The Photographer's Notebook

It’s no secret that I adore summer, but those beautiful days filled with light and warmth are quickly coming to a close. Replacing t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops are all the warm nuances of fall. Fall doesn’t last long around my neck of the woods. Last year we skipped autumn and moved straight into winter. A vicious snowstorm rolled in before the leaves turned their beautiful golden colours, and nature froze instantly. All those leaves fell to the ground in a mess of brown yuck. I’m hoping for more this year when it comes to the autumn season. As nature turns golden, there are five images that I'm aiming to capture. 

1. Outdoor adventure

I’ll admit that I do love the crisp fresh air of fall. Something is refreshing about the scent of dewy grasses, and frost kissed leaves. I find myself breathing a little deeper on my morning walks, enjoying that chill as it expands my lungs. Even with falls' chill, it isn’t too...

Fall, although short-lived where I’m from, is one of my favourite times of the year. Cozy knitted oversized sweaters, leather booties, apple cider, a carefully crafted apple pie, the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and that spicy scent lingering in the air after a marathon day of salsa creation all flood my senses with a warm nostalgic sensation. Since the autumn season spans only a few weeks before those winter snowflakes begin to fall, I like to prepare for myself a list of autumn images I hope to capture this year. As I plan my seasonal ideas, I've thought about a few ways in which I can infuse variety into the images I capture. Today I'm sharing these thoughts with you. 

1. Use a wide-angle lens

Lenses that are 35mm and wider are considered wide-angle—this focal range permits a photographer with the opportunity to capture a large scene. Wide angles during the fall are fantastic when the goal is to capture a larger setting. If you have a wide-angle...

Summer will soon come to an end. Fall is in the air up here in Canada, where I live. School routines have begun, whether it’s online or in the classroom, as have extracurricular activities, albeit all are looking different this year under the pandemic influence. With the return to the home environment, the creative spark inherent in summer adventure has been lost. The question now is, how can we interestingly use our everyday spaces? Below are a few tips to take with you through the upcoming months as you spend more time in your familiar and sometimes uninteresting environments.

1. Shoot from above-bird's eye view

As parents, our most common view of observing our children is from above. Shooting from above your subject can be an enduring perspective that evokes feelings of tender caring and love. This viewpoint also helps isolate details and can create a more interesting image, even in the most uninteresting location.

 Remember that you don't always have to shoot top...

Photography is a powerful tool, and each photographer should aim to capture images uniquely that are in alignment with her style and voice. The mom photographer in me wants to capture images in which I preserve childhood moments of my rapidly growing children frame by frame. At the same time, the artist part of me wishes to capture dynamically creative images filled with visual interest. More simply put, I want the combination of why I capture images and how I photograph the moments I choose to preserve to be interesting.

There are many different ways in which a photographer can interestingly capture everyday moments. Today, I am sharing a few tried and true methods for infusing more interest in photographs.

1. Infuse a story 

Humans relate to stories. Life is a beautiful story of ups and downs and joys and pains, and visual stories displaying these moments can be captivating. The better you get at telling a story within your images, the more interesting...

Landscape scenes lit under sunset light are often some of the most stunning. This gorgeous light, however, is only available for a few short moments, and then it disappears. Sometimes it can be challenging to capture all the images you'd like during this short time frame; however, there are a few ways in which you can make the images you do photograph count. There are also moments beyond the peak of sunset that should not be ignored. 

1. White Balance

Sunset light is often vibrantly warm at its peak, which usually lasts a few moments and only long enough to capture a couple of exposures. An increase in your white balance in-camera before and after peak colour will help draw out more colour depth within the softer pre and post-peak colours. Don't be afraid to capture your sunset lit frames using a warmer white balance temperature. Dialling in a Kelvin setting like 7690 or 8330 will infuse warm light into your straight out of camera sunset images. 

^{ISO 100, 16mm, f13,...}

Life happens, and it should, at all hours of the day. Many beautiful moments in my life occur outside of perfect lighting conditions. Yes, I do have my favourite types of light, but I've come to embrace all kinds and see value in learning and then working with light outside of the ideal. One of my goals as a photographer is to document the childhood memories of my children but infuse creativity into those images as well. Lighting conditions outside of the ideal have helped me learn more about how to work with less than ideal lighting conditions and embrace creativity. It is possible to take creative images in less than ideal lighting situations.  

 1. Create a sunburst

Full sun can be intimidating. There are bright overpowering highlights and deep dark shadows to manage. It is, however, possible to beautifully photograph your memories in full sun. One of my favourite ways in which to infuse creativity into my images when the sun...

Water is one of my favourite elements to infuse into summer images with my children. These types of photos are always fun to capture. I adore the laughter and childhood memories that are made in water. 

Before I share with you my favourite ways in which you can experiment with water in your images, I must mention how you can protect your camera gear from contact with water. The electrical components in a camera do not play well with the splish-splash of water droplets or submersion. For less intense water photographs, I use a rain sleeve to cover my gear. You may also choose to cover your lens with a Ziploc or clear plastic bag for protection from the occasional water drop. For split submersion or submersion water photographs, I use a DiCAPac. I don't spend a lot of time fully submerged in water because the bodies of water I have access to are icy, so a quick dip is about all I can stand. I find the DiCAPac works well for what I need for it to do. Many photographers...

Every summer, I like to create a must capture list of images that I think embody the summer season because I enjoy documenting summer. Since there's only about a month of summer left up here in Canada, I like to make sure, by now, that I've made a nice dent in my goals of preserving our summer memories. If you are still in a summertime mode, here's some inspiration for you and some suggestions for images that I think make excellent summertime photos. 

1. Water

Summer and water are the perfect pair. There's nothing more fun than a water gun fight through the forest, a trip to the river for some splish-splash play, a day at the beach or a run through a backyard sprinkler. Beaming hot sun begs to be tamed by playful water fun, so these activities are always high on the list of my must capture summer images.

^{ISO 200, 17mm, f9, 1/800SS}

 2. Summer Food

Delicious summer meals will be cooked and enjoyed all summer long. I know that my children are...

There are endless iconic landscape scenes that photographers from all over the world flock to photograph. Sometimes it seems that everyone has the same image at the same location. With the Canadian Rockies as my playground, many of the places I repeatedly visit are iconic and have been captured by talented photographers and vacationers alike. In addition to these iconic locations, I have my favourite landscape scenes that I return to often. Conditions are always changing due to weather, time of year, and light, but I'm still photographing the same scene. There are a few things I can do to infuse creativity into my images when I'm capturing a similar location often or one that has been published many times over. Here are some of my favourite ways in which I can add creativity to famous landscape scenes.

1. Long exposure 

Long exposure is one of my very favourite creative techniques in landscape photography. The human eye is not capable of seeing a...

Editing is a calming and cathartic process for me. Sometimes when I upload an image I know exactly where I want to take it in my editing process. Other times my creative editing process is an evolution of steps and experimentation. Photoshop opens up a world of opportunity for infusing touches of magic and imagination into an image.

In this article, I'll be sharing my creative process for the image I processed in Lightroom in the last blog post article. If you didn't get the opportunity to see my Lightroom edit for this image you can find that here: A Clean Edit in Lightroom.  

Watch as I take the following image from...

^{ISO 200, 150mm, f3.5, 1/1250SS}

...to this creative edit. 

^{ISO 200, 150mm, f3.5, 1/1250SS}

I want to note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my Lightroom edit. Some photographers prefer cleaner and more realistic edits. I often do in many of my edits but from time to time I enjoy infusing artistic touching into my images. Creative editing...