As a photographer I love an opportunity to test myself, to capture something rarely seen or rarely occurring. After all isn't that what we all started out to do, to capture and keep those wonderful moments that life provides as we stumble along our own pathway through it. So it will be no surprise to see I made an effort at capturing the transit of Mercury today.
Our sun doesn't rise early enough at this time of year to capture a 'start - middle - end' sequence, so the transit was already well underway when we got our view of it. I'm not sure it really matters so much as the images are not something to pour over, but it is a great memory to capture. I already had a solar filter from my 2017 eclipse shoot so why not put it to use. I set up my 100 - 400 mm lens with a 2x extender on it giving me 800 mm, then I set aside the 5d and used the 7d mkII to take advantage of the crop sensor providing an additional 0.6 multiplier which gave me an overall lens equivalent of 1280 mm. I struggled with thin cloud and haze between me and the target but still managed to capture a few reasonable shots of the event. So, my image today is not the usual fare, it's another planet speeding past, approximately 75 million km away from earth. The background is a spectacular star made of hot plasma 150 million km away. It shows the scale of the sun when you realise that Mercury is 5000 km in diameter and the sun is twice as far away, what a spectacular place we live in, and what wonders it provides.
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I have always been one to plan a shoot when possible, sunrise in particular requires some additional effort to ensure you don't crawl out of bed at the crack of dawn for nothing. Having said that we all have some planned locations in our heads just waiting for the right conditions. That is what happened to me last week when I awoke very early and decided to take advantage of the situation by capturing the sunrise.
For some time I have envisioned a sunrise shot of a lake about 90 minutes from home, it has a long wooden jetty and a bird hide at the end which would make a nice foreground and leading line. It's in the middle of the prairie with no obstructions to the glorious red/orange light of dawn and would provide the obvious reflection that completes the image. So, bags packed and away I go, picking my way through ice covered roads in absolute darkness. I'm already imagining a shot of the stars and potentially the milky way as the clear skies twinkle overhead. When I reach the gated entrance to the dirt road that leads to my chosen location, it's locked, I had made absolutely no plans for this. I failed to check if the lake had seasonal opening, I failed to check for a secondary shoot location 'just in case' and I failed to allow enough time to find a second location. As I stood in the darkness looking around I wasn't hopeful and seriously considered driving home empty handed, but that's a long way for nothing. I opted to continue driving east in the hope of finding something to shoot. I know little of the area and as I drove along searching I saw the colour appearing on the horizon, I had to find something. Suddenly I came across a dirt road off the main highway with a long view of a tree lined driveway, it's not much but it's something. So, as the sun rose and the morning light filled the prairie skies I set up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with the 70 -200 mm and fired off a few frames. I knew it wasn't a great image, and I knew the framing was 'off' but I had resigned myself to the task rather than miss the light entirely. It was, as it always is, fantastic to be out watching the sunrise and though I didn't make much of an image I did make something so decided to share it. Lesson learned you might think, but we all know I'll be making this mistake again at some point in the future. I always seem to be torn about what to post on the blog, its' a constant search for something I never quite seem to find, so I end up thinking 'I'll go with this'. But not today, today I've been adding to the portfolio and one of the additions to the landscape section is this stark image of the 'Top of the Tetons'. Obviously I made the image in Grand Teton National Park in wonderful western Wyoming.
I've also added a Fine Art section to the portfolio recently. I don't want to get into a long winded discussion about what exactly constitutes 'Fine Art'. What I will say is that, for me at least, it is about the photographers eye. It's about seeing and capturing something ordinary in a less ordinary way, mostly, it's about the beauty of simple things. For those who bemoan the fact that they live in a 'boring' place, take a look at the fine art section of my portfolio and it might just trigger a change in your approach to the simple things we see every day. Regulars to the site will have noticed the new header here on the blog page. I went to one of my usual shooting locations in kananaskis looking for a nice mirrored sunset, unfortunately the lake was not playing along and huge wind driven waves eliminated any hint of reflection.
Rather than seeking a new location entirely, I sought a new perspective on an old topic. My usual shooting spot was useless given the conditions, and my 'go to' wide angle lens just brought in the dark waters of the lake with no reflection at all, making a dull and uninteresting foreground. I decided to climb to higher ground and set up the tripod with the 70 - 200 mm f2.8 and a 0.9 ND graduated filter to balance the dynamic range between the light, sun kissed mountains and the dark shadows of the mountainsides on the east side of the lake. I added my polariser to control the reflection from the white snow and further separate the mountains from the sky above. I levelled the tripod precisely (not usually my way) to allow me to make panoramic shots with little effort. I initially didn't like the solid black of the forest in the lower portion of the image, but a change in composition left me enjoying the stark contrast from top to bottom of the shot. The small cloud bank that crept through between the peaks added something to the shot but if I'm to be honest I would have liked a little more of it. Having said that, I found a 'keeper' from an disappointing start and that's always a good thing. Shooting in black and white is an art form itself, I see black and white as a genre all on its own. It's difficult to see images in monochrome and it is a skill that needs to be rehearsed like any other. For me colour will always be my main focus because I love it.
I love the vibrance and the additional elements colour brings to my shots but that doesn't mean I'm entirely unaware of the stunning graphic nature of good solid black and white images. It is the very absence of colour that strengthens these shots and simplifies the topic for the viewer, forcing them to see exactly what you were seeing when the image was made. After some consideration, I have added a category of black and white to my Series 5 project as I feel I have five strong images to share. For those who are unfamiliar with the project it is a collection of five images based around a topic. It's something I have really enjoyed creating and continually add to the collections when possible. The page can be accessed using the link in the paragraph above or via the Tips & More section of the site. I now have eight galleries covering a variety of topics which will I continue to grow as time, and images, allow. Yesterday I found myself wide awake at 04:30. I contemplated enjoying a morning movie and cup of tea in the warmth and comfort of my bed but couldn't resist checking the sunrise predictor just in case. There was nothing definitive in the prediction but the potential was enough to pique my interest, so I packed the gear and set out to Kananaskis.
The Wedge Pond, beside highway 40, is a familiar location for me so it was an easy decision to pull into the parking area there and cut the engine. With the wonderful silence of the morning returned, I stepped out into the frosty air and pulled on the hiking boots. It's a very short walk from the parking area to the pond but a three day winter storm had dumped plenty of snow over the weekend and night temperatures of -10 had firmed up the ground, hence the boots. I was a little concerned that the storm might have seen off the last of the birch leaves but enough remained to make the shot work well. Much of the snow had melted and a soft mist rose from the perfectly calm water, the sunrise was indeed brief but the surrounding mountains still managed to bathe their tips in the golden light in the short time available. I made a number of shots and walked the circumference of the pond making more as time moved on. Ultimately I chose to post this image because the vivid colours of the golden birch leaves reflected in the still waters of the pond, perfectly match the brief morning sunlight captured by the surrounding mountain peaks. It was a beautiful scene and one I would have missed had I opted for that morning movie and the comfort of a warm bed. After a week of badgering from people wanting to see more of the images mentioned in my last post, I have opted to post this wider view of the area to show the stunning conditions beneath the passing storms. It was a spectacular scene and one I was ill equipped to shoot at the time (I was out for a hike not a photo shoot).
Even with my lens limitations on the day, I couldn't let images like this one get away, so I opted for my tried and trusted 'handheld panoramic' technique. It's something I still use quite often and it really is as simple as the description might suggest. I take up a good shooting stance (I am the tripod here). Once comfortable I make a series of images across the envisioned shot leaving around a third overlap. In very complex scenes I will often leave half an image as overlap but usually one third is perfect. I've made images this way for over a decade and it has always been successful in terms of producing the anticipated result. You must ensure that you leave sufficient space above and below the frame for the slight variances in camera height as you turn, but careful work will require little effort to stitch together later. As you can see below (click for larger) the snow was flying from the dark skies over Highwood Pass, but there was enough break in the cloud behind me to illuminate the stunning autumnal larch trees on the flanks of Pocaterra Ridge.
I have a lot of bird activity in my garden at home in Canada and often have hawks, eagles and falcons swooping by for brief viewings. Rarely do they stop and rest in the yard. On occasion they rest on the fence some way from the house, but usually they are just chasing prey through the air.
This week was different, not only did this beautiful Merlin take rest in the garden, he did so right on top of the bird feeder within a few feet of the dining room window. Obviously I grabbed the camera and fired off dozens of shots in both landscape and portrait formats as he posed for several minutes. I chose this one to share because it has great separation from the background and a real intensity in the stare as well as some nice feather detail. Not my usual thing but could any photographer resist such an opportunity? |
Chris WaltersYou can read more about me in the 'about' section in the menu above, on the homepage, or by clicking here
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