All My Blogs

Left:  Praying mantis photos from Oregon (top) and Florida (bottom).  Right:  Kelowna (my yard). My favourite insect is the praying mantis.  As a boy, I caught dozens of them in Ontario.  I never saw any while living in the Lower Mainland, but did manage to get photos of them in Oregon and Florida (insets).  Since we have been living in Kelowna, I have caught three or four, one just a few days ago (right image, taken with iPhone 15 Pro).  I haven't seen them for a while, not since our cold snap a few years back that killed the stone fruit for the year.  I had wondered if the insects had survived. The one I found recently was a juvenile (nymph); it was two, maybe two and a half, inches long.  It had another two moults to undergo before becoming an adult.  Oddly enough, it was sitting beside my front door when I saw it.  I took it to my backyard where it was placed on a raspberry plant.   The colour of an European praying ma...

The Lordco Ladies photographed at Kelowna's Canada Day Celebration, 2026. Backlighting is a constant issue for photographers, regardless of whether your subject is human, animal, vegetable, or mineral.  Averaging light renders the foreground dark.  Exposing for the foreground leaves the background overexposed and incurs bloom.  Exposing for the background and filling with flash is often the best way to go, if you have a powerful enough flash.  But what if none of those options work for you?  What solution do you employ? Exposing for the background, especially when it is significantly out of focus as above, makes no sense, so having it slightly overexposed is fine.  This will leave the foreground modestly underexposed, but there is enough latitude in raw dark values to lighten them using a pixel editor like Photoshop.  Lightroom will do the same thing, as will iPhone editing software (although I find that iPhone raw images do not have the save dynamic r...

Kathryn nestled up inside the "O" of the Kelowna sign by the waterfront. We moved to Kelowna five years ago.  We have discovered the city has a lot to offer, and not just during the summer.  Certainly, Kelowna is known for its vibrant summer life.  Beaches, celebrations, eateries, trails, and easy access to the Okanagan and Shuswap.  But it is the winters that I particularly like. With a climate in between Vancouver's oceanic conditions and Alberta's frozen, 8-month-long winter, the Okanagan has mild, dry winters that facilitate outdoor activities and good driving conditions.  Traffic is better too; the large number of summer visitors often results in long drive times between local destinations.  In winter, the reduced population renders most in-city trips to less than 15 minutes. I have written quite a lot on things to do in Kelowna.  Some of my links are below. Canada Day Okanagan Rail Trail Okanagan sunflowers Walking trails in the winter Knox Mount...

It is always a good idea to pay attention to the backgrounds of your photos.  It's easy to get caught up in the moment, especially when shooting at public gatherings where time and opportunity are fleeting.  Such was the case during the Canada Day celebration in Kelowna when I was photographing people.   Photographers love control.  We love to control light, subjects, camera settings, and activity around our shoot.  The one thing we have the most control over is our own position.  Street photography is all about capturing the moment, the person being in their element, and their story.  Positioning yourself to capture them relative to a desirable background is important. The second thing you have direct control over is the equipment you use and the settings.  For the image above, I used my 135 f/1.8 Nikon Z lens and chose an aperture of f/1.8 to make the background blurry.  There is enough detail in it to give some context as to where the...

Little girl trying to feed a duck - at the Kelowna Canada Day celebration. A photo can be about what something looks like, but it can also be about an event that is unfolding.  It makes me think of Gary Larson's The Far Side , where each panel is about some event that will happen, is happening, or had happened.  The purpose of his work is to elicit humour, while most of us are taking a snapshot of a moment in time that conveys an action or sentiment. While a video shows exactly what happens and leaves little to the imagination, a single image allows one to project cause or effect.  The challenge is in capturing that moment, and there is no better way to do that than to take a series of photos and use the one that best defines the event. There are pros and cons to this, as the perfect moment in time may be only a fraction of a second.  Dozens of images may be captured, each being achieved with a press of the shutter button or choosing a release mode that captures imag...

Left:  Mill Creek Falls.  Right:  My friend, Charles, and his dog, Randy. As falls go, they're not very impressive.  Yet, that's what makes them all the more inviting.  Not too high, not too much current, and a plunge pool just the right depth.  If the water were a little warmer, you would find people jumping into the basin ( click here to see my blog on that subject). It was warm yesterday, reaching the mid 30's.  The path to the falls isn't very long, maybe a 15 minute walk, but it is pleasant and filled with the sound of birdsong.  And then there is the sound of water.  See the video below that I took of the falls, and listen to the soothing sound of water as it cascades over the precipice.  The second part of the video was taken above the falls, with the water tumbling along its rocky path. My friend, Charles, and I have always enjoyed hiking trails.  We have done the West Coast Trail together (twice), the Juan de Fuca Trail, a...