The Weekly Photo – December 27

This will be my last weekly photo post on this blog. I will no longer post to this blog after December 31st. After that all my blog postings and new images will appear over at oopoomoo. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter over there if you want first dibs on workshops, discounts and unpublished photo tips.

These two photos of Hoodoo Creek Bay at Abraham Lake were taken on one of the Fire and Ice Photo Tours this last November. If you are interested in the 2012 tour check out it out, it is nearly full!

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

The Weekly Photo – December 19, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett

Click on the photo to learn the back story of this photo (and my meet-up with famous photographers!) plus see a few more photos from the shoot.

Weekly Photo – December 12, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett - click to view larger

This little fellow (a Hawk Owl) watched us from his wee perch in Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park near Cochrane the other day. This little fellow and a Great Horned Owl are hanging around the park and seem very approachable. The good thing about Hawk Owls is they are active during the day.  I am not really a wildlife photographer but I did have my Sigma 70-200mm lens that day and snapped this ‘environmental portrait’ at 200mm. If you want to learn more about the photography in the park be sure to sign up for our Twoonie Talk: Winter Photography in Glenbow Ranch Provinical Park which will be held in Cochrane on Jan. 21st, 2012

The Weekly Photo – November 28, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett

This one is from the November Fire and Ice Tour. I used my trusty 17mm TSE lens to give me a wide-angle view with a leaf in the foreground. I used tilt to give me incredible DOF. This one is from Preacher’s Point on Abraham Lake. I used Photo Engine  (HDR) and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.0 (for contrast control) to process this one.

© The 17mm TSE tilted and in action to capture the photo

©Darwin Wiggett

Detail shot done with the Canon G11 and processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and Nik Colour Efex Pro 4. Save 15% on all Nik products – use the code darwin on checkout (this code will expire Dec 1, 2011).

The Weekly Photo – Nov 21, 2011

I just got back from the final Fire and Ice Photo Tour this year. We were ‘blessed’ with cold temps (-25 degrees over night) and therefore some nice ice and even a little bit of fire (sunrises and sunsets). The gang of shooters were a blast and everyone was open to the amazing possibilities nature tossed our way.

Part of each tour is a safety meeting about ice conditions. You can see here what happens when someone does not listen to the safety spiel! The good news is with my super long exposure of the scene (5 minutes using a Lee Big Stopper ND filter), the waves and bubbles of the struggling participant did not even register in the image. So let this be a lesson, always listen to your instructor….

This one is dedicated to Joe (thanks for leaving the camera gear on shore) 😉

©Darwin Wiggett

The colour version – Canon EOS-1ds Mark III, Canon 24 TSE, 5 minutes at f11, Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer, Singh-Ray 3-stop soft-edge grad, Lee 10-stop Big Stopper ND filter.

©Darwin Wiggett

The B+W version (conversion done in Nik Silver Efex Pro) – which version do you prefer?

The Weekly Photo – October 31, 2011

Today I drove my friend David Topping to the airport in a snow storm. On the way home I saw that the Bow River between Calgary and Cochrane was full of fog, crazy cool clouds and the aspen trees were freshly frosted with snow as well. I immediately thought of Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park with its high overviews of the Bow River Valley.  But I had an appointment with the dentist for a ‘tooth emergency’. So… the photos went un-taken and the toothache won out.

I have a photo from the Glenbow Ranch taken in August with fog in the valley to remind me of what I missed today (click on the photo to see a larger version). Sometimes pain trumps photos.

©Darwin Wiggett

Canon Rebel T2i camera, Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 lens (1/4s at f8 at 50mm), Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer and Singh-Ray 2-stop hard-edge grad filter over the sky — image cropped slightly in post.

The Weekly Photo – October 18, 2011

I have been super busy travelling and doing workshops and so have had little time to post or process images. Here is one from early October near Cochrane, Alberta (Canon Rebel T2i, 1/20s at f14, Sigma 17-50mm lens at 38mm, Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer – click on image for a larger view).

©Darwin Wiggett

The Weekly Photo – October 10, 2011

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Gobble, Gooble….

Samantha and I recently did some assignment work for Silvertip Golf Resort where we applied our landscape photography skills with some environmental portraiture. Some of our favorite images from the 1.5 day shoot are below. It was really great having two shooters for the assignment so we could handle different angles simultaneously. We don’t play golf (nor can we afford to) so it was fun having run of the course and seeing the big views from each of the 18 holes. Fore!

©Darwin Wiggett - Click to see a larger version

©Darwin Wiggett - Click to see a larger version

©Darwin Wiggett - Click to see a larger version

©Samantha Chrysanthou

©Darwin Wiggett

©Samantha Chrysanthou

©Samantha Chrysanthou

©Samantha Chrysanthou

©Samantha Chrysanthou

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

©Samantha Chrysanthou and Darwin Wiggett

©Darwin Wiggett

The Weekly Photo – October 3, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett

Canon EOS-1ds Mark III, Sigma 24-70mm lens at 26mm, base exposure was 1.6s at f14, Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer, 5 exposure bracket processed in Oloneo PhotoEngine and then converted to B+W in Nik Silver Efex Pro and then layered back with the PhotoEngine colour image. Click on the image for a larger view. Below is the base exposure to show the before.

©Darwin Wiggett - middle exposure of the series

The Weekly Photo – September 26, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett

Image was made near Trochu, Alberta. Stay tuned for a new photo workshop TBA in the area where we will photograph old buidlings, old cars and badlands. This image was shot using a Canon EOS-1ds Mark III, Sigma 24-70mm lens at 34mm, 5.0s at f14, Singh-Ray 2-stop hard-edge grad over sky and Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer with a Lee 4-stop solid ND to get a longer exposure for movement in the grass. Processed in Oloneo Photo Engine for a slightly ‘grunge’ look. Click on the photo to see a larger version.