New Day

Sunrise over Departure Bay in Nanaimo. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85mm f/4.5-5.6 at f/6.3 50mm 1/100 ISO 200We spend so much time on sunsets, that the beauty and hopefulness of a sunrise is often ignored.  A sunset quiets and calms as it sinks slowly into darkness.  A sunrise invigorates and animates as we feel the light return to darkened world.  The tremors of the early morning light warms the edge off the night time cool.  The moist air rising off the water is pushed back against me as I walk over the pebbled rocks and uneven sand and I feel the possibilities of a new day.

I drive past the beautiful Departure Bay every morning and the sunrises are often spectacular.  One Saturday morning I went down with my camera anticipating a beautiful sunrise.  I wasn't disappointed.  I had enough time to get set up and ready as I anticipated the sun coming up over Stephenson Point in the distance.  The atmospheric dust was just enough to give the air a beautiful warm glow and to through the mountains on the mainland into golden silhouette.  I made sure that I had underexposed the image enough for the foreground to be thrown into silhouette and waited for the magical momen when the sun peaked over the the trees.

-Russell Berg

The Open Spaces

My daughter, sitting in the sunset at Neck Point. Canon EOS 7D EFS 17-85 f4-5.6 at f4 1/8000 70mmThe sun hits the water like mercury on broken glass and spills around her.  The breeze lifts her hair and sets it down and it catches that quicksilver light as well.  The great open spaces threaten to loose her in their vastness but there she sits, calm, thoughtful, and alone.  A strong young woman able to see the world around her.  The mountains stretch out and fade into the mists and the distances call to her.  These are the places and times when great journies begin.  Whether they be journies of the mind or of the the road we do not know yet but soon one step follows another.

My daughter and I went out to catch a summer sunset at Neck Point in Nanaimo.  We both love this spot and I almost always get a decent photo when I am out there.  She walked off while I was photographing some rocks and few minutes later I looked up to see where she was.  I was immediately struck by how small she looked but how dominant a presence she seemed.  I wanted to emphasize the large spaces so slid her over to the left of the frame.  I had noticed that on the right side of course we had the sunset on the water but the hill background also provided some visual weight, a counter to the presence of my daughter and the rock she is sitting on, pulling your eye into the image.

-Russell Berg

Ice and Sky

Fuji X10 7mm f9 at 1/1000 ISO 800 The subtlety of the colours on an ice-covered, winter lake is amazing.

During the holidays my family and I went back to the prairies to spend time with family.  Every time I go back I am struck by the skys.  I live now in the mountains and the forest and we are so often closed in from the sky.  There is something important and vital about being able to be alone with yourself in the middle of a giant sky that reaches down to the horizon on every side of you.  It gives you a sense of perspective that is lacking in the forest or in the shadow of a mountain. 

I am really enjoying my new camera.  The Fuji X10 has a leaf shutter so it is able to synch with the flash very reliably up to 1/1000 of a second and that means I can take pictures that are otherwise impossible.  In the photo above I was down on the ice pointing my camera directly into the sinking sun.  In normal circumstances that requires an exposure that would have thrown the ice and snow into deep shadow.  Either that or I allow the sun to blow out.  With the X10 I can keep my shutter speed high to keep detail in the sunset and use the flash to expose the snow and ice effectively.  I loved the geometric patterns in the ice and so I laid my flash down on the ice to my left and allowed the light to skitter across the ice and bounce off the snow bank on the left.  I really liked the way that it turned out.

-Russell Berg

Fuji X10 7mm f11 at 1/680 ISO 200 I love the way playing with perspective and a wide angle lens can make this relatively small formation seem much larger.