All My Blogs

Photo I took while snowshoeing at Big White, showing raw image (lower) and adjusted areas (upper). There are a few things the avid photographer should work at excelling in regarding exposure.  Getting the right exposure is only part of the equation.   Evenly lit scenes, especially under cloudy skies where there are no really bright areas and shadows are soft, rarely present a challenge as modern cameras can capture a properly exposed image with little fiddling, other than perhaps some exposure compensation to deal with an overabundance of dark or light values.  The real trick comes in choosing the right file type and extracting details in areas outside the histogram's range. 1)  File type:  JPEGs typically have about 8 bits of latitude (2^8) as their pixel shades are determined by values from 0-255 in three different channels (RGB).  This means that anything lighter or darker than what can be captured by 8-bit colour will wash out and be completely los...

Photomatix Pro (trial) HDR of Big White using 3 bracketed images I played with the trial version of Photomatix (you can see the watermarks in the image) again and produced an HDR image using three bracketed photos.  Older versions of the program required using jpegs, but version 7 could import the images directly from raw format.  If you compare the above shot to the other one I did (see this blog ), you will notice that the above image is more realistic in its appearance.   Photomatix allows you to pick the degree of surrealism desired.  I chose a high degree of surrealism for the image below - you can see how different it is below. Same image as above, only I used a different blending method to achieve the result. The surrealistic image certainly has a different feeling to it from the more naturalized one above it.  The sharp contrast and saturation appeal to me on an artistic level.  I redid the image to achieve a different effect by using the vibra...

Notice the watermark - I am using a trial version of Photomatix 7.  See below for the bracketing. Seven photos, ranging from +3 to -3 stops from central exposure.  Used HDR software to merge. HDR stands for high dynamic range.  Dynamic range is the spread between white and black, where highlights and shadows can no longer show detail.  Put another way, it is the number of stops a medium has where details can be captured between light and dark values.  At some point, highlights get blown out, where every value is blank, and shadows are expressed as pitch-black. Although modern sensors typically have dynamic ranges between 10 and 14, our eyes can capture differences up to 20 stops.  And that's just what we can see in real life; nature can produce values much greater than that (the brightness of the sun vs the darkest point in a cave).  The fact that a raw image can manage around 14 stops of detail in between highlights and shadows means that most of the ...

View of a junior run at Big White - I used my live histogram display to determine an exposure. I have been snowshoeing a few times, but never on trails quite this challenging.  Big White has several trails for snowshoers.  I was on four named trails that took me a distance of about 6 km.  Now, six km doesn't sound like a lot, but on snowshoes in deep snow, I was done in by the end. The fact that I am somewhat out of shape didn't help.  This fact was brought home to me when I fell sideways into a snowbank and found myself flailing about like a fish out of water.  It took the help of a kindly passerby to extricate me from the humiliating condition in which he found me.  I thought that safety was better than humiliation; besides, I was very tired at the time.  When I got out, I discovered that my snowshoes had managed to find the bottom of a stream.  Thankfully, I didn't get wet. I had hoped to get access to the top of the ski hill to take some photo...

What sorts of things hit airplane windows while flying? You've heard of bird strikes on planes - specifically on their engines causing engine failure and crashes.  But a question came to me - what sorts of things crash into airplane windows - especially those necessary for pilots?  I decided to look it up on the internet.  Here's what I found. Bird strikes are a major problem, not only for engines but for cockpit windows too.  Complete failure is uncommon due to their strong design, but any damage can cause depressurisation at high altitudes.  Fortunately, most bird strikes occur at low elevations. Although it is unlikely for insects to cause significant visual obstructions on pilot windows, they can foul up air speed indicators through building nests inside instrument intakes.  Mud daubers have been known to impair airspeed indicators this way. Hail is known to cause pitting and damage to aircraft, but modern design prevents it from being catastrophic....

Where's bear? - I did a series of photos where Bear was somewhere in the image. I have taught photography for over 30 years now.  I started with film and darkroom, then switched over to digital imaging sometime in the early 2000s.  One of the things I used to do was to have my students photograph "stuffies of some character" in a series of photographs telling a story.  It was always a highlight of the course, and I have to applaud many of the entries as being very well done.   Another thing I did was to take a small stuffed bear and photograph it in a variety of places.  The idea was to use the photos in an exhibition for children.  I have worked with kids for over 40 years and always like having interesting things to engage them.  I have Bear hidden in stores, outdoors, and in the street. I met a lady who travelled to Europe and brought a favourite stuffed toy with her.  She photographed it in numerous famous places with the idea of putting ...

Guisachan Heritage Park in Kelowna - Milk shed window, woodpecker holes, and nest. I visited and photographed some of the buildings at Guisachan Heritage Park today.  Given that my current blogs have been on window photos, I thought I would take some images of those very structures on my excursion.  I came across one that was particularly interesting in that it was nearby evidence of woodpecker activity. You can see just to the left of the above woodpecker nesting hole; there are two holes, likely created by woodpeckers in their bid to extract insects, that have been covered up with something like chicken wire.  This is a problem that some buildings with wooden exteriors have.  Woodpeckers can detect the presence of insects underneath bark or even further into the wood of the tree.  They detect would-be meals by hearing the insect activity, by sensing their vibrations, and by smelling them (albeit to a lesser extent). What's interesting is that the insects may n...

Photographed near McCall, Idaho, in 2008, with my Nikon D70 camera. This easily could have been the photo that started my obsession with windows.  It turns out I also have an obsession with benches, if you caught my earlier blogs on the subject.  But, I have to admit, I love this shot.  Not only that, but it was taken with a 6 mp camera - My first DSLR made by Nikon - and I have made numerous prints of it. This brings up a good question about pixel count.  How many pixels are enough?  With cellphone and some digital cameras, pixel count has gone through the roof.  You can now take 200 mp photos with some Galaxy cell phones, and medium format cameras often provide 100 mp capability.  Full-frame mirrorless cameras are often around 50 mp, with some of Sony's cameras boasting 61 mp.  The truth is, do you really need that many megapixels? My Z7ii has a 45 mp sensor while my D500 is limited to 20 mp.  Yet the truth is that this is often enough....

Geraniums in a window box I liked this photo because of the appealing framing going on with the plants and the tidy nature of the whole scene.  It was the geraniums, though, that really caught my eye.  I quite like them because of the deep red colours of the flowers, the fact that they seem to bloom all year long, and how easy they are to care for.  There are some white ones there too, although I am not a fan of them. I have always liked the colour red in my photos - there is something dramatic about certain shades that always captures my attention.  The scene would be quite bland without the central colour boost to the photo that just adds the right amount of oomph. Although I plant new ones every year, geraniums are easy to take care of over winter.  The key is to remove them from the garden before the first frost and to shake the soil from their roots.  You keep them in a cool, dry place until the spring and replant them.  They have to be cut back s...

Door and window in the Dominican Republic.  Where there is trust, there is no need for locks. When it comes to having things, one of the best things to have is the trust of others.  And the thing about trust is that it is hard to earn and easy to lose.   Think about the people in your life that you trust, not lightly, but with deep conviction.  What is it about them that has led you to this place of confidence in their character?  It has nothing to do with how they look, their bank account, or their popularity.  It is something that has developed over time.  It is based on common experiences and witnessed behaviours that stand out.   There are several qualities that stand out about why you can trust this individual.  They care about you and what happens to you and your loved ones.  They are there when you need them, in whatever capacity.  It is also likely that they are well thought of by others.  If you lend them som...

Detailed view of a building in Antigua at Nelson's Dock Yard. I find that buildings and surrounding landscapes interest me, but not always the entire compound at once.  Rather, parts of a building get my attention, usually doors and/or windows, that are surrounded by colour, patina, or compelling objects. Such is the case above. My wife and I have enjoyed cruising.  The upside is that you get to visit a great many places in a short time; the downside is that each location is often limited by that short time, and so there tends to be lots to explore with little opportunity.  When my eye catches something interesting, I point my camera towards it.  So it was in this case. " Nelson’s Dockyard Marina is the only continuously working Georgian Era dockyard in the world. English Harbour offers one of the most beautiful and safe natural anchorages in the Caribbean. Two hundred years of Royal Navy heritage alongside stunning beaches and modern amenities makes Nelson’s Dockyar...

A gardener in Palm Springs posing for me - I'm sure he's proud of the work he does. When I photograph people, I like to have something that speaks to more than just the person's image.  I often find photographing relationships to be rewarding.  When photographing an individual, I often like to do what I call a character shot. Character photos are less about what someone looks like and are more about who they are as an individual.  This may encompass any number of aspects of traits, but I often find that the best associations are with work or hobbies.  They are almost always photos of an individual, often in a setting where they spend a lot of time or find peace, and something that they have positive feelings towards. In the above photo, I asked the gardener if I could photograph him.  He posed very simply with a pair of shears; there was nothing special about how he stood.  I loved the greenery around him and the flowers in the background.  I used flas...

National Bird Day is only recognized in the Americas.  March 19th is International Migratory Bird Day. There is quite a list of international days recognized by the United Nations.   I pulled some from the whole list that you can see here ; the ones below are just some of the international days for the first 3 months of the year.  Notice that National Bird Day and International Migratory Bird Day are not mentioned.  There are many more days that are recognized that are not celebrated or noted on the given site or below - there must be thousands of them. List of International Days and Weeks World Braille Day 04 Jan International Day of Education 24 Jan International Day of Clean Energy 26 Jan International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust 27 Jan World Wetlands Day 02 Feb International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation 06 Feb International Day of the Arabian Leopard (A/RES/77/295) Interna...

Notice the mite on the ground beetle.  Is it phoresitic or parasitic? My previous blog was on a group of arachnids called oribatid or beetle mites, which are commensalistic organisms that hitch a ride on certain beetles.  They benefit; the beetle is not harmed.  Doing that blog reminded me of some other photos I had taken of a ground beetle (above photo) and a carrion beetle (below) that had mites on them.  I had previously thought they were parasites, but I learned of this behaviour called phoresy in some creatures.  Phoresy is a relationship between two organisms where one travels on the body of another organism without parasitizing it.   Carrion beetle with mites attached (arrows). This brought me to the question, how do you know if a mite is in a parasitic or phoresic relationship with the beetle it is on? Mites, like the oribatid ones in my previous blog, are attached and do not seem to move.  However, they have certain characteristics such ...

Orbatid mites, also called beetle mites, hitching a ride on a white-spotted long-horned beetle. We use horses, donkeys, and ostriches to hitch a ride on, taking us from one location to another.  Such relationships are also common in the animal world between different species.  Orbatid mites, also called beetle mites, belong in this category in that they may attach themselves to certain beetles for a ride.  But, instead of it being just one or two of them, as is often the case, there may be dozens or even hundreds.  From the outside, it looks like the beetle may be parasitized, but the strange thing is, it isn't.  It turns out that this is a commensal relationship. Commensalism is a relationship between two species where one benefits (in this case, the mite) while the other remains unharmed (the beetle).  Other than weighing the beetle down a bit, which really doesn't hurt it much at all, there is no harm.  Some beetles get covered from front to back....

Old farm buildings near Cypress Hills, Alberta Look at the images above and below; both are from the same photo, the above one is how I originally took it, and the other is a significant crop of just the second structure. Crop of second structure from the above image.  Sharpening added. Which do you prefer?  They both have their own appeal, and I could see how an argument could be made for either one.  For me, the answer comes down to what the purpose of the image is.   My general preference is to see the environment surrounding the subject.  It gives context to the location and hints at what is or was occurring.  The top image provides this far better than the lower image.  The advantage of the lower image is that you get more detail of the structure, and the patina of the wood is often pleasing to one's eye.  One of the ways around this is to make a LARGE print - my pigment 17" wide printer at home can make 36" long prints, and I love large...

I photographed this lady in Astoria, Oregon.  She was working on a loom, making a fabric at the time. There are those who begrudgingly go to work, who hate it, but are stuck because it pays the bills and they are not likely to find anything better.  Then there are those who love it because it is what they love to do; going to work is exciting and soulful work.  The difference between the first group and the second often relates to planning and opportunity working in tandem. The planning part has to occur when you actually have some idea of who you are - what defines you in terms of your interests and capabilities.  Many people don't know this until either late high school or, more likely, until sometime in their twenties.  For me, I graduated from high school with a passion for animals of all kinds.  My passion was "critters."  I went to the University of Calgary to get a BSc in Zoology.  I didn't know what would happen after that, but it was cert...

Waterfalls and plunge pool - evidence of erosion and weathering I used to be confused by the two terms - weathering and erosion.  The reason, I suppose, is that they are often mentioned together; you don't typically have one without the other.  And, although related, they couldn't be more different. Weathering is the process by which material is broken down.  This usually involves rock, but could also refer to soil or chemicals that break down or dissolve.  The forces of weathering are water, wind, changes in temperature and pressure, chemistry, and anything else that causes material to break away from a mass. Erosion either follows or is concurrent with weathering.  Erosion is simply the movement of material.  The forces of erosion are water, wind, gravity, and anything else that physically causes stuff to move.   The entire surface of the Earth has been shaped because of weathering and erosion.  Glaciers, waves, mass movement, cave formatio...

My last blog on song sparrows was almost 4 years ago ( variations in song sparrows ).  I wrote it about variations in song sparrows over a large area.  I am redoing the blog because I have more additions to the photos - from four different locations in the northwestern quadrant of North America.   Apparently, there are some 24 subspecies of song sparrow in North America.  Continental variants tend to be more lightly coloured, as you can see from the Kelowna and Lloydminster birds I photographed above.  Coastal variants tend to be more darkly shaded, as you can see by the Nanaimo and Alaska subspecies.   Not only does the feathering differ in the subspecies, the songs vary regionally as well.  They seem to have commonalities in that their songs are divided into 3 or 4 parts, often starting out with a pair of chirps followed by a series of notes, a warbling rattle, and possibly a soft finish.  You can listen to four different songs by clic...