Fire and Ice Photo Tour Results – Royce Howland

Below are Royce Howland’s six favorite photos from the Fire and Ice Photo Tour.

All photographs were taken with a Panasonic LX-5 point & shoot camera at a wide aperture, usually f/2.8. I pressed the camera lens right to the surface of the ice, as close as I could get to the features buried within, and used a small pocket LED flashlight for selective lighting. Each final image was developed with HDR processing (using Oloneo PhotoEngine) from 2 – 3 bracketed exposures, followed by finishing work in Photoshop for additional contrast & color.

©Royce Howland

©Royce Howland

©Royce Howland

©Royce Howland

©Royce Howland

©Royce Howland

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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).

Fire and Ice Photo Tour Results – Fikret Onal

Below are Fikret Onal’s six favorite images from the Fire and Ice Photo Tour.

©Fikret Onal

©Fikret Onal

©Fikret Onal

©Fikret Onal

©Fikret Onal

©Fikret Onal

Fabulous Film Fridays – November 25, 2011

Alberta recently passed a distracted driving law where you not supposed to text, put on make-up, or sketch while driving. I looked carefully at the regulations and there was nothing there about using a Holga while driving (but electronic cameras are banned – yeah for film!). So last time I went into Banff National Park I pulled out the Holga at nearly 100 KMPH (check the speedometre in the photo) and snapped this shot of Cascade Mountain from the Trans Canada Highway (as you can see the road was empty so who was I distracting anyway?). Safety first though; I was wearing my hard hat and steel-toed boots while doing this dangerous exercise (and I did put my coffee down before snapping the shot)! 😉

©Darwin Wiggett - Holga GN120, Fuji NPH400 film

Fire and Ice Photo Tour Results – Dan Marston

Below are Dan Marston’s six favorite photos from the Fire and Ice Photo Tour.

©Dan Marston

Athabasca Falls Jasper National Park

©Dan Marston

Jasper Nov 2011

©Dan Marston

©Dan Marston

Panther Falls

Banff National Park

©Dan Marston

©Dan Marston

Fire and Ice Tour Results – Mike Blanchette

Below are Mike Blanchette’s six favorite images from the Fire and Ice Tour.

Photo by Mike Blanchette

 Athabasca River Bend: Jasper National Park, Alberta

Photo by Mike Blanchette

 Fallen Tree in Talbot Lake: Jasper National Park, Alberta

Photo by Mike Blanchette

 Bend in the North Saskatchewan River

Banff National Park

Photo by Mike Blanchette

Sun Hitting the Peaks: Abraham Lake, Alberta

Photo by Mike Blanchette

 Aspen Trees in Snow: Kootenay Plains, Alberta

Photo by Mike Blanchette

Cracks in the Ice: Abraham Lake, Alberta

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?

Fire and Ice Results – Greg Bukoski

Below are Greg Bukoski’s six favorite images from the Fire and Ice Tour.

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Photo by Greg Bukoski

Fire and Ice Results – Alan Ernst

Below are Alan’s six favorites from the Fire and Ice photo tour. We had ‘interesting’ weather that forced participants to dig deep to come up with creative images. As you can see from Alan’s images below, there is always something to shoot no matter what kind of light and weather nature throws at you.

©Alan Ernst

Cline River Canyon
Lumix GH2, Zuiko 11-22mm lens at 22mm (44mm equiv.), ISO 160, f8 at 1/60s, + 1.33 EV

©Alan Ernst

Fairyland Gate

Lumix GH1, Lumix 100-300mm lens at 200mm (400mm equiv.), ISO 100, f16, 1/10s, +0.7 EV

©Alan Ernst

Morning Sun on Vision Quest
Lumix GH1, Lumx 100-300mm lens at 170mm (340mm equiv.), ISO 100, f9, 1/40s, +0.7 EV

©Alan Ernst

Panther Claws
Lumix GH2, Zuiko 11-22mm lens at 21mm (42mm equiv.), ISO 160, f16, 0.6s, +1 EV, solid ND filter

©Alan Ernst

Sunwapta Falls
Lumix GH2, Zuiko 12-60mm lens at 21mm (42mm equiv.), ISO 160, f16, 1/5s, + 0.66 EV

©Alan Ernst

The Drain at Whirlpool Point

Lumix GH2, Zuiko 11-22mm lens at 11mm (22mm equiv.), ISO 160, f14, 0.8s, +0.66 EV

The Weekly Photo – November 14, 2011

©Darwin Wiggett

Here’s the Ice, Where’s the Fire?

This photo was taken on the last morning of the Fire and Ice Photo Tour in the Canadian Rockies which ended yesterday. Unlike most November tours, this tour we were given cloudy and snowy conditions. But even with the lack of ‘fire’ (sunrises and sunsets), the group of intrepid photographers made some great images.

One of the tricks I use in ‘bad light’ (e.g. overcast, grey days) is to set my digital camera to ‘monochrome’ so that the LCD of my camera shows B+W photos. I find it helps to strip away the colour to see compositions in B+W. Often there will be great images out there that speak to be taken even in the ‘crappy’ light. The image is a case in point. In colour it had no life but when I saw how it looked on the LCD in monochrome, I decided the photo was worth taking. If you shoot in RAW format the camera will display a B+W image on your LCD but record a full colour image in-camera which you can use to make B+W conversion later in post processing. I use Silver Efex Pro 2 as my default B+W conversion program (for a 15% discount on the software just enter darwin as the discount code on checkout). Stay tuned for great shots from participants in the following weeks most of whom used the monochrome setting on their cameras to mine wonderful B+W images in the moody light

For anyone wanting to see the new ice in the Rockies and hopefully to get a bit of fire to boot, there is one spot left starting this Wednesday (November 16) until Sunday (November 20). Contact Alan at the Aurum Lodge (info@aurumlodge.com) to for more information.