When you are at Lake Louise, there is only a short drive to visit Emerald Lake. It was an interesting drive, because, it seems, crossing the border from Alberta to BC, we crossed from one season to another.
A trip to Vancouver - Part 7
A Trip to Vancouver - Part 6
A trip to Vancouver - Part 5
Trains… I like trains. I have traveled using trains a lot, when I was growing up. They took me to visit family, for a trip to a forest, abroad.. Europe is full of trains… Every time I visit I try to take a train ride. Here in Alberta, I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to use trains, other than in a museum or a historical park. I do it whenever I can, but I’ve never had a chance to , actually, drive a train before.
A Trip to Vancouver - Part 4
A Trip to Vancouver - Part 2
I haven’t been to Stanley Park in Vancouver in ages, so we’ve decides to spend a lovely day taking trails and admiring wonderfully colorful forest.
Looking up in wonder - Cathedral Grove
Cathedral Grove
Coming back from Long Beach we had to stop at the famous Cathedral Grove. It's a very old forest located in MacMillan Provincial Park. The trees there are hundreds of years old, and so tall one could say they touch the sky. It's one of the most beautiful and humbling places we have visited. To think that these trees have been standing there since the middle ages, is uncanny. Even though there are a lot of people visiting, the place is strangely quiet. One could say it's a spiritual experience. I guess that's why it's called the Cathedral Grove.
Capturing the Grove
Trying to capture the Grove is not an easy task. You have to have a very wide lens and lots of space to be able to catch one of these tree giants in entirety. It's almost impossible, because there is almost no room along the paths to back away far enough. Even at 15mm it wasn't enough. Still, the experience is well worth the trip. Highly recommend you stopping by, and enjoy the quiet of time. It's amazing.
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Candid Beach People - Street Photography
Street Photography... what streets?!?
I don't know if you can call this street photography, as there are no streets really... so what do you call beach people photography? I guess I'll stick with street photography, since to me that definition basically says, that these are candid photos of people. Just the setting is a bit different from a street.... it's a beach. Anyhow, now that we got this out of the way, let's continue. I really enjoy photographing people. I am normally the biggest introvert you'll ever meet, and going out among people and taking their photo, scares the crap out of me. I'm usually the creepy creep, training my lens on you, from far away :)
Candid Photography
When people are not aware that you are taking their picture, they behave as they normally would. The moment they spot a camera pointed at them, their behaviour changes instantly. They either hide, give you a fake smile, or just pretend to ignore you, but their natural behaviour, that moment, vanishes with out a trace. This is why I try to use either a very wide angle lens, or a long zoom. The wide angle is perfect for hip shooting. What I mean by that is, you pretend to adjust settings on your camera, and without raising the camera to your eye, you take a photo. Or you carry the camera nonchalantly in your hand, and point in the general direction and hope for the best. Wide angle lenses are best suited for this, as it is hard to miss the subject. Other lenses require lots of practice, to know exactly where to point to get that awesome image. Changing from a 17mm to a 35mm lens had disastrous effects, as none of the hip shooting images came out. I just didn't know how to aim the lens properly. So my tip to you is... try hip shooting, or find some balls and don't be afraid of people :D
Here is some examples of beach street shooting, enjoy!
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Long Beach - Landscape Photography
Long Beach... Here we come!
After a full day of traveling from Vancouver, we finally managed to get across to Vancouver Island. Personally I though the trip across the island to the west coast is going to be relatively short and smooth. I was wrong. The nice smooth highways turned, narrow and winding very quickly, and that slowed us down considerably. It would be a great place for some wonderful landscape photography, unfortunately the roads being so narrow, there was hardly any place to pull over. This is the time where you soak up the landscape and store it, not on a digital memory card, but a biological memory card in your mind. It's not easy, being presented with really spectacular British Columbia landscapes, and not being able to capture it with our cameras. We also had our destination, and a search for a place to stay to consider, and the day was coming to an end.
Arrived
After a long and tiring drive across Vancouver Island, we have finally arrived at the west coast, and started searching for a place to stay. Almost immediately we found a small bed & breakfast that was quite reasonably priced and very nice. Still had some a couple of hours, before the sun went down into the ocean, so we drove around looking for a good spot for a beach landscape photography :) . Windy, sand blowing, and a little cold, the beach was far from what we expected. I dared not the change lenses on the camera, and even though I didn't, I still ended up with a whole bunch of sensor spots on the Sony cameras. Fuji X-Pro 1, faired a lot better. No spots, even though it was blasted with beach sand just as bad as the Sony NEX cameras. Interesting. Here is what I managed to capture during the last hours of that long day. Enjoy!
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Beautiful British Columbia - Part 1 - Travel Photography
It's been a while since my last posts, but I do have a very good excuse. We went for a road trip to Tofino and back. It's been only my 3rd ever venture to BC, my first to Vancouver Island and I was really looking forward to seeing the land and venture to places I have not had a chance to visit before as well as re-visit the few I have. Travel photography is wonderful because it gives one opportunity to practice all sorts of things. From landscapes to architecture, nature, macros, night shots... It is so much fun, though it does require bringing a lot of different lenses and a bit of gear. Today I would like to share some pictures I have taken on our way to Vancouver. It's quite a long way from Edmonton so we took a break from driving to visit our friends in Kamloops, BC. While enjoying their company and a wonderfully hot evening I took a few shots of their world. We did have a view of quite a lovely sunset as well from their patio...
The next day we resumed out drive through the Rockies. Our first stop was at Kamloops Lake where I took a few shots of a lovely view:
While driving I couldn't help but to notice a great contrast between very dry mountains, covered with sage and bluish grass with level ground that is quite often used for agricultural purposes. It does require lots of watering, as we were able to notice, and the lush greens of the meadows are so very different in colour than surrounding mountains..
Travelling through canyons and summits, on our way, along rivers and mountain slopes gives you an opportunity to see very many interesting things. Too bad one cannot always stop when one wishes... The landscape changes often on the way and at least one is not bored, stuck in a vehicle for hours on end..
I've always wanted to visit Hell's Gate again. The first time I went there (over a decade ago..) I was awed by the incredible power of water flowing at this particular spot in Fraser Canyon.. You can see it churning under your feet while crossing a bridge. It does give you a bit of a weird feeling.. Here is a few shots I have taken while there:
Our long journey that day ended finally in Vancouver where we met one of our friends who, very kindly, took us for a tour around the city. What we saw there I will share in my next post. For now, just one more shot taken while driving, just before we reached our destination. There is not always a chance to stop on a highway to properly take photos, so I do try to shot some things from a moving vehicle. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but one must try, right? Especially, when I am in the very lucky position of a passenger and I can devote my full attention to surrounding views (which Mac is always bemoaning, having to always be the driver.;D).
To be continued..
Kasia