Spiral in fall – Three years of patience

I don’t know why…but I like leaves change more than flower season in spring. Maybe because of my personality? It is like after excitements of the short summer, trees set up climax with the perfect stage effect of yellow leaves. After the drama, long enduring winter is waiting. That’s is the reason I visit Lake O’Hara every year.

I tried this idea of flowing needles for 3 years, and eventually, I got a successful image. I used Lee big stopper neutral density filter and achieved 160 sec of shutter speed.

Award winning – Photographic Artist of the year 2014!!!

Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC) holds image competition, called Image Salon every year. This year, the winners were announced in Winnipeg in May. Trophies are awarded to 4 categories including Portrait, commercial, wedding photographer and photographic artist. Winners have to achieve high quality images from all technical and artistic view point of photography for all 4 submissions.

And…..I am a winner of Photographic artist of the year. This is exiting. I received a magazine, yesterday, from PPOC、carrying  an article featuring the 4 winners. Please take a look the article. I mentioned about my attitude toward landscape and portrait photography, and how I found my styles of horse images.

I should’ve written about the award earlier, but the reason is I did not have good a selphie. I knew this magazine is coming so I waited a photo of myself taken by a professional. I like photograph people, but no way myself! However, I would like to photograph trophies made of acrylic. This is challenging. I will post how it goes. Following is the winning images.

Please click images for large sizes

Sunrise on Abraham lake

 

Touching you, Touching me

 

 

Lights on Green

A new image form the gallery show

When I publish a new photo, I occasionally feel not sure what kind of responses to the photo I will get from viewers. Currently, my gallery show is going at the Higher Ground cafe in Kensington in Calgary, Alberta. This is the first time to showcase this image takne in Lake O’Hara in Yoho National park, BC in 2012. I was not quite confident since it is a little different from what I have mostly done before. Its mood is so different from my other photos. I guess that is why I was a little anxious to exhibit this photo. However, this image was one of two photos my friends picked as their favorite photos. When reviewing my album, I noticed my style is constantly changing; images from 2012 are somewhat different from 2011 even I traveled to the same places.

For larger size, please click the photo.

 

Another reason people like this photo would be thye may see quality of the presentation o of the photo. I asked Resolve Photo to print and Framed on Fifth to frame as usual. They do great job.

By the way. the gallery show is going until the end of April. The map to the Higher Ground Cafe is here.

Autumn landscape in Lake O’Hara – Large format slide film

Another photo from film, but this time is 4×5 color slide. This image was taken at my last autumn trip. When I visisted lake O’Hara, peak of larch trees was a little passed. But I still got some good… actually, some great shots. I will post them in future posts. For this post, I respect the media so I kept the digital processing minimum and only global adjustments were applied. It is nature of slide film. I heard large format sizes of Fuji Velvia had been discountinued in Europe. I hope the supply of the such a legendary film will last longer in Canada.

Lake McArthur area in Autumn by Hiroaki Kobayashi

More large format stuff here:

• Evening with Large Format Cameras (1)
• Evening with Large Format Cameras (2)
• Panorama by 4×5 camera
• A Socky Sock – Worth it!
• Gallery show at Mount Royal University – Size matters, but be gentle (man)

 

Sunset and boats – Lake O’Hara

One more photo from the Lake O’Hara trip about 2 weeks ago. I have taken so many sunset images from the viewpoint around the shelter area. Also I was leading some photographers. I wanted to show something a little more creative and different. So I took them to a boat dock as I predicted we could play with long exposure. I always think female photographers have more free thinking. Each of them created their own images.

In this trip, I opened my tripod only 3 times…infrared photography, night photography and this shot. Shutter speed is 8 sec.

Sunset and boats – Lake O’Hara by Hiroaki Kobayashi

My first photo workshop guide experience

Last week end, I visited Lake O’Hara, British Columbia. It was workshop by Brian Merry and I was one of leading guides. We started hike around 2 pm and it was beautiful sunny afternoon. The sky was spotless. This condition is perfect for hikers but for photographers….it is boring. I would be taking a nap in my car or searching  good subjects for  better lighting condition coming up later. Although I took my group to some iconic locations, the condition was not for open-dynamic-view type of images. Needless to say,  I have to show them something we can do without a tripod. As an instructor, I did not have time to set up a tripod. I was looking around and I got an idea.

Well…this is not super creative. Many people try the same thing. But this is fun and still some of viewers can tell where the scene is. I think documentary part of photography is also powerful tool to communicate with viewers. Having said that, I felt I had to add some effects to convey my languid feeling in the bright and warm Indian summer afternoon.

I tried Darton Drake‘s techniques. I hope the result is more special than Instagram. Lastly, thank you, Brian, for giving me the opportunity.

Stampede Wstern Gallery Show (2) – Stay on trails

This photo was taken in Lake O’Hara, British Columbiain in early September in 2010. I was walking on a trail and I found a beautiful green moss shinning in the morning sun light in a creek. However, I was with some friends heading to a location for the day. So I decided to come back in the evening. Unfortunately, the day turned to cloudy and we had a shower at the evening. But when I came back to the location I found in the morning, the sky was clearing up. I had still time before sunset.

But here was a problem. The creek was running about 3m below the trail. If I had taken Ninja action, I would’ve been able to go down to the creek. Well…now, I’ve got to tell myself…”No, I can not do this. It is not acceptable”. “Staying on trails”, that was clearly stated by a park ranger. It takes long time to recover once natural habitants are damaged. Photographers tend to bend the rule to get unique shots. But it may result in struggling own neck in long run.

Anyway, I kept walking and I came to cross the creek. Then there was a pass along by the creek. Lucky! I can reach to the green moss without stepping over natural vegetation.

Ultra wide Heliar 12mm/f5.6, my fun lens. Lee 0.9 ND filter. This is HDR image. I used PS to develop the HDR image but the outcome was not satisfactory. Then I tried Photometix, and I am quite happy with the result.

Stampede Wstern Gallery show – need a little help from my friends

Since I have to stay in town for this long weekend in Canada, I am (re)- post processing images for the exhibition at the Western Photo Gallery at the Stampede. These images were taken in Lake O’Hara area last year at the same time, and each image is stitched with 5 images by Photoshop CS5.  The first one shows reflection of mountain in the pond. The 2^nd one does not show such a static reflection due to wind and wavy surface of the water. But reflection of trees has a more painterly charactor and impressionism kind of feeling. Interestingly, I did not notice this, until comparing the two images side by side, that the top image is more contrasty and more saturated. The top image, itself has a kind of strong character so it may lead me to add more contrast and saturation unconsciously. On the other hand, the bottom image a little more subtle so it may have made me process the image toward more soft side. What does this tell ya? Although we use many techniques to control conditions of light at a scene, the images opened on a computer monitor first time is kind dull. So we take a lot of time to make photos more attractive. To me, it is not different from wet dark room. My point is this process is strongly affected by mood of image as well as one of a photographer at the location and on a computer. It can be consciously or unconsciously. Don’t you think this is really artistic process?

Actually, I am supposed to submit the 2^nd image since it is the one accepted by the gallery. I do not know which image I like, more precisely to say I do not know which one appeal to viewers. If you were me, which would you pick? Any comments are appreciated.

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My little one – Pika

Recently, I  have been quite busy for the gallery show and post processing for bunch of photos. But here is my cute animal portrait. This friendly pika was taken in my 2nd Lake O’Hara trip with a bunch of camera club members. I hope you like it.

Oh, one thing I can mention. Do not trust auto focus for these situation. Rather than chasing a target with auto focus, waiting an animal to come into a frame tends to result in more successful shots, in my experience.

Botany or Landscape photography

This is the photo I took in lake O’Hara in early September. It was my first snow this year. I do not take botany photography since my camera is not capable to take macro lenses.  But still I take pictures of flowers. I think that this image of mine is more like landscape photography rather than botany. 

 

Western Anemone - Lake O'Hara

Now I am waiting for ice and snow covering mountains.