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 Waterfowl on misty morning lake Here’s another photograph that I made the same morning as the one in my previous post. Although I took it less than ten minutes later than the previous photo, from nearly the same spot on the lake shore, and rotated only about 90 degrees, this photograph has a completely different feel to it—and that’s one of the things that I love most about photographing the landscape. 
 Morning mist and early autumn birch I had the pleasure of spending a morning out at Ministik Lake, and what a morning it was. The forecast was for clear skies and the first good overnight frost of the year, with temperatures down to a few degrees above freezing. As the sun rose, light fog rose from the lakes and hung in the still air, frost hung lightly on the understory leaves, and the clear autumn light shone off the first of the birch trees just beginning to change colour—it was exquisite.
 Burtynsky OIL Cover Several years ago, the Art Gallery of Alberta here in Edmonton presented an exhibition of Edward Burtynsky’s “Manufactured Landscapes” work, and I was completely blown away by the beauty of Burtynsky’s large-scale photographs of industrial landscapes (mines, railcuts, quarries, recycling yards, etc.). Next week a new show of Burtynsky’s work will open at AGA, entitled “EDWARD BURTYNSKY: OIL” and will be showing until the 2nd of January. I highly, highly recommend that you visit the gallery while this show is up, and if you haven’t seen it already, the new AGA building itself is worth the visit. Click here for a link to the AGA page, with more details about additional programming related to the exhibition. (Unfortunately, Burtynsky’s opening lecture is sold out—if you have a spare ticket I’d love to hear from you…).
 Cooper’s Hawk Today, after a couple days of bad weather, I went for a walk at the Strathcona Science Park, a provincial park on the eastern edge of Edmonton (follow 17th street north from baseline road (101 ave)). The early autumn colours were starting to come out, but most striking was the number of raptors moving through the river valley. During my relatively short walk, I saw a pair of Swainson’s Hawks, several Red-tailed Hawks, a Bald Eagle perched in a snag, and a Cooper’s Hawk hunting Yellow-rumped Warblers in the shrubs along the river bank. I didn’t get any photographs of the birds I saw today, so I thought I’d share this one—a Cooper’s Hawk that I caught while working as a bird bander at the Beaverhill Bird Observatory in Tofield. As you may judge from the photo, he was none too happy about the situation, but I really enjoyed getting a close-up look at one of these terrific birds.
I’ll be displaying (and perhaps selling) several of my photographs at the Kaleido Arts Festival the weekend of September 9, 10 & 11. There is an opening gala on Friday night with many of the artists in attendance (including myself). Hope to see you all there! From the Kaleido Festival home page (http://artsontheave.org/festivals/kaleido-festival-2010/whats-on/friday-schedule/):
 Amanita mushroom from above  Amanita mushroom 
In my last post, I didn’t say much about the photographs themselves, as they were more documentary than artistic in nature, but perhaps one thing I’ll mention, as something for you to try out if you haven’t already, is that for the first time I used the “Live View” function on my DSLR to get down really low beside these mushrooms for an interesting perspective (e.g. the puffball, and the amanita). Live View (i.e. framing the photo using the LCD on the back of the camera) has been common on point-and-shoot cameras for a long time, but is just being introduced on SLR cameras in the past few years. However, I still find myself using the optical viewfinder for everything except shooting video—just old fashioned I guess (although in my defence, I think the form factor of a DSLR does not lend itself to being held at arms’ length, especially with a longer lens attached). In this case though, by using the Live View, I could basically have the camera and lens on the ground, and still compose a decent image even though I was also carrying my daughter in a big backpack. You can see the difference in two photos above, the one on the left I made looking through the viewfinder while crouching as low as possible, and the one on the right is taken in the same posture, but using the LCD on the back of the camera to compose the image. Using Live View (or whatever your camera’s maker calls it) for this type of otherwise awkward shot is definitely a trick that I will keep in mind for the future, and recommend to others for those moments where the unusual angle is tempting, but laying prostrate just isn’t.
I took a great walk through Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary yesterday afternoon—always one of my favourite places to photograph (click here to see why). The weather we’ve had this year has been just right for growing mushrooms (warm days, lots of afternoon showers), and there was a fantastic selection of beautiful species on show. I’ll not write too much, just post a bunch of photos to inspire those of you who—like myself—have both photographic and mycological tendencies, to go out and find some fungi.
P.S. My mushroom ID skills are not terrible, but do not take my word that these are what I say they are. Instead, I’d recommend taking the word of Helene M.E. Schalkwijk-Barendsen in her gorgeous book Mushrooms of Northwest North America by local Edmonton publishing company, Lone Pine. And, on that note, if you think I’ve gotten the ID wrong on any of these or you can be more specific (latin names would be great!) I would really appreciate a note left in the comments.
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Copyright © 2009-2025 Jonathan Martin-DeMoor 
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