Mountain Ridge

Dramatic Rocky Mountain ridge near Banff, AB. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 12mm f/11 1/320 ISO 100

The great rocks reach out and pull us in even while they dominate our senses and produce in us a kind of fear tinged with awe.  We stand before them and we know that our mortality is a certain thing and yet our will to live, to experience them, just to stand and see them is so strong. 

Finding a way to present a photograph of a mountain that is not tired and cliche can be a challenge.  For landscape photographers they present an irresistible draw so finding a way to stand out from the millions of mountain photographs is difficult.  When I saw this mountain ridge near Banff on a sunny afternoon I knew that I wanted a very high contrast black and white image with an almost black sky and a black foreground.  I underexposed by one stop to darken the sky and took the image.   I used a very wide angle, 12mm, to allow the range to spread out through the frame, giving the ridge lots of length instead of the traditional towering height that mountains often get in landscape photography.  The image is made more dynamic by the strong visual weight on the left of the photograph and it pulls your eye to the right as the ridge diminishes into the distance.  I brought the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and applied a high contrast under-exeposed filter to it.  This produced the black skies and the silver mountains that appear almost to float.  Below is the unprocessed colour version of the photograph and you can see how much more dramatic, how much more powerful the image is in black and white.

-Russell Berg

Below is a more tradition composition of the same mountain with it rising higher in the frame.  I feel that the first image with it’s space to breathe and the way it pulls your eye through the frame is a much more powerful photograph.

Mountains rising out of the plain near Banff. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 22mm f/10 11/250 ISO 100

Work

A 1930’s era hay rack leans into a prairie morning. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85 at 17mm f/9.5 1/200 ISO 400

Cecil walked slowly from the field.  There was an ache in his shoulders, a special ache that only arrived during haying when 14 hours of pitching bundles up to the rack had slowed him to the point of exhaustion.  He turned and looked back.  The old hay rack was on its last legs and he would have to build a new frame for it.  He looked down and kicked at a clump of dirt in the stubble, it crumbled into dust.  It was very dry again this year.  It was at these times that he felt the weight of the responsibility for his family as heavily as the work that he had just demanded of his shoulders.  This was not going to be an easy year.  Cecil turned again and walked back towards his truck.

I took this photo at a 1930’s haying festival in north eastern Alberta.  The people at this festival demonstrate how their work was done in the ’30’s and I was reminded again of how hard the people who built this country worked.  I grew up on the prairies and my early life was permeated with farm culture.  They are a special breed and I feel honoured to have known many of them.

-Russell Berg

Dawn

Dawn comes slowly to the deep blue waters of the Pacific. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 22mm f/7.1 1/160 ISO 200

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

-Emily Dickinson

I woke up early to a beautiful misty, golden dawn and I immediately started taking pictures of the very striking sunrise.  It was beautiful but I soon turned the other direction and I was struck by the combination of deep but muted colours in the west.  The sunrise was all garish gold and sparkly but in many ways the image I got when I turned in the other direction was just as strong.  I under exposed a little to add depth and saturation to the colour and I got a beautiful deep dark blue in the foreground.  Finding ways to pull your eye into the image is not all about using lines, sometimes colour transition can also have a powerful effect.  The passage from almost black in the foreground to the yellow light on the shore to the light purples of mountains in the background pulls the eye forward into the image and gives the image more dynamic strength.  

Sunrise Calm

Sunrise in the mist over Sooke Harbour. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 22mm f/7.1 1/500 ISO 200

There is a calm in the morning that speaks more from the still water and the mist on the horizon.  It speaks more than the quiet air and the soft light.  The beginning of the day is the beginning of all things and it is a time of stillness and potential.  The day spreads out before you with all that it may contain but in that moment, in that one moment it does not overwhelm or confound, or confuse, it is just there, waiting for us.

I slept on an old fishing boat this weekend and when I awoke this is what I saw.  It was a beautiful morning that calmed me.  I grabbed my wide angle zoom and looked for an interesting foreground.  I got down low so that the chain would grab your eye in the bottom left hand corner and pull you into the middle distance.  I loved the way that the sun backlit the edges and lines of the boat.  I underexposed the boat to emphasize the back lighting.  I also really liked the fact that their is an eagle sitting on the piling in the middle of the frame.  I did pull out my telephoto and get the eagle next.

-Russell Berg

Moonrise

Summer moonrise over Lake Okanagan. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at 182mm f/5 1/320 ISO 100