Darwin with his new Nikon gear
You can see by my Cheshire grin just how happy I am with my new Nikon gear. Yes, I have jumped ship from Canon to Nikon (except for the G11 which I will keep for Daily Snaps). This snap was done by Samantha with my G11 – she is good at capturing my true ‘essence’.
Happy April Fools!
©Sean Porter
This is a photo that was taken in the Fort Walsh area of Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan side, In the foreground is an old cemetery that contains the remains of some of the early settlers that inhabited the area was trying to depict the vastness of the area and the struggles that the early settlers must have faced in trying to tame this wild land.
Just check it out! WOW.
©Jonathan Sinclair
This photograph was taken at Park Lake Provincial Park, which is right near Lethbridge, Alberta. This park is one of the oldest in the province, and was created by an irrigation reservoir. I had a vision of creating an image that would show both the serenity and beauty of this park, which happens to lie in the middle of the prairies. After several failed attempts, I was at the right moment at the right time on this fall day. I was a little worried about the cloud cover, but as soon as the sun went below the horizon, it created awesome colours, beautiful tones and cloud formations. Southern Alberta is known for its beautiful skies, and here is the proof! Who said the prairies were bland and boring? This capture is one of my personal favourites!
©Darwin Wiggett
This one is from my morning walk with Brando and shows the sun filter through fog along the Bow River. I like the contrast of warm and cool hues here. This is a straight shot with the G11, no filters, no fancy post-production, just an in-camera capture of a lovely scene.
©Amber Richards
Looking over my images from 2009 I keep coming back to this one as a personal fav. For one, it was the first image I had print requests for and had it framed and hung in an office here in San Francisco. That felt nice. But what I really appreciate about this image is that it just happened so naturally. Sometimes I feel like I try too hard to come up with “an idea”…something creative to be proud of. But on this day I was just enjoying a relaxing day at home, not trying to create anything. I was looking over my feathers that I collected from when I worked at an animal park, and thinking about how peacock feathers are painted to look like eyes…the spark of inspiration came. It was a satisfying moment.
Matt Graham
I bought my dSLR on New Years Day 2009 and what a year it has been. I have always wanted more control with my photography and jumping to a dSLR has been great. I took the advice of the many ‘light seekers’ and woke up at 4 am to drive to this special spot and catch the summer sunrise hitting the rock faces of Banded Peak, Outlaw Peak, Mount Cornwall and Mount Glasgow with the Elbow River flowing by. It was a magical moment for me to see the drab colored mountains turn pink in a sliver of time and for that reason it is my favorite shot of 2009.
I am in the Rockies for the last two weeks of September shooting fall colours so I won’t have a fresh image to post this week. But before I left I processed this image shot last year in late August from a month long trip to the Yukon. So far this is the only photo I have gotten around to process from the trip that I took over a year ag0. Yikes! I am taking most of December and January off to try and catch up on the backlog of images I made this year and last year. This one is from the Tombstone Mountains along the Dempster highway.
©Darwin Wiggett
©Edwin Allan Riguer
I took this photo in a Wadi (body of water similar to river but mostly dry over the year) in Emirates of Sharjah UAE. Lucky for me that during that time of the year, the riverbank has not fully dried yet giving the sand and crack a smooth looking surface. I loved the rock pattern leading towards an isolated plant giving the impressions of survival in the imminent dry season. I took the shot while the fast rising diffuse sunlight was still near the horizon.
I am thrilled by the stunning entries that come in to LLTL each month! Below I present three entries from the weekend by a triumvirate of terrific photographers.
Tim Parkin sends in this image with its big negative space and juxtaposition to create a novel composition that bends the rules and challenges the viewer to guess what the photo is all about. Tim helps us solve the visual mystery with his explanation:
Northumberland is a little visited gem of a location on the north east coast of England. Holy Island is a castle/monastery founded nearly 1400 years ago and was the site of the most vicious Viking raids which probably formed most of the legends known in English speaking countries.The boat in the foreground is actually a shed. The locals use their boat building skills to create robust housing in which they store boat maintenance equipment. This photograph was taken in bright sunshine but I was aiming to capture the deep black bitumen coated cloth that appeared like the deep velvet folds seen in dutch paintings. Hopefully my large format picture will work equally well when printed.
©Tim Parkin
Seung Kye Lee returns this month with another image with strong depth and graphic appeal, flawlessly composed and technically perfect!
This autumn sunset at Tyri Fjord, eastern Norway was spectacular in the fullest sense of the word and together with the perfect reflection I “knew” by looking on the LCD, that a strong image was made at the scene. Boy, did I have a surprise waiting! Importing the RAW-file onto my computer I realized the colors were even more spectacular, BUT…also drew the attention away from my main subject; the subtle details in the sand, the rocks and the composition as a whole.
This is a good example of how an image with spectacular colors gets even better when stripping the most obvious elements of beauty away which leave the image in a state of timelessness and serenity instead. Of course, which one is better is subjective. Most of my family and friends actually liked the color version best.
© Seung Kye Lee
Not to be outdone, Ilya Genkin offers us this stunner from South Australia. I am really gonna have a hard time this month picking a favorite!
© Ilya Genkin
Frenchman’s Rocks is a nice place near Greenly Beach on the west side of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, about 40km north from the Coffin Bay National Park on Flinders Highway. I was there during my South Australia outback trip and I was looking for a spot that could look nice in a cloudy day, but suddenly the weather changed from just cloudy to really stormy. The wind was blowing so strongly that our heavy-loaded 4WD car was swinging almost like clothes on a rope. In a few minutes the sky became really dark and wide and layered storm clouds started approaching very fast. It was absolutely stunning view! I jumped out of the car and ran to a cliff edge–I’m glad I didn’t fall on rocks! I was able to make a few standard shots and a panorama. It was a great reward for the boring cloudy day. Made with Nikon D300 and 12-24 lens.
Photographer's Guide to the Canadian Rockies now available
Darwin Wiggett 