Landscapes

Cracked

This was taken on Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada as the ice was cracking during the spring thaw. I used to avoid shooting during the ugly, slushy time during the spring melting period. But now I'll be heading out every year looking for cracks in the ice and ridges like this. My goal was to show the sunlight shining through the ice, but if I got too low the crack going off into the distance wasn't really visible. I felt decently safe as ice fishermen had been driving on the lake just the day before. But I was still a bit nervous with the periodic creaking and cracking noises.

Silhouette

I've been photographing this tree for years. It's relatively close to home so if I feel like going out shooting on short notice, or the weather changes for the better, I can get to this site pretty quickly. I liked the way this silhouette turned out, with some nice colour in the sky. This photo was published in Landscape Photography Magazine for their Lonely Trees assignment/contest.

Magic Stone

The Callanish standing stones on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Hebrides of Scotland. Older than the pyramids, roughly contemporary with Stonehenge in England. I was here taking sunset shots with a couple of other tourists nearby doing the same (April is a great time to go to Scotland if you want to have sites to yourself). I was the last one left shooting and was going to pack up but then I noticed the moon and started taking shots with it in the frame. Then I remembered I had a flashlight in my camera bag and I started doing some light painting. This photo was featured in Landscape Photography Magazine's Galleria section and also a second time as part of their Blue Hour contest.

Bents

A shot from the small ghost town of Bents, Saskatchewan. Kind of a tricky place to find and not as many buildings left as I had expected. I had gotten stuck on a muddy road the day before, on my way to Bents, and had to watch a phenomenal sunset go to waste. This was the day after and the weather thankfully turned out ok.

Bents Elevator

A shot from the ghost town of Bents. It's a well known spot amongst prairie photographers but it was smaller than I expected; just the grain elevator, a house, the old general store, and a couple barns. I missed being here the day before as my car got stuck in some mud on the way and it took a while to get out. When it was too late to make it to Bents that day I looked at the sky and it was one of the best sunsets I've ever seen. I was pretty disappointed but the next day's sunset was not too bad.

Into the Distance

A long exposure on Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Slow Lean

A friend of mine told me about this house and I took a little road trip out to shoot it. It's a three hour drive from Winnipeg so it was an overnight trip. To make the sky blue, I inverted the slight amount of red colour that my infrared (converted) camera captures.

Light-show

A beautiful display of northern lights above an old abandoned house near Beausejour, Canada. I almost didn't go out shooting this night as I had to work the next day, but I'm glad I did. The aurora rarely respect a person's work schedule. (The light coming from the doorway was done by using the self-timer and triggering a handheld flash from inside.) A horizontal version of this image was shortlisted in Canadian Geographic's annual photo competition.

Magical Oak

This is one of the giant Live Oaks (it's not called that because it's alive, it's actually the name of the type of oak) at Oak Alley Plantation. These trees are massive and the branches can grow down to the ground, as you can see in the background here. Using the infrared camera gave the image a nice effect.

Forest Ruin 1

The Carbide Willson Mill ruins in Gatineau Park, Quebec, just north of Ottawa. This is a special place as it's a remote ruin in the forest with a little arched bridge over a thundering waterfall.

Bonnechere Falls

Sunset at the fourth chute of Bonnechere Falls, about an hour west of Ottawa, Canada.

Gettin' Old

I found this old barn west of St. Francis Xavier in Manitoba, just west of Winnipeg. The photos were ok but when I switched to my infrared camera I was really happy with the result.

Peaceful Morning

A long exposure at one of the Matlock piers in the Interlake area of Manitoba, Canada. These piers get built every spring and are taken down in the fall. There is a freshwater spring nearby that has excellent water for filling up empty water bottles.

The Enchanted Forest

This is part of the hike through Shiratani Unsuikyo, a famous hike through an ancient forest on Yakushima Island. This was probably the most amazing hike I've ever done. You pass giant trees that are thousands of years old, waterfalls, and you even walk through trees in a couple places like this. This is where the "moss forest" is, made famous in the movie Princess Mononoke.

Shirahige

This is the torii in Lake Biwa at Shirahige shrine in Japan near Takushima. This was taken after sunset when I was trying some long exposures. Even though it was slowly getting darker, I was still using a neutral density filter to get an exposure time of sixty seconds.

Meoto Iwa Sunrise

This is a two minute exposure taken at Meoto Iwa (the "wedded rocks") on the Ise peninsula in Mie Prefecture, Japan. There were a lot of photographers staking a spot to catch a photo of the sun rising between the rocks with the rope. I prefer to do my own thing and took some pre-sunrise shots from this spot (but I still ran over to get a shot of the rising sun, even though I wonder what it would have looked like from this angle).

Sky at Island Lake

This was shot just after sunset at Island Lake, Manitoba, Canada. I couldn't resist getting a shot of those two near symmetric clouds which still had some purple colouring from the sunset. (The moon was coming up behind me during this shot and there's an abstract image of the light reflecting off the lake in the Abstracts section.)

Shadow Casting

I had seen this tree (west of Winnipeg, Canada) standing alone in a field a few times while driving by. I decided to go back and try making some images of. It was a really cold day but I persevered and got this composition that I was happy with.

Night Drive

I get many questions about how I created this shot. It's a long exposure (25 seconds); I had my flash in my hand and after I started the exposure I hit the truck once from the side, then ran in and did another flash from each headlight pointing back at the camera. It took many attempts to get the lighting right and the angles of the headlights correct so that they looked like they were in the right spot. I think it may have been easier to use an on-board camera trigger and put two flashes in the headlight sockets that would automatically fire. But that would have been tricky too.

Orange Wave

I'd been to the East side of Lake Winnipeg about five times trying to get the shot I envisioned of a backlit wave. One time the tide was out, one time the wind was the wrong direction, one time the sky was cloudy, etc. I did a lot with a fast shutter speed that froze the wave in the air, but I also like this one with a slightly longer shutter speed that let the water blur a bit.