The snow is mostly gone, here on the prairies, but it will be some weeks before we see greenery and flowers blooming. I can’t wait! It has been a long winter and I sure could use a bit of color. Late spring or early summer images are great for it because all is fresh and green is bright and not dimmed by dust of late summer days.
We are lucky here in Alberta, because some nights are full of light show. We had a couple of gorgeous Aurora showing last fall and I have managed to capture some shots without leaving the city.
I know, I know it is winter and everybody posts winter photography, but I am not ready for it yet. I see it outside my window every day, so I want to see something warm, colorful and pretty. Hope you are in need of this as well.
It has been a while since I’ve posted anything about Elk Island National Park. So, I think, it is time for some lovely sunset from the beginning of summer, when all was green, flowers were blooming and days were warm and long.
Our fall colors, here in Alberta, don't last too long. We consider ourselves lucky if we get them for a couple of weeks in their full glory, thus, if we have a moment to spare we go shooting. There is something magical about the light during that time of year that makes me want to go and explore, even if it is only a neighborhood park.
I love visiting Rockies in summer! Just the fact that one can explore without layers of clothes to keep one warm is so appealing. No need to worry about road conditions and closures, no need for heavy winter gear. There are things, of course, one needs to prepare for such a trip. Bug spray, sun screen, lots of water, snacks and a jacket or a sweater - we are visiting mountains, after all, are a must. Good pair of shoes and a bear spray are a good idea as well, especially when one thinks about hiking.
I'm not very happy that summer passes so quickly in these parts.. There is not enough time to take full advantage of it, however, we do what we can. This year we have had a rare opportunity to take some of my family and friends along for a trip to the Rockies. It was a wonderful adventure, though there was not much time for fine art photography. There is simply not enough time to wait for a perfect light / conditions, especially when you try to cram as many places to show your visitors as you can. However, one can always practice a bit of travel / family photography while visiting all those beautiful places in Alberta Rockies.
It has been a few years since we have taken this ride into the rural Alberta one May evening. The weather was good, the prairies called and we went to visit one of our favorite places to see what was happening. It wasn't the most beautiful of a sunset, but we still enjoyed ourselves driving along Alberta roads,
I can't believe summer vacations are almost over! Cruel time waits for no one... Fall will be here soon and I haven't enjoyed summer as much as I wanted to... It's a good thing that I have managed to take some pictures of the summery world to go back to later in the year, when it isn't sunny and warm and colorful any more, when it's more difficult to go out of the city and enjoy nature..
Here in Alberta, we suffer quite a delay when it comes to arrival of spring. Even if we lose all the snow for a bit, we usually get another dump or two in late March, beginning of April, accompanied by quite a drop in temperatures as well. Winter does feel long here on the prairies. It is hard to stay put for such a long time and I drag Mac, quite often, out of the city, even if it is only for a short trip to Elk Island National Park.
As Kasia was saying in the previous post about Taste of Edmonton and street photography. We both not street photographers at all. Even though Kasia, still thinks I'm better at it, I would like to disagree with that statement. Real street photographers like Antonio Rosario from Switch 2 Manual, or Olaf Sztaba , are definitely someone to emulate, but me and Kasia are just opportunistic photographers.
We had a chance to attend the annual Taste of Edmonton. Its a gathering of restaurants where you can purchase bite size dishes. As always it's always full of people, so one would think a perfect time to practice street photography, which is a foreign to me as the surface of the moon. Still having excellent photos of Antonio, and Olaf, and my good friend Mark in mind, I loaded the little Minolta Autocord with some film and went in search of images. Since most of street photography I have seen is in black and white, I thought I would be presumptuous, and add a little color to it.
The whole experience left me nervous, and afraid. Good thing the little medium format, twin reflex camera, from the late 50's was an ice breaker. People would, if not stare openly, actually ask about it. This resulted in conversations, but not a lot of images, unfortunately. Still I tried my best to emulate, and "see" like all my friends mentioned above, would. Well I tried, and here are some results from that little outing.
The color film was Kodak Portra 160, and the black and white is the Kodak Tri-X 400.
Enjoy!
They call Edmonton, the City of Festivals. There are over 100 festivals during a year with over 50 different events happening in spring and summer. This past Saturday we went to visit one of them - Taste of Edmonton. The weather was great, the atmosphere - wonderful and we have had lots of fun walking around Churchill Square trying different foods offered by many vendors and engaging in one of my favorite pass times - people watching.
It's funny, how I almost cured myself of digital GAS, and how quickly I fell for the analogue GAS. It's really easy to forget about actual photography, when scouring eBay for old cameras. The amount of old film cameras is just staggering. The prices are decent for the most part, although so old cameras fall into the "collectible" or "famous" category, which drives their prices through the roof. I try to keep to the cheap side.
When we go out at night we never know if we come back with something usable. Our weather here in Alberta, changes very quickly and even if we leave the city with clear skies above, by the time we reach a specific location it all might change (mind you, we need to travel quite a distance away from the city in many cases - sometimes more than 100km, which can make quite a difference as well). Landscape photography does require certain amount of sacrifice and hard work..
She can be very elusive. She can show up where you don't expect her to be and don't show up, when you count on her. Sometimes, it's only a pale green hue of the night sky, sometimes - a line across. Some nights, you can only spot her out in the country, where city lights don't obscure the views, but some nights, you can clearly see her from my own back yard, covering most of the sky and showing off for everybody to see.
One of the most wonderful things about Alberta, to me anyway, is the sky. It's huge and always changing and I love watching it and photographing it. The sunsets, sunrises, middle-of-the-days and, of course the storm clouds have been fascinating me for a very long time. At night, you can see million stars, different phases of the moon, Milky Way and, if you're lucky, amazing aurora. Over the last several years I must have taken more than a thousand pictures of the clouds which, to me, are a huge part of the landscape, sometimes, the most interesting one (I do live surrounded by flat prairies after all ;D).
