Wetland and Cellular Towers
April 20, 2013
Depicted here is more wetland on the border between Calgary, Canada and the rural farmland surrounding it. The wetland has been quite large as of late due to heavier precipitation. Tall reeds such as this haven’t grown here for decades.
This time I thought I’d share what goes into an image during the post stage, after the photo’s been shot. The digital darkroom gives an exorbitant amount of expressive freedom in one’s imagery. Here I emphasized the cloud cover to make it look more like what I saw the day I was shooting. I also performed a subtle crop and tweaked the foreground. Some people brag about an image done “entirely in camera” when I see them as missing an opportunity to push their artistic vision even further.
Comments (0) | More: Landscape, My Process, Photography, Rural Alberta
Farmland Suburbia
April 12, 2013
The town of Conrich, near Calgary, Canada, is growing. More and more of these 1/4 acre monster homes are showing up here, encroaching upon the farmland. People move here because they see it as idyllic then complain about the smell of the surrounding farmlands.
Processed with DxO Film Pack as Portra NC
Comments (0) | More: Film, Landscape, Photography, Rural Alberta
Spring is Frozen in April
April 11, 2013
Shot near Conrich Alberta, just 100 meters outside the Calgary city limits in Canada.
This marsh forms every year around this time and dries up around late June. It’s home to various waterfowl and thankfully the farmer doesn’t attempt to till over it.
D800, Sigma 35mm 1.4, Capture One Pro 7, DxO filmpack Provia 100F
Comments (0) | More: Calgary, Landscape, Photography, Rural Alberta
Late March Alberta Sunset
April 01, 2013
Shot 6km east of the Calgary city limits in Alberta, Canada. The sun was going down and there were all sorts of colours in the sky, filtering through the hazy air. It doesn’t often look like this, usually the prairie skies are clear as far as one can see.
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March on the Acreage
March 31, 2013
Today my wife and I went to the inlaws’ acreage located near Delacour, Alberta. I was trying to capture the subtle colour gradations in the sky over an open space.
Nikon D800 capture with the very splendid Sigma 35mm 1.4 “Art” lens.
Comments (0) | More: Landscape, Photography, Rural Alberta
Melting Snow
March 28, 2013
Lately the weather’s been warming and winter’s been threatening to leave us in one big huff of a snow storm. Every May Southern Alberta is pummelled with a big snow storm with the snow reaching nearly a foot and melting the following day. It happens when everybody gets used to the 20 degree Celsius weather, wearing their shorts to work then wishing they didn’t on the way home.
This was shot just outside of Delacour, Alberta. It’s east of the Calgary city limits. I’m really growing fond of the 35mm lens because it makes both a great wide angle and an excellent compressed landscape panoramic. Cropping down to a 6×17 panoramic like this one yields a similar field of view as a panoramic shot with an 85mm. Oh and did I mention the Sigma 35mm 1.4 is a beautiful lens? Well it is. Excellent sharpness and micro-contrast up the rear! I can’t recommend it enough.
Comments (0) | More: Calgary, Landscape, Photography, Rural Alberta
Initial Thoughts: Sigma 35mm 1.4 on the Nikon D800
March 22, 2013
When I first got serious with photography I spent $850 on a Zeiss 35mm F2 manual focus lens to use on a used Canon 5D which was $1100 at the time. This combination had amazing micro-contrast due to the ziess rendering coupled with the 5D’s low resolution. The images looked astounding up to 13×19 but I wanted to print bigger. So I upgraded to a D800 and spent a lot of time trying to get the same micro-contrast effect I had with the 5D, but only with 24×36 inch prints.
The Zeiss 35mm F2 looks great on the 5D but the D800′s high resolution sensor reveals chromatic aberration and other problems with the lens. The Nikkor 24-70 is pretty good but diffraction ruins this lens’s resolution quickly, turning muddy beyond F5.6. The Nikkor 14-24 2.8G AF-S came close and the ultra-wide angle was fun but not until now did I find the spiritual successor to the Zeiss 35mm F2: The Sigma 35mm 1.4 DG HSM “A”. The “A” stands for “Art” and that’s what this lens is. It’s ultra-sharp. It has beautiful colours. It has microcontrast. And it’s not $1500+! Look at the textures and subtle colours in this 100% crop (makes me with I had a D800E instead):
Do you see the blues? Do you see the reds? Do you see the deep contrast? Here’s the full image with no adjustments made to the exposure, contrast or saturation. Straight out of Capture One Pro 7:
It’s nice to get away from the cool, “Nikon Neon” rendering, as a friend of mine describes Nikon glass. I prefer a warmer image, usually shooting Kodak film over Fuji (I love Portra btw). The auto-focus is quite surprising, too, almost as snappy as the Nikkor 24-70 2.8G AF-S which is no slouch. This lens will be great for hikes. It will be great for traveling. It will be great for group portraits. It will be great for everything!
Comments (0) | More: My Process, Photography
March 2013 Walk Through Mount Pleasant
March 02, 2013
It’s been a while since I was out shooting. I’m working on a couple boxes of 4×5 Fuji Provia 100F film and I decided to play around with DxO FilmPack and attempt to get a similar look with my digital files. The lighting was pretty flat today until power hour hit in the late afternoon. These were caught during that time.
These were all shot in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Calgary, Canada. It’s a belt-line neighbourhood, close to the downtown core. Most of the houses here were built in the earliest part of the 20th century. I walked the alley ways running between 2nd ST NW and 18th ST NW.
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Upcoming Show: The Artists Lens at Artpoint Gallery
January 19, 2013
For the month of February, The Alberta Society of Artists is having their first photography exhibition. It’s a group show and I’ll be exhibiting some of my rural Southern Alberta landscape work.
The show runs from February 1st to March 2nd, 2013 with an opening reception on Friday, February 8th.
Artpoint Gallery & Studios Society, 1139 Adelaide St SE, Calgary AB, 403-265-6867
Comments (0) | More: Landscape, Photography, Rural Alberta, Shows
Morning White in Colour
November 03, 2012
The morning I shot this the sky was reflecting cool colours while the sun was casting warm ones.
Shot near the NE city limits of Calgary, Canada.
