Like many folks I often ‘lose myself’ when I’m exploring, camera in hand. How and why certain things catch my eye is something I’ve never questioned. Trusting my creative impulses adds to the adventure. My wife and I spent a week exploring the Saanich Peninsula in British Columbia in early April. This article shares some of the eclectic collection of images captured during our meanderings, as well as some of the techniques used to create the photographs in this article.
Flowers seem to catch my eye frequently and its one of the reasons that I always pack a set of extension tubes and a 1 Nikon 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 zoom lens when I travel. One never knows when the opportunity for some close up photography may present itself. I often like to position flowers entering the frame from a corner to add some drama to an image.
Finding man-made objects and working them into landscape compositions is something that I enjoy. Especially if I can take advantage of their angles and lines where possible. In this case I used the arm of the chair to create a corner exit.
I enjoy walking on shorelines and specifically looking for driftwood, rock formations, shore erosion and other elements that can add some character to a photograph.
This revolving merry-go-round intrigued me and I wanted to combine the feelings of motion and stability in an image. Since I had left my tripod in the car I propped myself up against a pillar in the building so I could shoot at a shutter speed of 1/2 second to create some blurred motion. Stopping my lens down to f/16 also helped achieve a slow shutter speed. With the main portion of the photograph being a motion blur I wasn’t overly concerned about getting some image softening from diffraction. I set my single AF point on the fencing on the right hand side of the frame to create this photograph.
Often an overcast day can be a blessing as it diffuses light and helps to accentuate colours in a scene. The moss and lichen on the branches in this image really reminded me of some of the rainforests on the South Island of New Zealand. I actually took some saturation out of the photograph above in post. The green hues were so bright naturally…that they almost looked unnatural!
My eye often sees geometric shapes, like the triangle in the image above, long before I actually recognize what is in an image that I’m composing. Dark clouds never deter me from going out with my camera as I love how skies like this can help define an image and add some visual interest.
Here’s what you get when you combine a bug, a banana, a glass display case, and some extension tubes.
I loved the beautiful lighting in this display area at the British Columbia Legislature building. It did a wonderful job accentuating the formal, elegant feeling of the room. I captured this image hand-held with a shutter speed of 1/25 at ISO-3200 with a Nikon 1 J5. I used some perspective control adjustments in OpticsPro 11 to correct some of the angles in the image. As is often the case when in public buildings I had to wait for other visitors to leave the room, or be hidden behind pillars or displays, before capturing my images.
At times some of the most intriguing images can be found by looking up. I pointed my J5 straight up and flipped the rear screen out 180-degrees to compose this photograph. Rather than risk falling backwards over a handrail and dropping 30 feet or so, I settled for a less-than-symmetrical image.
The harbour in Victoria British Columbia is a plethora of different colours and shapes. Capturing this image while positioning myself partially up a stairway to elevate my camera gave me the stacked and compressed perspectives I wanted to create in the photograph above.
I wouldn’t normally choose to capture an image of a moving object with a camera like a Nikon 1 J5 that doesn’t have an EVF. As the old saying goes, ‘the best camera is the one you have with you’ and in this instance the J5 did the trick for me.
Small details regularly catch my attention, like the lock in the photograph above. This was fastened to some bars on the entry gate to the legislative chamber at the British Columbia Legislature building. Not having a tripod with me, I knelt on one knee and balanced my Nikon 1 J5 on my thigh to capture this image at 1/20 of a second at ISO-3200.
Complimenting and contrasting lines in a jumble of driftwood can catch my eye, enticing me to climb about looking for a particular feeling of balance within the randomness. Working with ‘curves’ in CS6 in post helped to bring out more of the subtle colour differentiation with the various pieces of driftwood.
My wife and I often visit public parks and gardens as we enjoy strolling along garden and forest paths. The pathways can create good leading lines in compositions and I always look for something interesting to act as a corner anchor.
Whale-watching in a small boat is always a hit-or-miss proposition as one can never predict nature. Being able to capture an image of a mother Orca and her calf swimming by was a special moment. Shooting in AF-C with subject tracking at 10fps with my Nikon 1 V3 allowed me to capture the Orcas in a good position in the frame. Since the Orcas were swimming at a leisurely pace I didn’t bother to shoot my Nikon 1 V3 in AF-C with subject tracking at 20fps. I straightened the horizon with the tool in OpticsPro 11.
I simply could not resist capturing the tree image above. I love the smooth sweeping motion of the branch exiting the top left corner, coupled with the interesting bark texture and colour. The lopped-off tree limb on the right-hand side of the image was a bonus character feature.
Have you ever wondered what a flamingo’s foot looks like? I can’t say that I ever consciously contemplated the answer to this question – but I was mesmerized with its appearance and details, capturing a few images.
I initially saw this image as a white triangle with contrasting dark vertical lines. The splashes of pink colour in mid-frame pulled me into the scene and helped to create a strong right to left downward flow in the photograph…at least to my eye.
Returning from holidays, it can sometimes be difficult to assess ‘photographic success’. For me this has mainly been defined by the amount of variation of subject matter in my photographs and by the number of composition approaches used (more of both = success). If I happen to have a sufficient number of images to create a photography e-book based on the trip it’s a bonus!
Technical Note:
All photographs in this article were captured hand-held using a Nikon 1 equipment as per the EXIF data. All images in the article were produced from RAW files using my standard process of OpticsPro 11, CS6 and the Nik Collection. All photographs in this article are displayed as 100% captures without any cropping.
Article and all images Copyright 2017 Thomas Stirr. All rights reserved. No use, adaptation or reproduction of any kind including electronic or digital is allowed without written consent. Photography Life is the only approved user of this article. If you see it reproduced anywhere else it is an unauthorized and illegal use. Readers who call out offending websites that steal intellectual property by posting comments on those offending websites are always appreciated!