PRAIRIE STORM TRANQUILLITY

April 15/2012

Brandon Brown — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:49:12 +0000

It has been a long time since I have made a post. With the arrival of my son in late February, I haven’t had any time to go out and do anything photography related. I do, however, have a new subject to photograph! I did have some time at the end of March to get a couple of outings in, and I chose to head out to Glennifer Lake, which is one of my favorite places to photograph because it is close to home, and the ice, when it is exposed, is fun to shoot. The shot above was taken at sunset from one the outings. With the sun going down, the ice turned a very cool blue color, and with the warm sunset colors, I think it makes a cool contrast. On a side note, storm season is just a few months away and I am really looking forward to it. It’s hard to believe its already my 5th summer observing here in Alberta. I have my traditional days off in July and during those days off, I hope to be out observing and photographing a few good storms.

February 19/2012

Brandon Brown — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:56:05 +0000

Last Sunday, February 12th, I woke up early and headed for the Medicine Lodge Hills area north of Sylvan Lake for a sunrise shoot. What a sunrise it turned out to be! I didn’t have an exact place in the hills or subject in mind before hand, so while traveling up and down range roads in the hills I came across this old, abandoned farm house in the middle of a field. I could tell the sunrise was probably going to a good one since there were hints of color showing high in the clouds while it was still mostly dark out. Out of respect for the landowners, I didn’t want to climb over the the fence and trespass into the field to get closer to the house. It would have been nice to get closer to try out different compositions but instead I just went for a simple snapshot. As for the sunrise, it was one of the best and brightest light shows I’ve seen behind a camera. During its peak, it was tough to expose the sky properly. Even dialing down the exposure compensation a few stops still overexposed the sky, and going as low as 4 stops managed to tame the highlights a bit in the sky, but severely darkened the top and edges of the image. I had intentions on blending a few exposures, but instead I used this single RAW image as the sunrise was beginning to fade and just made a few selective adjustments using adjustment layers in Photoshop.

January 17/2012

Brandon Brown — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:58:47 +0000

Last week, Pat from Alberta Foothills Weather and myself decided to get together for a photo outing this past Saturday out in David Thompson Country, before the cold temperatures set in. Up early and out there before sunrise, we hoped for a colorful start to the day but instead we were treated to dreary, dull, grey skies. I didn’t take many photos but I did brave some windy conditions to get this photo down on the ice near the Bighorn Dam. You can’t always get great color when you are out shooting! Awesome scenery, exercise, good company, and getting away from the city, especially before the cold, made it an enjoyable day.