When presented with a large area of intense interest, I tend to try and show too much and therefore lose the subject I’m trying to feature in the first place. Peyto Lake and for that matter, many places in the Canadian Rockies are truly breathtaking! At first I was taking a pano and trying to include way too much. Grand vistas are actually very hard for that reason. When I finally had a chance to think about it, I decided that the main subject was, after all, the lake.

Gear Doesn't Matter

“People think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing” - Henri Cartier-Bresson

The above quote, in my mind is so correct. I hear so much talk about techniques and gear and I think people are missing the point of quality photography in so many ways. The Masters used gear that was far beneath what we have today and yet produced high quality work that we still value today. They didn’t have the lightning like frame rates, the ISO capabilities, the dynamic range or auto focus to name only a few things, yet they managed some of the best work that has stood the test of time.

Any camera of any brand today will more than suffice to make high quality images and yet so many of us can’t get away from looking toward that next camera or something new being released. I used to carry a heavy bag of lenses around with me, you never know when I might need that one lens, right? The one that I used once or twice a year. Did that bag of gear help me to make better images? Yes and no. What I found is that even with all those lenses I still had my favourites that got used the majority of the time yet I still carried all that weight around “just in case”.

After a trip to the UK, my wife and I decided to lighten things up a bit. We aren’t getting any younger and all that weight while traveling is not fun. We swapped our heavy Nikon lenses for much lighter and smaller Lumix gear. Are there differences and trade-offs? Sure but nothing that would stop us from shooting what we want to. The gear is just a bag of tools, the real artistic part of photography comes from us and our abilities to use those tools.

The Grip of Winter

I’m a little behind in my editing it seems. This photo is from awhile back to when winter was still hanging around. Some say this is how you should edit, let some time go by and distance yourself from the connection first. There are times I think that is a good approach.

Tenderness in Nature

I had been watching a family of Barred Owls near my house for a few weeks and came across this scene unfolding one day. This was the last of the family to fledge and slowly climbed up the nest tree to the top. Soon Mom came to seemingly spend a little time with the youngster before it moved from the tree. Of course she would be continuing to feed the baby for awhile but this was a big day for the little guy. She nuzzled and cuddled it for some time before heading off to find food. The baby eventually tried to fly, of course couldn’t and walked to another tree and climbed up. I had never witnessed this behaviour before and it was amazing to watch. Nature is something to witness.

Time For A Facelift

As time goes by, I often lose track of it. It’s been a long time since any significant changes in my website. The name came and the site about when I started working as a concert photographer, I needed a name to put on the site so I could upload photographs, it was that simple. I still wish to maintain a web presence so it needs to be polished further than it is. I have been busy working “under the hood” a bit recently as well as planning the future of the website. There are a couple of changes that you will see right now. I’ve done away with the “Home” page and you now land into a photo gallery right away, it’s about the photos, right? Keep an eye on the site as it evolves.