 Blackbird flock in bare trees I recently received a request from a woman to use this photograph in a blog post she’s writing, which gave me the great excuse to re-visit this image and to share it here (it hasn’t made it into the new website yet, but watch for it in the Birds section of my catalogue, hopefully in the next few months).
I took this photo near the Beaverhill Bird Observatory near Tofield, AB in the spring of 2007. At the time, I was experimenting with defocusing images, or portions thereof, for creative effect. In this case, the original image was mostly sharp, and I “painted in” the blurred effect in post-processing. I was inspired to try this technique by another photographer who would create the same effect in the darkroom by spilling chemicals over the drying print and using a brush or sponge to blur the image.
It’s always fun to try new techniques, and although I haven’t taken many defocused photographs lately, you can view a selection of these images in my “Boreal Impressions” portfolio. I’d also recommend having a look at William Neill’s “Impressions of Light” portfolio for more great blurry images that were an inspiration to me (although he achieves the effect mostly through long shutter speeds and camera movement, rather than manually defocusing the lens).
 Dried grass calligraphy on fresh snow Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny winter day in Edmonton (although a bit too warm—things shouldn’t be melting yet!) and I took the chance to take the snowshoes (and kid, and dog, and camera) out to the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area. I like going into the park from the south end, parking at the Islet Lake staging area.
With all the snow we’ve gotten, the lakeshore topography has been smoothed out to gentle undulations of perfect, smooth snow. That, combined with the low sun this time of year, provides lots of chances for photographs with simple, elegant lines and minimal visual clutter.
 Cooking lake post-top snow cones (And then there’s this one—pretty much on the other end of the spectrum—using the same basic elements for slapstick rather than elegance… but can you guess which one my daughter preferred?)
 Fresh snow on two black spruce Here’s another photograph from the same outing to Wagner Natural Area as my last post. I like how the wispy-ness of the clouds contrasts the solid, high contrast forms of the snow-covered trees.
These are pretty classic Alberta winter clouds—high, thin, light diffusing layers without much definition (see this post that I wrote last winter). In this case though, I used a polarizing filter to darken the blue sky showing through these thin cirrus streaks, and that added enough contrast to show the delicate patterns of the cloud.
 Snow cap on thin black spruce After receiving huge amounts of new snow over the past few weeks, we finally got a day where the sun managed to peak—weakly—through the clouds for a few hours. Since I was already on the west side of town, I decided to head out to the Wagner Natural Area where, I hoped, the dense spruce trees covered in deep snow would provide an interesting photographic opportunity or two.
It was more challenging than I expected—the huge amount of snow often looked like just a big pile slumped over everything, rather than contrasting or complimenting the forms of the trees. But a challenge can be good fun, and I did get a couple images that I’m quite happy with—I’ll share some more over the next little while.
 Non-vignetted The processing in this one was inspired by an image by a local photographer who I’ve mentioned before, Joel Koop. He posted an image on his blog that was heavily vignetted (darkened in the corners) in post-processing—and it looked great. I had already processed this one with a little bit of vignetting, but his image inspired me to try pushing it a bit further, and I think I like it this way. What do you think? (I’ve included the non-vignetted version here for comparison—use your arrow keys to switch between versions.)
 Bright morning light on Whirlpool Mountain Here’s another photograph from my first photo-trip of the year in Jasper National Park. I made this image from along the Icefields Parkway, about 20 minutes south of the town of Jasper. I’m not sure about the name of this peak, but my best guess is that it’s Whirlpool Mountain, just south of Mount Edith Cavell and north of Mount Geraldine (if anybody can confirm/correct this, please leave me a comment).
The deep blue of the sky is due mostly to the use of a polarizing filter which really brought out the contrast between the sky, the shadows on the mountain, and the bright snow-covered faces.
I am really excited that one of the photographs from my “Talbot Burn” portfolio has been chosen to be a part of the “Forest Show” curated by the Alberta Society of Artists. The exhibition is currently mounted in the Hinton Public Library (Jan 5–31), and will be moving to the Edson Library (Feb 2–28), the McMullen Gallery in Edmonton (opening reception on March 24, 7–9 pm), and the Leighton Gallery in Calgary (opening reception June 4, 2–4 pm). My piece was also selected to be one of just a few pieces that will be in a travelling exhibition showing throughout Alberta until 2013. I hope that you can make it to one of these venues, but if not, you can have look at the image in my “Talbot Burn” portfolio (it’s the third image, entitled “Talbot Fire Valley”), or simply click below to view the image full screen.
 Talbot fire valley
Sorry for the short notice, I just found out that I’ll have a table at the “Deep Freeze” Artisan Market this coming weekend. I’m printing off a bunch of new, all-winter, prints and I’ll have a selection of blank, winter-y cards as well. I’ll be there (Old Cycle Building at 9141–118 Ave) from 12–6 pm on both Saturday and Sunday (the 8th & 9th). I always appreciate having a familiar face drop by—Keep warm!
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(Click photos to enlarge)
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