Looking Down

An amazing intersection of canyons near Summerland, BC. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at f/7.1 1/400 ISO 200 −2/3EV

The top of a mountain is a special place. It is a place of reflection and thought; of quiet observation. It is a place of humility where we get a chance to look at the world around us writ large and we get a more personal sense of our own little space in it. It is a place of accomplishment and satisfaction. The sky only shows it's true colour to those who climb the mountain.

My daughter and I rode our bikes to the top of Giant's Head Mt. twice on our trip to the Okangan. We went back in the evening because I wanted to get a photograph with the depth that a low setting sun would provide. I took the photo from probably 2 or 3 km away from the subject and from that distance everything gets compressed. The light slanting across the landscape helped to preserve the depth of the ravines, the definition of the orchard rows, and the texture of the trees. I did the B&W conversion in Aperture this time by adjusting green and red filters as well as contrast instead of using Nik. The results I wanted were more global across the photo so I didn't need the fine grained control that Nik provides.

-Russell Berg

Vancouver

A skyline view of Vancouver from the harbour. Canon EOS XSi EF 17-85mm at 17mm f/22 1/90 ISO 200

Open Rest

Dramatic prairie sky's darken as a storm breaks over a field of wheat. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 10mm f/9 1/60 ISO 100

My wheels hum down the open highway as the wide prairie spaces open up in front of me.  This place has been called empty but for me it is not empty, it is open.  There is a beauty in the openness that invites you to examine yourself rather than overwhelm you with the ‘other’ that surrounds you.  There is space to breath and think.  The prairies are like the rest between the notes, the pause in the well crafted sentence, the negative space that defines the image.  They are the place where we can understand the rest of our lives because for the moment we can consider the rest of our lives with spaces for the thoughts to breath.

One more from my trip to the prairies.  I went out for a bike ride in the early morning and as I got closer to home the wind started to whip up and the sky started to darken in the south.  I love a dramatic prairie sky over a sunlit wheat field and I went back out with my car to find the right angle under the right sky.  I got this image but I knew that I had to do some work on it.  The sensor on my 7D does not have the dynamic range to cover the variation in light and darkness in the image.  I exposed for the highlights and then went to work on the image in Aperture.  I really liked the ‘U’ shaped ring of dramatic clouds so I emphasized this  by brushing in more contrast to the edges of the ‘U’ where they bordered the softer clouds.  I then darkened the softer clouds in the middle of the frame near the horizon line.  Next was the wheat.  I painted in light with the dodge tool in Aperture and then added saturation to the yellow-greens of the wheat.  I was quite happy with the drama that resulted.

-Russell Berg  

Tilting at...

Silhouette windmills in a blood red sky. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at 300mm f/5.6 1/4000 ISO 100

The energy of a whole planet originates in that flaming ball that slowly sinks towards the horizon.  It’s heat drives the wind currents that power these turbines feeding electricity into the wires.  The energy of all we do and all we become starts with the heat and light that travels all those miles of empty space and warms my cheek as I look up in the sky.

I am still out in the prairies and the other night I found out that there were windmills quite close to where I am staying.  I knew that I had to get out there to photograph them at sunset.  The main struggle was finding a decent location before the light disappeared so I was tearing up and down country roads to find a decent spot.  Of course I found the perfect spot after the light was gone but I am pretty happy with this one.  I knew that I wanted to underexpose to throw the windmills into silhouette so I took a couple of quick exposures in aperture priority to get a baseline exposure then switched over to manual.  The sky had a fair amount of dust in it I guess and when I underexposed I got this beautiful brilliant red.  I did not come up with this colour with heavy processing I did not even touch the saturation on the image, in fact I brightened it a little which lightened the red.  I love the way that the sun has a yellow band around it and the colours are so compelling even though the composition is a little off.

-Russell Berg

Sunset Over Canola

A beautiful prairie sunset over a field of ripe canola. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 22mm f/5 1/250 ISO 200 -.67EV

I have returned to the prairies and although I love Vancouver Island and it has definitely become home for me there is something very special about the draw of these skies.  There is an openness here, a welcoming in the landscape that doesn’t try to overwhelm you the way that giant forests, towering mountains, or rushing rivers do.  You can simply ‘be’ here and there is a wonderful sense of self that grows in the solitude of those wide open spaces that helps you understand your place in the world.  You can pull in a breath, let it go and you understand a little more.

Getting an image that has a glowing sunset over a foreground that is not completely black can be a challenge and I am not sure that I have completely succeeded here.  I wanted a sweeping landscape that told more of a story than just the beautiful colours of a the sunset.  I wanted a sense of place and space that was evocative of the prairie in a special way.  I exposed for the sunset without letting the foreground canola go completely dark.  This is where the value of a RAW file comes into play.  I was able to use the dodge (lighten) tool in Aperture to paint in a lighter exposure and bring back the detail in the canola flowers.  In my experience it is better to expose for the highlights and then allow the software to pull the detail out of the dark areas of the photo.  They are there but the camera sensor cannot display them without a little help.  I then added a touch of the shadow tool to finish the job and increased the saturation to give the sunset a bit more punch. Below I have included a copy of the same image before I started doing any processing.

-Russell Berg