off the highway at Sackville to gas up and take a break when we are heading down to Halifax.… READ MORE
Sylvia counted her strides, each sweep of her skates making a crisp snick as it cut into the ice. One, two, three – then a quick spin in the other direction – one, two, three. If she lengthened her glide, she could reach the end of her tiny ice rink in two strides and a bit, but that required an awkward series of half-hopping steps to fit in the turn at each end. Besides, she liked the efficiency of three-turn-three.
Over the steady sound of her skates on the ice, she could hear a few words carried on the breeze.… READ MORE
Simplification is a useful approach in life and photography. Simply put, less is more. It’s easy to be complicated, much more challenging to winnow down the distractions to focus on just one thing.
Snow helps. Compositionally speaking, snow covers over all the non-essential elements even better than using a wide aperture. Soft focus has its uses, but snow is more minimalist, plus falling snow creates a lovely fog-effect in the background.
For this diptych, I found two elements that go well together and are a similar shape and weight: a leaf, and our dog Savvy (short for Savannah).… READ MORE