Honghaitan, in Jilin, China.
Emerald Wave
Go to the Light
Beijing Chaoyang Side Park, China, the middle of winter, dry and cold.
Slesse
Slesse Park, Chilliwack, BC.
Still Dreaming
This lake side photo was shot more than an hour before sunrise at Beauvert Lake in Jasper, Alberta. The lights which illuminated the path behind the camera create a strange contrast of colours against the moonlit mountains in the distance. Even the trees halfway across the lake are illuminated by the lights on shore visible to the camera only with an extremely high ISO setting and long exposure. Shot while most people are still asleep and dreaming this image appears more dream like than natural.
Lake Louise
Lake Louise in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.
Marshlands
There are certain places that are special to everyone. This is one of mine. This was my “backyard” as a young boy and the place I grew up. I go back there often to enjoy the every changing lighting and vegetation. The sunrise and sunset are different everyday. But I think this image does a good job of portraying its beauty.
Hydrangea
I like to see patterns of nature filling large spaces. Whether it is leaves, flowers, trees or other organics from nature it is interesting to me to see them up close and in greater volume than we usually observe them. I grouped these hydrangea together to create an up close look at these beautiful flowers. Printed in large format you can see inside the flowers in a way you would not normally stop and notice.
Traveling
While the process of travel itself remains as painful as ever I still very much appreciate that through travel we are able to experience other places and people. As travelers we pass through airports, seaports, train stations and bus stations on our way to and from places a far. While passing through these hubs is not uncommon to find people excited, laughing, crying, running, sleeping, and doing just about anything else you can imagine. While we seldom meet many if any of our fellow travelers during our brief passages through these hubs but we all share a common bond as “travelers”.
Seeing people in motion, coming and going at transportation hubs is always intriguing to me. I guess I am curious where they are going and what they are doing there. I have tried many times to capture “travel” in a photograph but I feel none of my images do it as well as this one.
This photo of people silhouetted by the daylight through the large glass wall behind them leaves you to wonder who they are and where they are going or even imagine you are one of them. It could be any where, any time, and anyone but they are clearly traveling.
Rainy Blur
I love the rain and taking photographs in the rain just seems to feel good. This “rainy blur” was the result of taxi and bus passing behind and in front of two pedestrians waiting to cross a major street during a downfall. Both vehicles passed completely across the image frame during the 1 second exposure streaking their colours across the image. The slight blur of the people is because they too moved slightly during the photograph while the cross walk lines on the road are sharp because the camera was on a tripod.
Through the camera’s eye…
Just as the camera can capture and preserve events that happen too quickly for us to see, it can also capture images of events too long for us to see. Using a long exposure allows the camera to see the world a little differently which is something I enjoy. I use long exposures a lot but not very often when photographing people. This is one of those cases where I really enjoy the effect of blurred movement giving the image a sense of time. As I enjoy this image I can’t help but wonder what everyone is doing and yet the blurring of their images somehow at the same time dehumanizes them. For the most part, only their feet stay still long enough in the image to make sure we know they are people. The couple in the middle left of the image have stopped walking allowing the camera to see that they are engaged in conversation.
Images like this one leave me wondering how else the camera can help us to see the world in different ways. Or, what else the camera can see that we can not.
This image was taken from a walkway above a popular shopping area, called “The Village” in Beijing.
The way I see it…
This is my first posting and it took some consideration to decide what to upload as my first photo. I took this image in Thailand several years ago with my first digital SLR. The camera and lens struggled with the evening’s very low light conditions which is not immediately evident now in the modified photograph. I have brightened and enhanced the image to hide the original limited image quality. While the final image as seen here is not true to the image captured by the camera, I love this image perhaps more because it captures how I remember the moment in time.
I modify a lot of my photographs partly because I don’t always completely capture my vision for the image, but also because what I remember in my mind is often more surreal than the image that the digital sensor captures. Because of this I try not to simply refer to my work as photography. Instead I think of it more as “photographic art”. I know many debate the use of the word art with photography and the expression “photographic art” is not well defined. I don’t mean to suggest what I do is art as in “fine art” but rather it is my interpretation of the world through my eyes and my camera. It is “the way I see it”.
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