I ventured up the mountain during the first week of school to capture some wildlife. But not just wildlife; wildlife in golden light, due to a sliver of light just above the horizon. On the way back, I got a surprise visit from a fawn, who was about half a year old :) For this assignment, I chose my dog, Bella, as the subject. She always loves playing with a football. Shot at a wide aperture for max. D.O.F. The final product of my landscape photos is always a digitally blended image. This process is called HDR. Since most cameras I use have such a poor dynamic range I combat this problem by taking two separate exposures, and superimposing them. This is called bracketing, and you can use the histogram or EV to help you- one exposure is for the foreground, and another is for the background. It's a very simple process when you have a clear horizon, but gets more complicated when you don't (e.g. forest scene). This is a technique that's very underrated and is used by some of the best photographers around the world, it's their secret to a perfectly exposed image... -RN I was lucky enough to be in Penticton this weekend, which is only an hour's drive away from my grandparents in Kelowna. This side of the family is my dad's, my mother's live in Crimea (the war-torn part of Ukraine). For this assignment, I had a small point and shoot camera with me, so I couldn't capture anything too extravagant. However, I feel my end result mimics that of Annie Leibovitz.
I to of these photos while working with Grouse on their 24 Hours of Winter Project. I was assigned to capture the beauty of the mountain, but I sought to capture people and how they reacted to it. Using an ultra wide angle lens, I was able to achieve exactly that. The funny thing is that I never noticed how small the people were until I was editing! The other image is of Jerry and Jason when I took them on a tour of the snowy North Shore back-country. The tree dwarfs them!! -RN I like to think that I live in the mountains. In the summer, I look for interesting wildlife to shoot, I do my best to chase sunsets and I scout various locations for the winter. In the winter, I get serious. As a photographer, I realise that there will never be a better time to capture sunsets; they're early in the day, and the snow reflects the light. That's why I was up on the mountains when the first snow fell upon Vancouver. I captured it. The image got a fairly good reception on social media (even made the news!). Boasting aside, I knew there was a job to be done, that's why I dedicated my entire holiday to documenting the snow where I live. The North Shore mountains got a dumping of white powder early in the season (compared to previous years), so I got off my butt and re-hiked trails I did in the summer. Usually there would be at least one set of tracks for me to follow, but in some cases, I would have to be the trailblazer. I knew these routes like the back of my hand, but you have to be careful not to get too arrogant when you're in the mountains; they're unforgiving. I captured some of my best images early in the season, so I brought a couple of my friends up and gave them a tour of the North Shore backcountry. Originally, we set out to summit Goat Mountain, a peak with a lovely view of Hanes Valley and downtown Vancouver. Unfortunately, three factors ended our hike early; Jerry and Jason didn't bring crampons, it was foggy, and we didn't leave enough time to get back before total darkness. Nevertheless, we got to a nice view point of a neighboring mountain (Crown) and waited for the sun to set. It was a nice compromise, the sun poured a lovely golden light onto the snowy trees for us to photograph. About a week later, on our second expedition (if you can call it that), we couldn't get passed our first checkpoint because of a stubborn blizzard. Jerry stayed, because he was shooting a timelapse, while Jason and I trekked on, our snowshoes sinking in the snow, step by step. The weather was awful. We finally gave up and headed back to Jerry, admitting defeat. We stayed up at our first checkpoint for a couple hours in blistering cold weather, hoping for a sunset miracle. God answered. A break in the clouds delivered a stunning alpenglow on the distant hills. It was perhaps my favourite image of the series. When I arrived back home, exhausted, I was suprised to learn my lenses had frozen (there was ice covering the front and back elements). So far, it's been a winter to remember, from chasing sunsets, to being stranded on a mountain overnight, I've experienced a lot. All I'm hoping for now is that the snow will stick for a few more months. I would only recommend exploring the backcountry when it's cold. This will allow the snow to freeze over, so you won't get caught in an avalanche. Help NSR out by memorizing the trail maps and packing extra clothes and food; many have perished hiking in the Hanes Valley area. In the summer, carry bear spray, as black bears and cougars can be a common occurrence. Here I attempted to complete the weekly challenge. Firstly, I was instructed to capture sun flare, which I got in two of the three. I found that using a slightly wider aperture would allow more 'flare' into the lens (e.g f/8 over f/11). For the self portrait, I tried to honour my heritage in a serious version of bedtime reading (hat: Russian; book: Canadian; gown: British). My silhouette was that of Port Metro Vancouver during a tour of the harbour, I like the fact that there a two levels of silouette, but I also find the light boring. RN The First of November was the first snowfall of the year for those in Vancouver... At least for those at an elevation of over 1,000 metres. And while I am busy shooting my Skytrain series, there is always time for my bears on top of the mountain. As soon as I stepped off the gondola, I felt the coldness- I had not come prepared! But of course the excitement was too high to care for such matters, so when I approached the bears I could not stop snapping in the snow. This would eventually lead to a suspected short circuit caused by water damage in my shutter button, but I had got what I had come for: bears in the snow!
P.S: my camera did heal after a full day of drying. |
Ryan NealeWildlife enthusiast, global nomad. Archives
October 2016
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