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

Blackstone

Wet rocks shining in the sun. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 70-300mm at 70mm f/11 1/100 ISO 125

It seems that many of the photos that have ended up on this blog have been taken at Neck Point.  It is a compelling place with some very interesting geography.  On the beach there is a sloping expanse of small black pebbles that get covered with water at least once a day.  On this day as I arrived in the morning someone had been out ahead of me and I was struck by the strongly graphic image that was presented by their foot-steps.  I knew this image would be best in black and white and when I processed it in Nik Silver Effects Pro I increased the structure and contrast to bring up to make the rocks really shine.

-Russell Berg

Blue Lake

A cold mountain lake near Banff. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 16mm f/9 1/160 ISO 100

She stands in the water knee deep and alone, staring off into a landscape that is overwhelming in its beauty.  The cold is seeping into her skin, slowing her blood and making her bones ache.  It is the kind of cold that takes your breath away, the kind of cold that slows movement at your joints and gives you a headache.  Tomorrow morning, before the mists have been burned away by the rising sun she will swim this lake.

My daughter raced in a triathlon in Banff and this was the lake where the swim portion of the course place in.  The lake was glacier fed and very cold so I wanted to produce an image that expressed how cold the lake was.  First I cropped the image down to produce a more symmetrical tree line at both edges of the frame.  I wanted the highest point of the tree lines to be very near the edge of the frame so both sides of the image pull down and in towards the mountain in the background.  I also adjusted the crop in the foreground to place the first rock in the very bottom right corner of the frame.  These almost completely black shapes pull your eye into the image from the bottom right an out to the mountain in the background.  The image of the mountain happens at the intersection of three curves all of which pull your eye in to the centre.  This was taken on a bright sunny day so to get the cold feeling I converted to black and white in  Nik Silver Efex Pro and then reduced the exposure to darken it and added a cross process in Aperture that introduced the blue tint.

-Russell Berg