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was hovering around -30ºC, and I only took the time to make a photograph on 35mm film, which unfortunately was very far outdated 400ISO, so the resulting image was lacking shall we say!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

Gentle Tones of Autumn

Walking along Red Deer’s trails this time of year always puts me in a great mood. The colours are fantastic, the sound of the many birds excited to be heading south for a season and the smells, all of it, is enough to put my senses into overload! Thankfully there are a few trails I can access during my lunchbreak. I took my camera along for a stroll yesterday and planted Olympus’s new 75mm lens on and thoroughly enjoyed about 15-20 minutes of “recovery” time along one of these trails. As usual there was no one else around. Great for me, but disappointing that so many people are missing out on these sights, smells, and sounds!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Panasonic GF-2, Olympus 75mm f/1.8]