the Bow - Sept 1, 2010

This is the Bow in downtown Calgary. It will be the tallest building in our skyline when it's complete.



I've been driving past it for a long time on my daily commute. It often catches some nice light or is enshrouded in fog and I've been taking pictures of it from my car for a while now. Not all the pictures are great but sometimes they work out. I bought a new car a few months ago and it has a sunroof ( my first sunroof.. whee ! ) so now I can shoot straight up.

Thanks for looking
brad

morning light - Oct 6th 2010

Driving to work, I often see this view at 68th and McKnight. For a while now I've wanted to shoot it. I like how all the street lights are standing there in a cluster around the Stoney/McKnight interchange. The power poles help to lead you into the photo.

On this day, there was a nice orange/blue colour gradient and my camera just happened to have the 85mm on it which turned out to be a good focal length for the composition - I pulled my camera out of the bag and snapped this photo while waiting for the light to change.

I always take my camera bag with me. Sometimes I get lucky and what I've been waiting for just shows up.

The world is beautiful.

Thanks for looking.
brad

Sunrise at Vermillion Lakes #1 - October 9th 2010

We went to Banff for the Thanksgiving weekend and stayed at the Douglas Fir resort. I was hoping to shoot  some spectacular mountain scenery.

Just before we got to the hotel, there was a herd of Elk on the side of the road Conor and I got out and took a look at them. There was one male and a bunch of other female and young elk in the herd.

The male had a real nice rack :-) we watched him for a while and I was hoping he'd move off into the trees so that it didn't look like he was standing on the road, but for the most part he stayed on the road. We had to be careful though because the Elk were rutting ( if thats the way to say it ) and they can be quite aggressive.

Center Street Bridge - Sept 28 2010

The more I look at this picture the more I like it. I wasn't sure at first.

I was driving home up Center street and had just crossed the bridge. There is a steep road just after the bridge that climbs up the hill and gives you this view. The sunlight was nice so I stopped and took a few shots from the side of the road.

I was shooting with a 24mm tilt shift lens. It's a prime lens which means it only has one focal length - I can't zoom in and out to compose the shot. At the time I felt that the composition was really tight and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough sky in the shot.

I`m still learning how to use this lens - which is manual focus and has tilt/shift movements that allow me to adjust the focus plane so that it`s not always perpendicular to the lens. I was trying to get the focus plane follow the bridge and have the edges out of focus to draw your attention in.

The colours are nice and I was lucky enough to be there with the sun coming in at a low angle.


Thanks for looking
Brad

Elliston Park trees - Sept 12th 2010

The kids were very excited to show me the trees at Elliston park in South East Calgary. They'd been there the day before and had spent time in the trees playing hide and seek and really really wanted to go back. I was thinking I wanted to run to the hills but time constraints and common sense prevailed and we ended up spending a couple of hours at the park.

I walked along the path in a small loop while the kids were in the trees playing. After a while I decided that maybe there was a picture here and sat down on the grass to compose a photo. I liked how the trees were all lined up here and how they led into dark shadows. I tried to enhance the shadows by adjusting the focus to highlight them. The turning leaves added some nice texture. I wasn't sure about the hose, but there it is. The trees are all planted as part of the first BP Birthplace forest. Each of the trees here have a name associated with them.


Thanks for looking.

brad