Drilling for Fish

I suppose with almost no drilling for oil in these parts right now, an alternative might well be drilling for fish! Gull Lake in south central Alberta has it’s fair share of winter sportsmen who enjoy hanging out on the ice waiting for a fleeting glimpse of a fish. I for one don’t care for the sport, oh I’ve done it, but likely won’t ever again. Fly fishing – you bet, ice fishing – not so much. However, being that I enjoy photography so much, who is to say I can’t make a few photos of those that are still exploring the sport?

I have most Mondays off work(I usually work Saturdays, so please don’t get too excited thinking I get three day weekends!) and I have been waiting for a Monday that shows up with a nice cover of high clouds to enable the photo I am after for quite awhile. Sometimes my Mondays get rather full of things I need to get done, but this past week, I had a few hours available to go photographing and the conditions were ideal! I set off after driving my wife to work and enjoying a coffee with her.

It is a fairly short drive from Red Deer around a half hour or so. The day use area of Aspen Provincial Park is gated for the winter so a short half a kilometre walk got me to the beach area and just off shore were some of the fishing huts I was after.

 

 

I attempted this image last year, but the one time I made it out, the windchill was hovering around -30ºC, and I only took the time to make a photograph on 35mm film, which unfortunately was very far outdated 400ISO, so the resulting image was lacking shall we say!

As I was walking down the beach I noticed the one hut on the far right of the above image looking a bit lonely at the edge of the herd and I decided to isolate it with a telephoto lens to really give it the feeling of being lonely out there.

 

 

Then just before I was about to leave the beach and head back to my car one of the sportsmen decided to drill a new hole far from all the others. He had walked quite a distance with his ice auger and started drilling. I slang into action hoping to get set up in time to get at least one image before he finished the chore. I don’t know if he trouble starting the machine, but he seemed a bit delayed allowing me the few extra seconds to get my tripod set up and ready. I like this image the best from the time I spent at Gull Lake and would like to try printing it large with a white wood frame.

 

 

6.7″ x 10″ – Open Edition Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/45

20″ x 30″ – Edition of 9 + 1 AP  Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/385

30″ x 45″ – Edition of 4 +1 AP  Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/825

40″x 60″ – Edition of 4 +1 AP  Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/1650

Tree Museum

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They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
’Til it’s gone…

~Joni Mitchell, from “Big Yellow Taxi,”, © Siquomb Publishing Company

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Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, Alberta

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7″ x 10″ – Open Edition Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/45

21.5″ x 30″ – Edition of 9 + 1 AP  Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/350

28.5″ x 40″ – Edition of 4 +1 AP  Printed on Ilford Galerie Prestige 310gsm, signed, numbered, and shipped  http://www.paypal.me/collinorthner/750

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Giant Sparks

July 3rd, 10pm, my wife and I are enjoying the evening reading books on our deck. We noticed some “interesting” clouds moving our way. After much deliberation I decided to pack up my cameras and head out just in case it turned into something. It did! There were a lot of giant sparks emanating from the clouds and heading more or less earthward. It was very enjoyable to watch. My first stop was south of Joffre across the river looking NE as one of the storms was heading away from me. It almost seemed like the thunderstorm was dissipating as very few lightning strikes were present. I tried an exposure anyway and managed to capture this lightning strike.

 

Within minutes of this strike the storm gained some life as it started putting the odd CG(cloud to ground)strike from the back of the storm, although there were many that only lit the clouds up from inside. After setting up my camera I hit the shutter and waited, and waited, and waited. I was only seconds from stopping the exposure, to head for another location as more storms were around me, but thought I would pack up my second tripod first and then end it. As I was getting the other tripod into the car I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Quickly swinging my head to the screen on the back of my camera, I confirmed that it had indeed captured the strike pretty much exactly where I would want it!

 

My second location was north of the river now and slightly SW from Joffre looking south. A very active storm was travelling perpendicular to me about 10 km or so away. It was getting dark at this point and was very hard to focus the camera. Subsequently, I missed the focus on this second image slightly, so unfortunately no large prints can be made from it even though it looks fantastic on the internet.

 

 

I travelled a bit further to the NW and situated myself near a very tall radio antenna somewhat SE from Blackfalds and almost directly south of Lacombe. Another very large storm was approaching quite quickly with a rather high volume of CG strikes. Blackfalds and Lacombe were in the direct line of fire. I put on a zoom lens allowing me to get a tighter shot of the strikes and a lens which is weatherproof, just in case. It was far easier to focus now as I had all the streetlights to use as an aid.

 

As the storm moved east it was about to hit Lacombe. I really wanted a shot of a CG right into the city There were a few near misses like this one.

 

But, perseverance paid off and wammo! Right into the middle of the city. From what I have heard, it knocked out some power locally and was a very loud crack that was quite frightening for those near it! I was quite a distance away as I was using a telephoto zoom lens remember. I did hear the boom, but it took a bit of time, travelling at 3 seconds a kilometre, to reach me.

 

 

A completely satisfying time. I could easily have stayed out much later, but I had to work in the morning. I returned back home around 12:30am or so, but was pretty pumped after all the excitement and it took me another hour at least to finally fall asleep!

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, M.Zuiko 9-18mm, M.Zuiko 14-150mm ]

 

 

Fireflies and Star Trails

Hoping to catch a nice sunset I headed off to Gull Lake last night. It’s only a 30 minute drive, so a bit of a last minute desicion was no big deal. The temperature was 28ºC and the parking lot at the beach was packed solid when I arrived. I’m not one for big crowds anywhere, malls, carnivals etc. I much prefer quiet and so I didn’t haul out my cameras as they grab far too much attention. Instead I parked my butt on a bench and enjoyed the setting sun. It was interesting too, as I noticed thousands of small fish feeding on the insects on the surface of the water just like trout do and birds, both gulls and terns in turn skimming the surface picking off these fish as they surfaced. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but I’m curious to know. While I was enjoying the warmth of the sun I got an e-mail alert about possible aurora, so I thought it would be nice to wait and see if they showed up.

Pretty much as soon as the sun disappeared below the horizon the crowds started thinning out quite quickly and I didn’t feel so conspicuous with my camera. It takes a long time to get dark at this time of year! The sun set at around 9:50pm and it takes a couple of hours for the sky to get dark.  A few minutes before 11 a park warden came by to tell me they were locking up the gates and I would have to leave. I explained what I was doing and the warden said he wouldn’t kick me out of the park if I was to park outside the gate and walk back in. It’s under a kilometre to get in so I was all for the idea! He also mentioned that the evening before there had been a lot of fireflies around and that they were seen around midnight for an hour or so. This perked my interest as I have only ever seen fireflies once before while out chasing thunderstorms around this time of year a long time ago. I parked my car outside the gate and gathered together the minimum amount of gear I felt was necessary and wandered back down to the beach. The warden had given me a good tip and almost as if on que the first flash of greenish light of a firefly appeared in a small group of trees next to the beach. I set up my camera and took a twenty minute time exposure looking out over Gull Lake. As you can see the earth rotates and creates star trails in the sky, but the main attraction for me was the squiggly green lines tracing out the flight path of these amazing little insects!

 

 

[Olympus E-M5II, Panasonic 20mm f/1.7]

 

 

 

The Effect of Heat upon the Visual Acuity of Large Compression Telephoto Images

 

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, Panasonic 100-300mm ]

 

 

Graphically Speaking

I really enjoy the graphic qualities presented here. Essentially monochrome with a jolt of orange, this image has straight lines, curved lines, triangles, short lines, long lines, thick lines, thin lines, organic shapes, man-made shapes, dark tones, light tones, large blank area, and small detailed areas. It was fun to make the image even though I was being buffeted by very strong winds! I was shooting across a highway in order to get the composition I was after and got a lot of strange looks from people travelling by. It’s as if they have never seen someone with a camera on a tripod. I think they wouldn’t have even hardly glanced over my way if I had of been holding up my phone! 🙂

 

 

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 ]

 

 

Last Spring Storm

Hopefully all we’ll see now is rain. The fluffy white rain has grown old on me now and I much prefer rain that doesn’t require me to shovel it off the sidewalks! Heading south into Red Deer County with my friend Michael Chesworth on our way to the extreme parts of southern Alberta, we had to endure a day of cold winds and this white stuff. We made rather slow progress as the scenes were really quite beautiful.

 

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, Olympus M.Zuiko 9-18mm ]

Red Deer River Badlands

The Red Deer River badlands were my home for many years and now I can’t wait to get back as often as I can to photograph. Anyone want to take a road trip?

 

[ Olympus EM5II, Panasonic 100-300mm ]

 

Starland County

A couple more images fro a few days back from down near Drumheller. I love the FYI sign, “You are entering….” not the usual “Welcome to….” 🙂 I grew up in Starland County, so these photos are very easy to relate to for me. Other may find them to feel very stark and sparse, but that is the prairies of Canada and I find the prairies to be very beautiful. The views are almost endless and the sky becomes a big part of the experience. I can recall, after having spent a few weeks in the mountains of BC, while travelling back onto the prairies along highway 1 out of Canmore as the mountains recede behind and the sky before me opening up and feeling a relieved sensation and an ease to my breathing with all the open space before me. Hard to describe that feeling, but it was very real.

 

 

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, Olympus M.Zuiko 14-150mm II ]

Badlands

Our extended family, including two Japanese exchange students and  a friends son (so seven of us), took a trip this afternoon to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology and the badlands of the Red Deer River valley downstream of Drumheller. Having grown up in the badlands they hold a special place in my heart and I absolutely love every chance I get to re-visit the area! These were all made at the world famous hoodoos between Drumheller and East Coulee.

 

 

 

 

[ Olympus E-M5II, Olympus M.Zuiko 14-150mm II ]