Exploring The Dry Dock

The Nanaimo Boatyards is home to a remarkable old building that holds a dry dock for large boats to come in and get some maintenance done.  I don’t know how old it is but is there ever a lot of character in the building.  The textures and tones were so interesting and they were all the more so when I converted the image to black and white.  As I was looking at the image at full magnification when I began to prepare this post I realized that I may have had more than one image here.  There were little stories that the picture was telling throughout the building so I cropped in tight on some of the interesting areas.  Check them out below, you definitely give away some resolution but I think the results are pretty interesting.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

The Dress

I also really like the way that the laces draped and hung on the dress.

I went to my niece’s wedding this past weekend and although she had hired a photographer she asked me to fill in the gaps and shoot the parts and places where the photographer could not be.  This was perfect for me, I really hate posing people and I am horrible at it so it is great for me to not have to do that.  I talked to the photographer about the whole situation, (it’s really important to clarify all of this when you are working alongside a professional), and she was great about it all.  When the ladies where getting ready, and after I had steamed all of the bridesmaid’s dresses, I saw the bride’s dress hanging in the door way to a walk-in closet with the veil draped over the bodice.  The line and form of the empty dress was an appealing and interesting still life so I started to shoot it.  Shooting from outside the closet left the image with a very busy background so I decided to try from the inside the small closet.  I had enough room for my wide angle zoom to get the whole dress in.  I bounced the flash off of the ceiling and turned it down ⅔ of a stop to prevent the whites in the dress from blowing out.  I the flash was bouncing around the walls of the closet so it was almost as though I was shooting from inside a giant soft box that produced some really appealing areas of light and shadow.  In post I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro, the image was crying out for black and white, darkened the background areas into blackness, and pulled some more texture from the dress.  I was really happy with the end image except for the window behind the veil.  I tried to get it all black but just couldn’t quite do it without wrecking the veil.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Elbow on the Sill

I have found the city of Victoria and it’s architecture to be a significant inspiration for me.  There is something that strikes me as I wander those streets with my camera that pushes the photographer in me to see things differently.  I find the parts of a city that are on the edges of survival to have a truth in them that is so much more beautiful than the manicured lawns and refinished driveways of suburbia.  The texture of this wall jumped out at me as a wonderful background to the three black openings of the windows.  The texture of the glass that remains in the windows provides an interesting counterpoint to the yawning darkness below.  The rusty stains around the edges and the lichens growing on the window sills bear silent testimony to dozens of winters, to hundreds of eyes looking out, to the arms resting on summer evenings watching the city walk by.

Other Victoria images here, here, and here​

-Russell Berg

Moss Branch

A bright piece of moss caught my eye as we were walking down Giant’s Head Mt. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at 300mm f/5.6 1/400 ISO 250

There is a wonderful world outside your front door.

The sun was setting through the trees as we walked down Giant’s Head Mt. and it was lighting all kinds of interesting little moments  on the path.  I glanced to my left and glint of golden green against a dark background caught my eye.  It was off in the distance and I wasn’t sure that I had any kind of decent image until I brought my camera up to me eye.  Normally my 17-85mm zoom is my carry around lens, the lens I take when I want to carry only one.  Today it was in the shop to be repaired an I had my 70-300mm with me.  This branch was probably 500m away but having a lens this long pulled it in to me and allowed me to make it appear at eye level.  The branch was probably 3m up in the air and if I had had to walk up to it to get the image I would have been looking up at it.  I am sure that I missed other shots because I did not have my wide angle zoom but focusing on maximizing the equipment that you do have can yield interesting results.

-Russell Berg

Comfort In The Silence

Canon EOS 7D EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/3.5 1/200 ISO 100 I found these wonderful rhododendron flowers on a garden tour in Nanaimo.The feeling that passes between a man and a woman who have lived a lifetime together is a wonderful thing.  There is a comfort in the silences that speaks to years of being able to anticipate the other's thoughts and feelings.  There is an understanding in the the half spoken sentences and unuttered remembrances that is far stronger than the passionate eloquence of young love.  There is a whole life etched in the silent lines that surround the crinkled eyes as they share a half told 32 year old joke.  My wife and I met this couple on a garden tour this past spring; they were vibrant and alive and in their 80's and they had the most wonderful garden.  These rhododendrons were in their garden.

The photo is pretty simple, I knew I was looking for a way to frame the flowers to one edge leaving the remainder of the frame to drift out of focus.  I knew that I had to leave enough depth of field to keep the whole flower in focus, but I did not want any detail in the background so I stopped down to f/3.5 and that produced the effect I was looking for.  I was really glad that I had my fast 50mm as it is the sharpest lens I own and that shows in the petals.

-Russell Berg