Into The Distance

Ogden Point in Victoria is a large breakwater designed to protect the port in Victoria but it has a large walkway paved on to the top of it.  There are no railings or other distracting visual elements except for a lighthouse positioned at the far end.  It makes for an interesting compositional element and I decided to use it as a context for a portrait of my daughter.  I got right down on the ground and the relatively wide angle of the lens stretched the pat almost all the way across the bottom of the frame.  The path quickly narrows of to the vanishing point, pulling your eye into the frame.  I thought about perhaps removing the person in the white jacket from the picture but I like the way that they give a sense of size and perspective.  Without the tiny people far out on the path your eye would not have a way to understand the distances that are involved.

I did another very different portrait at Ogden Point that used the breakwater in a very different yet equally striking way.  You can see it here.​

www.seeingberg.com

Windblown

Andrea stands wondering, her back is to the water as she leans against the rock.  She has the happy tired feeling of contentment in her bones and and a light smile plays at the corners of her lips.  This has been an incredibly difficult year but now everything that she has faced, well almost everything, is behind her.  There were moments when she wondered if it would all be possible, but now…  Now she smiles, looks down for a moment at her shoes and turns towards the water, her face into the wind.

At Neck Point in Nanaimo there is a wonderful tree that is clinging to a rock on the edge of the ocean.  It looks as though it has experienced decades of hurricane force winds that have forced it to grow sideways out of the rock.  I have photographed this tree several times but I wanted to produce something very moody and evocative that helped to tell the story of the trees struggle for survival.  I pulled one of my exposures into Nik Silver Efex Pro and began to work on it.  I used a high contrast filter and but that made the ocean and horizon almost black so I added control points to the water to increase the brightness of that area.  I also wanted a more dramatic sky so I darkened the top ⅓ of the frame.  I really like the way that the tree exists as a silhouette in a state of tension between the dark sky and the dark water with a band of light running through the middle of the frame.

-Russell Berg

If you are interested in more tree photography check here and here.  Or type 'tree' into the search bar.​

Tidal Stairway

He stands at the edge of the land and looks out over the water.  The old staircase is still there, it was there when he first moved to the coast and it would be there long after he was gone.  They had once lead directly from the guest house down to water and he had stood there many mornings as he waited for the others to begin to stir.  The wooden guest house had been destroyed in a storm, but the stairs, the stairs were still there.

I went for a long walk down the beach and came across a large concrete staircase that extended down into the sand and the water at high tide.  It was tilted at such a crazy angle and it didn’t really lead anywhere, just up on to some rocks on the beach.  I found the thing very compelling and spent quite a while working to get the best image of it.  I really liked the way that the railings draw you into the picture and pull you down towards the the horizon and the dramatic sky.  The B&W treatment emphasizes the form and the lines of the image.

-Russell Berg

Threatening Skies

The heat of the mid-afternoon sun had begun to ease as the skies in the south had darkened.  There was a tension in the air as the storm rolled up the coast.  The wind picked up and palms began to whip stiffly in the breeze.  It was coming fast and then it was upon us, the sky opened up and released its water.  The rain was warm and wet and delicious, rinsing the sweat salt from my skin, easing the warmth that pulsed underneath.

I went out into a storm on the beach in Panama to enjoy the rain and then as it ended the most amazing, dramatic skies appeared.  I rushed back to our room for my camera and headed down to the beach.  I knew I needed to underexpose to increase the drama of the sky and dramatic skys are great on their own but the picture is so much stronger if there is something with some visual interest in the foreground.  I remembered that there had been a boat down the beach so I hurried down there.  I knew I wanted to use a wide angle lens to get as much of the sky as possible but that also mean that the boat would appear smaller so I waded out to get as close as possible, (I was chest deep in the water).  I really am happy with what I got.  I feel like the photo has a strong sense of the drama of the passing storm and the boat adds some visual weight to the foreground.  I did have to lighten the boat with the Brushes tool in Aperture to make it pop a bit more.

-Russell Berg

Beginning

The prow points out into the morning mist. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at f/4.5 1/30 ISO 200

A photograph needs contrast to produce an interesting image. There is something special about the contrast of colours and textures. The hard smooth wood (1) of the prow pointing off into the soft vaporous mists (2) is accentuated by the shift in colour from the warm reds and ochres of the cedar (3) to the cool blues and whites of the water and the fog (4). I pushed up the contrast and the saturation values to increase the difference between the two tonal ranges in the photograph.

-Russell Berg