Beautiful British Columbia - Part 5 - Travel Photography

Our adventure with travel photography continues.  Some of what we saw before you can check out in my previous post: Beautiful British Columbia - Part 4 - Travel Photography. We've spent a couple of gorgeous evenings at Chesterman Beach. It is one of only a few places on this end of Vancouver Island (close to Tofino) where you can enjoy a sunset.  It was a bit chilly with a strong wind picking up sand that was showering us mercilessly and I was glad I took both my cameras with me, because I wouldn't dare to change a lens in those conditions. And there was a lot of things to capture and without my 200mm lens I would miss out on a lot of shots.. But even if I was there without them I would still enjoy both evenings a lot. It is so relaxing to walk on a beach, watch other people going on their strolls, listening to the waves crashing around you.  Add to it a beautiful sunset and you are in for a treat! Here is a few shots from both  outings. I hope you enjoy!

Kasia

To be continued..

The Wait Is Finally Over!

I am sure, you remember me mentioning a few times over the winter (Missing Summer Skies.. Part 1 and Missing Summer Skies.. Part 2) the fact that I have been missing the beauty of summer skies.  It's been such a long time, since we have had something interesting to look at during daytime hours as well as mornings and evening that when I saw what was happening outside yesterday I was up and about with the camera enjoying myself immensely.  The warm temperatures brought with it fluffy clouds yesterday afternoon and I took our puppy for a walk in a neighborhood off leash park hoping to capture some of them.  Oh, what a gorgeous walk it was!! I was hoping that the sky would cooperate during sunset as well and guess what! It did!! We didn't have much time to go in search of a location and decided to use "our" field close to the city. The melted snow left a huge puddle at the edge of this field and it happen to beautifully capture reflections of the sky, of which we took a great advantage ;D.  Here is a few shots of yesterday's beauty.  Hope you guys find it as enjoyable as did I! Kasia

Winter Sunrise with Hoar Frost and Mists

I woke up yesterday to a promise of a beautiful sunrise.  Not having been blessed with those very often this winter I decided to go to my favorite spot by the river with my camera and see what I can find.  It was beautiful!! Cold temperatures combined with rather high humidity caused formation of hoar frost on all the trees and weeds and the beautiful pink light from the rising sun was just breathtaking.  Such a glorious morning!!! Gives us a bit of hope that the world is not such a bad place, regardless of the horrifying news coming from around it... Kasia

Missing the Beach - When the Weather Turns Cold

It's been rather chilly outside lately and my thoughts are drawn to the memories of Spain and beach, hot sun and waves.. I have been slowly going through some more photos from our April trip to Spain (I did bring a couple of thousand of them back, after all...) and I thought I'd share some of the images of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea and the beach in Almerimar, where we've spent some time enjoying the sun, waves and pebbles, not mentioning a beautiful sunset. So here they are, with my hope that they'll warm all of us up just a bit ;D.  Enjoy! Kasia

Yup! Fall is here...

Summer is over. Not only by the calendar but you can see the colours changing almost in front of your eyes out there and turning the recently green world into a myriad of golds, yellows, oranges and reds.  Since the day was wonderfully sunny and warm yesterday we have pretty much spent it all outside on photo shoots.  First we've decided to check Elk Island for morning mists (which have never showed up, BTW), than I took a walk about the neighbourhood with my camera and then, towards the evening, we have taken off to check out the countryside again... Wherever we went the colours were there. In just a couple of weeks everything has changed... Let's start with a sunrise at Elk Island:

And here is a few shots from the city, which is also quickly changing it's colours:

The morning sun has highlighted everything beautifully bringing out the colours and shapes of fall  :).  And , as the day progressed towards the evening and we took a ride in the country, the evening sun has brought out the colours out even more..

Our luck held and we were given a beautiful sunset to enjoy as well, with a big sun on a hazy sky giving the world a beautiful glow..

As you can see, the signs of fall are everywhere. The gathering of birds that are already flying south, the colours of leaves and ripe fruit on the trees, the general feel of the world are all crying out: Fall is here!!!   I'm going to enjoy it as long as I can hoping, that the frost and winds won't come too early and cause the beautiful leaves to fall and leave the world naked and monochromatic again..

Kasia

Harvest Time on the Prairies .. Part 2

Harvest time is quite beautiful around here. I have shared some of my pictures in my post Harvest Time on the Prairies some time ago.  Today I would like to share some of the images from our most recent trip.  We have planned this trip into the country for a week and were a bit disappointed when the day turned rather cloudy in the afternoon and we weren't sure if we would be able to get any interesting shots. Regardless, we still have decided to go and explore the countryside.  We got lucky, yet again ;D, and were rewarded with a wonderful sunset.  There was a lot of activities on the fields. Everybody was rushing to get as much done as they could before the rains.  All this harvesting has caused a lot of dust to lift in the air and since there was no wind all countryside was covered with clouds of it hanging around the fields covered with interesting patterns...

The dust created a bit of a haze, that did interesting things to the light...

Watching a beautiful sunset on the prairies is always amazing (I mean, just look at that big sky!!!) and this time we were not disappointed either.  So beautiful!!

Kasia

Sunrise at the Meadow

We woke up this morning before the sun was up and decided to go out for a short photo trip.  We were too late to drive far away from the city so we've decided to go to a nearby field and see what will happen... The landscape was not very appealing and there was no clouds to make the sky look interesting so I decided to concentrate on something else.  Here is a few shots fresh from the press.  Enjoy! :D

Aren't sunrises beautiful?! ;D

Kasia

Golden Hour at Elk Island

Elk Island National Park is a great place to take your family to for a few hours of close contact with nature or a loving couple for a little romantic photo shoot. Not only it's peaceful and quiet there but you can experience an amazing golden hour, of which, I was taking a shameless advantage every time I was able to.  Here is a little collection of shots I have taken this summer during that wonderful time of day when the sun hangs low above the Astotin Lake.

It's gorgeous out there and when the sun gets low in the sky the world turns magical. I hope these images will bring you as much pleasure as they  bring me and I am sure I will gladly be coming back to them when the cold winter months arrive...

Kasia

Alberta Sunrise

It's been quite a while when I took these images.  I'm just going through my backlog of images that I haven't posted yet.  To my surprise there is quite a lot of them.  I've been too busy lately with weddings, and other client work.  I think it's time to start catching up.  I've been shooting exclusively with my Fuji X-Pro1, and I really really like using that camera.  Also I've been going around and pilfering old Pentax lenses, from around my town.  I have an adapter for the lenses for both my Fuji and my Sony NEX-7.  They are really great lenses.  All manual, but with a bit of practice, they are still very much usable. These images were taken quite a while ago, a few months to be exact.  It was an early morning rise, about 3:30am.  My wife and I, drove up to this little abandoned farm, which is a perfect setting for sunrises.  We spend good couple of hours walking around trying different angles.  It was a great time.  Here are some images from that morning.  Enjoy!

Celebrating Canada Day

It's a tradition in our family, if the weather cooperates, to invite some friends and go and watch fireworks display on Canada Day evening. We tend to go early to find a good spot for pictures and spend as much time enjoying outdoors as possible.  This year was no different. Mind you, the day started with a downpour and a storm and, for a while, we were not sure there would be fireworks at all. But, as usual, our luck held and the sky cleared out so we packed our picnic supplies and went out to a spot that gave us a wonderful view of the Edmonton downtown.  There was not many people there when we arrived and we have had plenty of room to set up our stuff. The sun was shining, the sky was great and mosquitoes were not bothering us too much ;)

As you can see we've had plenty of time to experiment and enjoy ourselves ;D..  As time went by and the sky was getting darker more and more people started to show up and eventually a crowd has gathered to watch the spectacle:

We were very lucky this year, because Nature decided to compete with human display and the lightning started to highlight the sky behind the downtown adding to the awesome display! Soo cool!!! Eventually, when the fireworks display was over, we were the only people left on the hill, watching Mother Nature's show as well as a cool effect that smoke from fireworks and city lights have created.

Cool stuff, I tell you! Hope you have spent your evening as pleasantly as we did!

Kasia

Magical World

We have been very lucky again the other day to wake up to the world covered in fog.  If you follow our blog you'll notice this is the second time this year!!  I was not able to go out before dawn, but I have managed to get a few shots from my window. What a treat that was!! The colours of pre-dawn sky with wisps of fog on the streets! Gorgeous! Later on that day, I took my cameras out and got completely lost in the magic of the moment.  I share these images with you in hope that you'll enjoy them, at least, as much as I enjoyed capturing them.  Go ahead! Get lost in the magic with me! It's so worth it!! :D

Kasia

Foggy suburbia

Dreamy world

Gotta go to work..

World in a fog

Hacks and early mornings

LP2C0023-Edit

It seems that my site alongside a whole bunch of others got hacked over the weekend.  I have absolutely no words for that.  None.  I knew I had a backup of my entire site, and I knew that my host provider has those backups as well.  So was I worried? Nope, not at all.  So in the morning, as planned, I grabbed my gear and headed out to my favourite spot, Elk Island National Park.  Personally I was hoping for more dramatic sunrise, but the skies were clear.  There were some lingering mists, and these provided some nice mood.   So here is one of the pictures taken with my old 1D MKII, as I hardly take the new Canon 7D out anymore.  With all the focusing problems that 7D has..... ah but we'll leave it for the next time I think.... so enjoy the bright sunny morning.

Bubble Girl

The story of happy, bubble girl, as she gazed in amazement at the light dancing inside these little bubbles of water.  The delicate sound of pops, as they floated with the breeze with smiles and wonder.  Through the greens of the fields, and high of the trees, she smiled and laughed at their exquisite poetry and chaos of motion. Then she picked up their song, and in the light of the fading sun, she danced, lost in the breeze.

Nature in the wild - Part 3

One of the reasons to go to Elk Island National Park is definitely the sunsets.  Every single one is different.  To challenge myself I decided to shoot them with different lenses.  Not only wide angle at 17mm, which I have to say is one of my favorites, but also at 200mm and in between.  Here are some, shot at different lengths.  Enjoy!

Beauty in Digital

Here are some photos from the last photos session with Deb, but this time in digital. Enjoy!

Tribute to Winter

I figured that maybe if I post a tribute to our long and cold winter, she would finally get a hint and let spring in.  Crossing my fingers.  These photos were taken on a little morning trip with a couple of photographic friends of mine.  We just drove around the country side.  All these were taken with my micro 4/3 with manual Minolta lenses.  Enjoy.

Boudoir in the morning light

Quite a while ago, I had another great opportunity to photograph a very lovely mom.  She said she was doing the boudoir photography as a gift, but I have a suspicion that it was also a wonderful ego boost.  She allowed me to post a few images from this great session.  I have to say though, that nothing can substitute the look on her face when she saw the finished images.  I'm very glad I was able to capture these for her.  Enjoy.

Colours of summer past...

This winter has been dragging it's feet, and specially this month of January has been pretty drab, and black & white.  Haven't seen a lot of sun or blue sky this month, so I want to add some colour to the blog right now.  These are photos taken last summer during various outings in Edmonton.  As you can see, we can have some colour in the summer time.  Enjoy!

Of Alberta skies, clouds and spring Part 2

Continuing the little road trip post from yesterday, here my favourite pictures from the trip.

Of Alberta skies, clouds and spring

Plans... planning outside activities during Alberta spring, is like throwing a dart at a dart board, blindfolded and standing on your head.  That's precisely what happened last week.  Randy Pond and me were planning and interesting shoot last friday with 3 models.  During that week the weather has been gorgeous, with lots of sun and temperatures going as high as +26C. By Friday it all changed.  Temperatures went down to barely +9C with lots of cold wind.  We were waiting to the last minute for the weather to improve.  I even packed all my gear into my vehicle before going to work that Friday.  Unfortunately because of the cold wind with heavy hearts we decided to cancel the shoot.  Since I had all my gear I figured that I might as well use some of it.

As per Mr. Murphy and his laws the sun came out and the clouds were dispersing creating fantastic shapes.

Since the plans were for a model photo shoot, one thing I left at home was my wide angle lens.  So I had to use my 24-70mm.  Don't get me wrong 24mm is plenty wide, but personally I love the field of view I get with the 17mm.

So although the initial plans bit the dust, I didn't come out empty handed.  To be continued....