New shots from Chilliwack

The Fraser Valley is truly a remarkable place to live. Every day can be an inspiration to go out and shoot. Today I had the opportunity to wander about with a very good friend and fellow photographer Walter. Here are a few of the shots I'm sharing tonight.

Over the next couple of posts I will do tutorial style from camera to post.

Stay Tuned.

A Question of Perspective

Photographs can be very subjective. I slight change in crop, or a tilt of the camera can take the same subject and change the entire emotional feel of a photograph. Read this week's blog for some examples of this very thing.

A photo is the creation of an incredible moment. That moment might be happy, sad, thought provoking, or any other emotion you as the photographer would like to convey. But how exactly do you convey that message. It's all a question of perspective.







 Take for example the photo here. I feel like I'm being drawn in wanting to see what's around that little jog in the path. What wonders will I find in this overgrown greenery?











Now these two are interesting, the same model, and the same location two very different emotions. On the right the model is looking at something to his right. We don't know what it is but he is obviously curious about it. This opens up the viewer's mind to wonder what is interesting just out of view. Similar to the path above but no longer in the first person.




The photo below gives the feeling of sadness and depression. By shooting just above the subject and removing any reference of greenery, and focusing on the graffiti, we now have a sad depressed individual who we worry about.

There it is in a nut shell. A question of perspective. 3 photos, two of the same location and subject, but with entirely different emotions, feeling, and interpretations.





Let me know what you see and feel in the comment section below. I'm sure your perspective will be different than mine.

Where The Heck Have I Been

Well it has been a long long time since I last blogged. I know you were starting to think, Oh Yeah another fly by night blogger, Here today and gone forever. For that I apologise. When I started I said you would be joining me on a journey. That journey has highs and lows, good and bad. So the last few months have been a low for my blogging inspiration, my photo inspiration, and really just in general blocked creatively and that SUCKS.

 Now I am back. Sit back relax and see where we go next.

Mount Slesse

Mount Slesse

These photos are what broke my slump.

Driving my child to school every morning I see the majestic Mount Slesse in the distance. It is nestled in its own frame of lower hills in front and the sky behind is breath taking this time of year. With this in mind I set out to capture the vision I have had of this picture for months.

You see this is the way of discovery.

 I visualised this photo over and over in my head. Other photographers talk or write of doing this but I seem to have been missing that element. Pre-visualization.  Then I heard an article on the radio that spoke about the need for long term self-visualization as being the journey to creativity.

While taking these photos I became more excited than I have for some time about shooting. Every frame, every click of the shutter and there on my LCD display was exactly what I had seen before I ever heard the click.

That was the journey, the reason I have been away for the past few months, and I have no regrets. Coming out on the other side has left me rejuvenated, excited, and more creative than I ever have been.

I look forward to sharing with you more of this journey as time goes by and remember if you are in your creative slump look at the pictures in your mind and leave your camera in the bag for a while. You won’t regret it, I know I haven’t.

Destination Photography: Hell's Gate

Nestled in the Cascade Mountains, Hell's Gate is located two and a half hours away from Vancouver it is well worth the journey. If you start out early in the day, you can arrive easily by opening at 10 a.m. and even have time for a coffee and snack in the picturesque town of Hope on your way up the Trans-Canada Highway.
In terms of a view (and the resulting photos) this location is awe-inspiring; more water carves its way through this narrow Fraser River canyon than goes over Niagara Falls each day.

The main attraction is the air tram spanning the river, and as you board you can hear the thundering water. The sound isn't all that surprising, considering 200 million gallons of water per minute crushes between the sides of the gorge. On the day I visited, the river's water level was 120 feet deep, and this was at the end of July when high water is already down considerably.


At the other end of the air tram is a quaint and very informative interpretive centre. There are things to see and do for all ages, which kept my family occupied nicely while I devolved into my natural shutterbug state.


I made a point to wander out over the river on the suspension bridge and made full use of the late morning lighting to photograph the river and the fish ladders (see right). These fish ladders are designed to help salmon make their journey up the Fraser to their spawning grounds; they're designed to slow the water down so the fish can have an easier time getting through the gorge, where the water gets a little rough and rowdy as it pushes through.


After I finished with the suspension bridge I wandered through the displays. I found the Chinese history exhibit (dedicated to all the workers that helped build the bridge and the bordering rail lines) particularly interesting. While my family wandered around, I took advantage of the fact that we were the only ones there to get down and dirty and take some interesting shots of the artefacts. This is one of the benefits of starting out early and on a weekday: you can sneak shots in without getting in anyone's way or having to wait for a passerby to get the heck out of your shot.


Other than these photo opportunities, I have to wax poetic on lunch. I had an amazing bowl of salmon chowder, which was the best I have ever eaten, and a very large cheeseburger and fries that tasted like they had coerced a master chef into the tiny kitchen. Even if you're not a chowder kind of a person, just trust me and order a bowl. It was creamy, well-seasoned, and they weren't shy about adding the salmon. Perfect!

After lunch, I took some time with the family to check out the fudge factory. Yes, you heard me: a fudge factory. They had 23 different kinds when we were there, and I cleaned them out of the last of their espresso crunch fudge (which I can't stop eating, and now my wife has instituted a lunch-before-fudge rule).

Anyway there are many other things to check out and see, and a ton of great photo opportunities. Sometimes you don't have to go very far to find a completely new location and snap some dramatic pics, and I recommend you check out your own nearby tourist locations. Even if you roll your eyes at the thought of playing tourist, you shouldn't discount the opportunities waiting for you in your own neighbourhood. Tourist attractions draw tourists for a reason, and you can up your game by playing tourist with an SLR instead of a point-and-shoot or camera phone.

If you find yourself heading to Hell's Gate, I recommend bringing a wide-angle lens to grab more of that great landscape, a telephoto lens to zoom in on details that other tourists are likely to miss, definitely a tripod to help steady your shots and maybe set up some timed family portraits (including you), and last but not least, a big appetite for fudge.