Photographer’s Lighting Workshop

Posted by enmanscamera on March 21, 2014

I have just finished my first day of leading another Photographer’s Lighting Workshop. I will admit that a day spent guiding excited and, I must remark of this session, very talented photographers, does tire me out.

Participants that are willing to express opinions and aren’t shy about getting shoulder to shoulder in a process of experimenting, exploring, and learning are hard to keep up with, and their enthusiasm is infectious. I try to stand back and watch analytically, but every animated smile draws me in. Multiply times seven each fired up photographer I was working with and there is quite an energy drain.

After over 40 years as a photographer I do have a pretty large chest of experiences in just about every aspect of this exciting medium and I was employed as a photography teacher for nearly half that time. I can easily sit a group of learners down and lecture about pretty much anything photographic and, particularly the lighting workshops that are currently all the rage for photography keeners. My knowledge is on par with most experienced portrait professionals, and I teach so that beginners and intermediate learners can keep up with the jargon and the concepts.

I enjoy the enlivened interaction that happens when a student of photography makes the decision to participate. My job is to present information on the subject at hand and keep things going. I don’t like to be a demonstrator on a stage, and rarely pick up a camera. That’s left to participants.

Sure, they tired me out, but in the recent daylong workshop on Lighting and Posing I was fortunate to be leading a group of surprisingly skilled and very energetic photographers, and I must add, two lovely and creative young models that in my opinion were willing to work hard in a demanding environment for modeling.

The workshop was held in a rural studio minutes outside of Kamloops, British Columbia. I like this studio because it owner, Dave Monsees, has filled it with quite an assortment of lighting gear. I think there are at least eight studio strobes to choose from, all setup for wireless connection with a drawer full of senders. There are soft boxes, umbrellas, diffusion screens, reflectors and a great selection of wall-mounted backdrops.

There was even a fully equipped kitchen at the back that we made good use of, with fresh brewed coffee, pastries, and a large pot of chili for lunch. It can’t get much better than good food, great people, and photography.

Monsees is regularly adding props and stools to sit and pose on, as well as a growing selection of light modifiers.

The large, well-equipped space is a great rental studio and a perfect environment for an instructional session like mine. We started the session with one light behind a reflective umbrella, and moved on from there adding a large softbox, a shoot through umbrella, and a rim light to give depth to our subject when we used a black background. We changed backdrops and light positions regularly. And those creative photographers really kept our models active and, heck, made my day.

Regarding portrait photography, Famous portrait photographer, Yousuf Karsh, once said, “I try to photograph people’s spirits and thoughts. As to the soul taking by the photographer, I don’t feel I take away, but rather that the sitter and I give to each other. It becomes an act of mutual participation.”

The first of our two-day workshop is over. I prefer two days because on the second we can review and reinforce what happened on the first. Now I am looking forward to spending another day and preparing to lead workshop participants into new territory.

I appreciate any comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

A road trip to Peachland.

Posted by enmanscamera on March 15, 2014

My friend Dave called and said, “Want to go on a road trip to Peachland tomorrow?”

Peachland is an easy two and a half hour drive south from my home in Pritchard along highway 97 and although the elevation of both Pritchard and Peachland is the same at 1,180 feet, it is still quite cold at my house with lots of snow, while Peachland was a balmy +13c with slowly greening grass along the road and the lakefront.

So without hesitation I agreed, and when Dave parked his truck in my snow packed driveway at 9am the next morning, I was ready with a 18-200mm lens mounted on my camera and we drove south through the wide Okanagan valleys toward Peachland.

I like the small community that is mostly located on a hillside beside the 135 km long Okanagan Lake and always enjoy wandering its lake front street with my camera. In the summer the restaurants, shops and park are filled with people, but this time of year it is easy to get photographs without anyone getting in the way and I walked back and forth across the street while photographing interesting features on the buildings without worrying about cars.

Dave had his 150-500mm Sigma and began photographing some ducks and fifty or so American Coots (I think some them Mud ducks) swimming in the small boat harbor.

As we stood talking in the warm sun I looked across the lake trying to see the infamous Rattlesnake Island, where the legendary Ogopogo is said to have it’s home.

Ogopogo is the name given to a 40 to 50 foot long sea monster allegedly seen in Okanagan Lake since the 19th century. However, because the evidence is limited to blurry photographs, unbelievers suggest that the sightings are misidentifications of common animals like big otters or floating logs.

I like mysteries and I thought how nice it would be to get a nice sharp picture of that elusive beast with my 18-200mm. Heck, I’d even share he moment with my friend Dave. After all, he had a 150-500mm lens and surely get a closer picture than me. But the Ogopogo monster wasn’t interested in getting it’s picture taken and was most likely hiding out of site in the lake depths. So, with a disappointed sigh, I left my friend to photograph the cute little Coots and walked down the street to get a picture of the town clock.

I have mentioned before that I like photographing buildings, and strolling along sidewalks with my camera, in cities, large or small is exhilarating. Whether the architecture is low and flat, skyscraping, old bricked, wooden or shiny metal and glass, I always find something different to photograph.

This time I was a bit hurried, we wanted get home before dark and Dave had almost another hour to go after dropping me off. So I ran back and forth trying to limit my photos to shadows, roof ledges and windows. Ok, I strayed from that goal a bit, oh well. Anyway I expect to be back soon.

Summer is on its way and wife and I expect to do some driving around British Columbia. My short trips will always include architectural photography opportunities in the towns and cities I visit and I think its fun to change the visual story by picking out intimate features or only a small part of a scene instead of making a photograph of the whole structure.

I always enjoy comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

March is a month of considerable frustration.

Posted by enmanscamera on March 8, 2014

Gosh, March is here again.

I don’t have a problem with January. January is filled with optimism for a new year with new things and, for someone like me that really likes Christmas; there is still a cheery residue from that festive time. February is a hopeful month. Snow or shine I get outside with my camera and wander the low hills and icy riverside. I don’t expect much out of February and enjoy the days with their promise of warmer weather.

Then comes March. March is a transition period. Most photographers I know are ready, really ready, for something to photograph other than falling snow and icy roads. March is not a month that photographers embrace. Well, maybe a foray or two to photograph some hungry coyote, or deer, wandering the countryside. Or birds that hung about through the winter. But even for those subjects one has to hunt in an uninspiring landscape.

I would like to go out and search for some subject that demands to be photographed, but I can’t rouse any creativity as I stand staring out the window at the falling snow.

I have written before that my foreboding for March began when as a child I read “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. I do remember that until my teacher made us delve into the imagery of the novel, line by line, I had just enjoyed it as another adventure story. “Beware of the ides of March,” said the soothsayer, and poor ole Captain Ahab gets himself pinned to a whale and dies in the end. Even at that young age I wondered, why March? Then to my dismay came the same words when I read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and there is was again, he was told to beware of the ides of March. And to make things worse there is, “In like a lion and out like a lamb.” Does it never end, these disturbing warnings of March? I just want to wander around in a photogenic landscape taking pictures. I don’t care if there is lots of snow, or lots of grass; I just want one or the other and an end to the cold temperatures that have been plaguing this country.

The “ides of March” is just a way of saying March 15 in Roman times, but this month always frustrates me and I want it to be over soon. March doesn’t give much it just makes me wait.

The host of the British public television program “Making Things Grow,” Thalassa Cruso, once quipped, “March is a month of considerable frustration – it is so near spring, and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away.”  And prolific writer Ogden Nash said “Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.”

I suppose we could put our heads down and get up earlier because of the time change (one more problem with this month), in anticipation of a better season and friendlier months, and just march onward, (ya, March) awaiting a time to do photography again. But for me, I just think about poor Caesar and poor Ahab. March doesn’t work for me either.

I enjoy all comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

A photographer walks along the frozen riverside.

Posted by enmanscamera on March 1, 2014

Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote, “Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.”

Walking along the frozen riverside.

There is something mysterious about the end of winter when the weather climbs to just around freezing. The snow is only just there. We can’t see the whole story, but it is letting us know that something waits beneath.

The Thompson River meanders along the valley basin not far from my woodland home and it’s on days like I just described that call me to wander the ice-covered shore. I like the solitude and although I carry my camera and I suppose I should be searching for something important to photograph, I usually don’t have much of a plan. I look for, as Cartier-Bresson said, ”a composition or an expression” that is interests me at that moment.

I would like to say it’s a quiet walk along the river side, but there is the constant din from the Trans-Canada high way that runs along one side of the river. However, this time, as I walked across the snow-covered ice and slogged through the emerging mud, an urgent alarm went up from several (actually, a lot more than several) sentinels stationed along the river’s beach up where the sand had dried. I had been so intent on looking along the ice edge that I hadn’t noticed all the resting geese, but they saw me and weren’t very happy at my intrusion and their honking was so loud that I no longer could hear the road noise.

I have friends that would have quickly moved into action and captured image after image of the geese loudly taking off and flying overhead. They also would have photographed the splashing of those heavy feathered birds coming back down in smooth backwater under the bridge. I did raise my camera to release the shutter a couple times, but I enjoyed watching them and liked the honking sound, so I turned away so as not to disturb them more. Besides, I am sure they appreciated that warm sand on the cold winter’s day and there will always be another opportunity to photograph geese.

I regularly see people prowling the river shoreline during the summer in search of treasures and I guess that is what I sort of do too, although I rarely do it in summer. Unlike them, I don’t touch the treasures. I just point my camera at something I am curious about and take the picture. I don’t move or change anything. My camera and I do the moving instead, as I choose the appropriate angle for each subject poking out of the sand and ice.

I never have seen another camera-equipped person walking that shoreline in the winter. I guess most find the place boring. The traffic keeps larger animals away, the low angles aren’t that favorable for grand landscape shots, there are no bridge lights that would encourage anyone to plant a tripod after dark, the sand and river water aren’t that inviting and this time of year the river is lined with stark, leafless trees.

For me it is perfect. I’ve walked along the frozen sand many times and I am sure many of my photographs over the many years look a lot alike. I expect someday I’ll get a really unique picture of a neat boot, a carcass of a really big fish or even some broken and discarded boat. Who knows?

As always, I really appreciate your comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Why You Should Be A Photographer

Posted by enmanscamera on February 22, 2014

I recently received an email from a friend that included a fun article titled, “54 Reasons Why You Should Be a Photographer.”

The author, Lauren Lim, began with, “Being a photographer is seriously awesome.” And continues, “I’ve compiled 54 really fantastic (reasons)…After you read all these reasons you’ll probably be even more inspired by this medium, and be itching to get out and shoot more.” Reading that introduction intrigued me and, of course, I agreed with him when he wrote, “I think everyone should get into photography. You don’t ever have to do it professionally. That’s not what being a photographer means. Being a photographer just means you really love photography.”

The list of “54 reasons why you should be a photographer” didn’t really include 54 different reasons; it was pretty much made up of the same reason written over and over in different ways. However, I did select seven that I really liked and I think they are prefect as to why anyone should practice the art of photography.

1. “Capture a memory that you can have forever.”

2. “See the beauty (I’ll add the words, through you lens) every day.”

3. “It’s a creative outlet.”

4. “Share your perspective.”

5. “Express yourself.”

6. “Tell a story”

7. “Can make other people think.”

The exciting medium of photography began with inventors like Joseph Nicephore Niepce, when he succeeded in creating the first permanent image. Louis Daguerre with the “Daguerreotype” and Henry Fox Talbot’s “Calotype” that were instrumental in helping us with the first of that list, ““Capture a memory that you can have forever.”

There were the pioneers of photography like Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell and Eliot Porter that showed use how a photograph would help us, “See the beauty everyday.”

Jerry Uelsman, Duane Michals, Edward Seichen and Man Ray were among the first to split with traditional photographers and might even have said, “It’s a creative outlet.”

When I read the words, “Express yourself.” I immediately thought of the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Annie Leibovitz.

The last two about how photography can, “Tell a story.” and “Can make other people think.” Absolutely had me thinking about the wartime photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Annie Leibovitz. and street photographer, Weegee.

I only mentioned those photographers that had a hand in the beginnings of photography and started us all thinking of the things we all might add to that list. And I am sure without hesitation readers can add pages of modern photographer’s names.

If you feel the urge, be sure to let me know if you have additions to “Why you should be a photographer”.

As for me I’ll just be content with Lim’s words, “Being a photographer is seriously awesome.” And “Being a photographer just means you really love photography.”

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Some Thoughts on Portrait Photography

Posted by enmanscamera on February 15, 2014

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote an article titled, “Some Thoughts on Portrait Photography” and included a quote by Peter Brunnell the author of, “Creative Camera International 1977”. Brunnell wrote, “There is no single form or style of portraiture. Portraiture means individualism and as such means diversity, self-expression, private point of view. The most successful images seem to be those which exist on several planes at once and which reflect the fantasy and understanding of many.”

I remembered that blog post and decided to revisit it after having a discussion with friend and fellow photographer, Michael Beach this week about creative portraiture. We talked about several aspects of photographing people, but I think the topic we kept returning to was a about making portraits that had a different look and feel than other photographers in the town we both lived in.

In last February’s article I referred to my college photography instructor’s contention that we should always follow rules for portraiture. I won’t go into those at this time. I’ll just say they weren’t very imaginative and left little room for innovation or experimentation for that matter.

My argument with his lectures on portraiture, are that great portrait photographers like Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, Bert Stern, Yousuf Karsh, Richard Avedon, Eve Arnold, and Annie Leibovitz, to name a few that I like, were anything but rule followers, and what marked their work, as Brunnell wrote was, “individualism .…..self-expression, (and a) private point of view.” I did then, and still do think, that’s a lot for us mere-mortal photographers as we struggle to make our portraits something more than mere documentaries.

When I approach portraiture I try to create portraits that are, well, creative. Sometimes everything works and sometimes it doesn’t. However, I always strive for something different, maybe even unique, in each.

Of course, one must be aware of how our subject sees themselves and the circumstances and conditions under which the portrait is made. Using a word coined by Minor White, I think most successful portrait photographers “previsualze” the final portrait.

White, co-founder with Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lang of the influential photography magazine, Aperture, has been hailed as one of America’s greatest photographers. And regarding previsualization, Ansel Adams defined it as, “The ability to anticipate a finished image before making the exposure.”

I’ll ad another quote by Minor White that fits here and might be a good thought for a photographer about to pick up that camera to make a portrait, “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.”

Sometimes it’s the expression on a subject’s face that makes the image. And to get that expression the photographer and subject may need to experiment with different moods and emotions. Portraitists spend much time putting people at ease and making them comfortable in front of a camera. I think it’s all about gaining a person’s trust that we are going to help them look the best they can.

The Internet is packed with “How to” advice on portraiture photography. Some of it is worth thinking about and some is bewildering. Those serious about bettering his or her portrait photography will select what works best and is the most comfortable.

A year ago I summed up with the following that worked for me then as it does now,

Everything comes down to one’s personal definition of what a portrait is. According to Wikipedia, “it is a picture of a person, a description. It can be a photograph, a sketch, a sculpture, but a portrait is so much more than that. It is collaboration between the subject and in this case the photographer.” Collaboration is the key word for me in that description, and in my experience those portraits I have made that I think are the most successful, is because the person who was in front of the camera was willing to work, or collaborate, with me towards the final image.

I always look forward to any comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Photographing an urban Still Life

Posted by enmanscamera on February 8, 2014

In the Art classes that I took in college we would gather all sorts of interesting items to create what the instructor called “a still-life”, each week we would build a new still life to help us learn how to draw shapes, shadows, and reflections. We would compile a menagerie of odd shaped objects in some corner of the drawing studio and then place lights from different directions to produce interesting and unique shadows.

I enjoyed the art classes with all the creative mediums and imaginative people, but when one of my teachers suggested I try photography everything changed. Photography with it’s almost magical processes both behind the camera, and in darkrooms with their chemical filled trays, reached out and grabbed me and there was no going back.

Those original photography classes included a few sessions with live models, and sometimes mannequins, but I missed those long classroom discussions and the quiet periods of contemplation that accompanied those simple arrangements of objects in those art classes.

I wanted my photography to be something more than just a record of the world around me. Looking to do something other than scenics or portraiture, I decided it would be fun to join classmates that were into street photography. They wandered urban areas, pointing their cameras at scenes that included unsuspecting people in their hectic environments to create engaging images that suggested different stories to each person that viewed their pictures. I enjoyed their compositions comprised of light, shadow, architectural features and, of course, those unsuspecting people.

I tagged along with them because I liked hanging out with photographers, enjoyed walking, and discovering the city, but always ended up either making posed pictures or excluding people all together in favor of some lamppost, architectural feature, or drawing on a wall. More often than not I’d wander off from the others to explore some alley or stairwell, searching for some more intimate features that were always part of, instead of the complete scene.

I did then, and still do, include people in some of my cityscapes. I like looking at the street photography of modern photographers, but the people in my “street” images are really nothing more than additional elements that fill a space that could as easily be occupied by any other object. I suppose my interest in still-life changed from drawing to photographing one.

I admit to photographing almost everything. I am pretty indiscriminant when it comes to the subjects I point my camera at, and without hesitation will photograph as creatively as I can, what ever moves me at the time.

And I like to think I adhere to the words of famous documentary photographer Elliot Erwitt who said, “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

My process, while wandering in search of still-lifes, is to never be on any direct course as I forage for another still life and my photographs rarely show the whole. I photograph those parts that catch my attention; the still-life might include an interesting door, railing, or even window frame as I review and how the light touches them.

Drawing a still-life in those classes was much easier than hunting one with a camera. After all a photographer is forced to problem solve those found objects. I suppose one could move things around, but that’s kind of cheating. I like the search and the discovery and the process of thinking through how to make the original image. Sure, there is a lot one can do in post, and that’s just fine with me, but photographers still have to find the raw elements to begin with.

As always, I appreciate your comments.

Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Photographers – What is your studio lighting setup?

Posted by enmanscamera on January 25, 2014

My inexpensive and very portable “Portrait kit” works easily for indoor or out of doors lighting.

Last week an online forum in which I participated asked the question, “What is your studio lighting setup?”

Most participants were posting the brand name they used, and how many lights they owned, however, my post was about what I would call “kits”, that I used for each different situation or environment.

My opinion has always been that there are different tools for different jobs, and I have four individual lighting setups that fit particular photographic undertakings.

My “event kit” consists of four TTL hot shoe flashes. My “portrait kit” consists of three older manual hotshoe flashes mounted on wireless receivers. I also have two “studio kits”. The first studio kit, for those situations where I can find power, has a 1000w power pack with four strobe heads. The second kit is a battery-operated 280w strobe that will go anywhere.

Some forum members complained that they would have to wait till they had the money before a home studio lighting situation could be set up. I believe they only paid attention to those responders that included the manufacturer’s names for their expensive studio type lighting setups.

Yes, I agree, if one wants big powerful studio strobes there will be a considerable price attached. And each manufacturer will hope to sell their own brand of light stands and light modifiers along with the lighting units. Yes indeed, all that will be expensive.

Most home photography studios are in the basement, or in a spare room to be quickly set up for a portrait session. However, the big name brands never discuss light volume or power vs. studio size.

My opinion is, if the room is less than twelve feet high, thirty feet long and only used for small group or single person portraits, those big, powerful, fast recycling, and expensive studio lights might be overkill, and a real hassle when one wants to soften the background by shooting a wide aperture because there is just too much power.

I wrote about the four kits that I use for different situations. The small hotshoe flashes I use for events and portraits, and the bigger less portable units I use with large groups, moving subjects, or when I just want coverage out of doors. I think those photographers intent on setting up small home studios for portraits and small groups don’t need to go to the expense of the brawny, studio type lights. Photographers can easily, and without much initial cost, set up a studio with what I called my “portrait kit”.

My portrait kit only has three hotshoe flashes, each with it’s own wireless receiver and two stands. Depending on the space a client provides for me to use, I use a small shoot-through umbrella, an umbrella brolly box, once in a while I use a soft box, and sometimes include a reflector. And it’s the inexpensive and easily stored “portrait kit” that I would recommend for most first-time, home studio photographers.

Wireless senders and receivers come in all sorts of incarnations, and can be, depending on brand and manufacturer, if one shops around, purchased for prices less than $100 for two receivers and a sender.

I use the inexpensive sender/receivers that fit under my flash, seated on a light stand bracket, and holds an umbrella, a brolly, or sometimes a softbox. And I use three Vivitar 283 flashes dating from the 1970s that I bought used.

My total cost for 3 flashes, the wireless sender & receivers, 2 shoot through umbrellas, stands, and 2 flash/stand brackets, and a small tabletop tripod that I can place behind my portrait subject was under $400 Canadian. All of this is much less expensive, and a lot easier to store and/or move around than the big. studio-type flash units.

I make lighting tests before the person who I will be photographing arrives to get the correct exposure, and when he/she does show up, I take two or three more test shots as I move the lights for the most flattering effect.

Even if there were a wad of cash burning a hole it your pocket, my advice would be to proceed slowly, and learn how best to photograph a person first. Using hotshoe speedlights off-camera will be perfect for that educational process, and when they are no longer a good fit with your creative growth, the choices as to the next step in lighting equipment will be educated decisions instead of emotional.

As always I look forward to any comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

The In Camera or Post-Processing debate

Posted by enmanscamera on January 18, 2014

I wonder at going to far, but with low, flat, grey lifeless light anything helps.

Infrared camera with edited contrast.

I removed the dim, flat, busy background.

The discussion about manipulating an image, or altering it, from the original capture has been going on ever since I began working as a photographer for the Los Angeles Office of Education in the 1970s. Nowadays its called “post-processing”, and in the past we just called it “working in the dark room” when the majority of photographers were handing their undeveloped film over to a film lab and hoped the results would be worth keeping.

At that time, and as exists now, there were those who that claimed straight from the camera was the only true photography. I recall being accused of being unfair at a local exhibition around 30 years ago, because I used exotic photographic papers, hand retouched my prints, and mixed my own chemicals.

As I said, the discussion on right out of the camera vs. alteration of the original is still going strong, however, the beauty of this exciting medium is that there is no one-way to capture an image.

Photojournalists and street photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Dorothea Lange documented events and life as it was at a particular time. As photojournalists and street photographers still are. And as to that type of photography, I absolutely agree, any type of alteration is sacrilege. But I need to introduce those righteous photographers that decry alteration of the negative, print, or digital file, to icons of photography like Andy Warhol, Jerry Uelsmann, and Duane Michals, to name only a few that pioneered different techniques in this ever-changing medium of photography.

Documentary, representational, or candid photography is used to chronicle significant and historical events attempting to capture reality. Fine art photography is the vision of the photographer or artist. And restrictions as to how the image is finally produced do not, and should not, apply.

Modern technology allows much easier creativity for those who wish to use it. That might be nothing more that purchasing the camera with the best sensor, and mounting the sharpest lens on it, and with patience and practice learning to make exposures that are as close as possible to reality. Or it might be using that same camera is nothing more than the first stage of many in an extended and manipulative process.

As to the debate, should image-editing software be used to alter the image, or should the image be left as an unaltered record of the scene? I think that depends on the goals of each photographer.

As always, I really appreciate any comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

A Short Walk on Snowshoes

Posted by enmanscamera on January 10, 2014

My snowshoe easily broke through the two feet of snow that covered the well and down I tumbled into the soft snow. My years of experience as a photographer reminded me to “ at all costs”, and although my leg twisted and snow covered me, I held the camera up high and safe from the wet snow.

I should have remembered that hole. It’s not like I hadn’t been there many times over the years photographing the rusting 1930’s car. I would go there spring, summer, fall and winter in the rain, snow, and sunshine. I should have remembered where it was, but as usual, it’s always about the photograph. I had put on my snowshoes and hiked up the rolling hills to a long meadow not far from my home.

I have always liked snowshoeing. In my teens my friends and I would head out cross-country trekking for hours through the deep powder in the mountains. I remember overnight trips where we dug snow caves to spend the night in (snowshoes also made great doors). Then we’d ski down long valleys and snowshoe up hills as we moved through the snow covered mountains.

My rural home is surrounded by wooded forests and rolling hills that are perfect for walking, or as today, snowshoeing. Each year I look forward to enough snow-pack to snowshoe in, and after another morning of shoveling a path to my chicken coops, to the car and cleaning the driveway, I decided it was time for my first winter hike up to the high meadow above my home.

The day was overcast, but today’s modern cameras easily handle ISOs of 800 and 1600, so the lack of bright reflection and low contrast on a snowy landscape made everything so much easier to see and photograph. And handholding is undemanding as one can keep the shutterspeed way over 1/400^th of a second and still achieve lots of depth of field.

I mounted a 24-70mm on my camera and set out to photograph the snow covered hills on the quiet, cloudy day. I like hiking when the only sound is my footsteps, or in this case, my snowshoes.

I hiked up and, as usual, photographed everything. When I stroll through that long meadow I rarely see animals, but I always feel as though I am being watched. That’s a good thing. This time a crow swooped low and circled me as I photographed the Thompson River valley far below. I am sure it was wondering what I was doing there.

I could see a storm rolling down from the mountains and photographed that also. Soon another crow appeared overhead, and this time cried a warning that I am sure was about the storm. And then it began snowing. There is nothing like standing in a forest meadow during a snowstorm; it’s quiet. The sounds from both the Trans Canada Highway and the CN Railroad alongside disappeared.

Thirty years ago, when I first started wandering that area there were three buildings, two old cars and an apple tree. Now the struggling tree no longer bears fruit, someone hauled off the better of the two cars, one building fell down, and the last two are just hanging on.

Still, it’s a great place to snowshoe with a camera and I was having fun and the heavy falling snow didn’t bother me, I just kept wiping the water off my camera as I photographed the on-coming storm, the old buildings and the remnants of that old car and that’s when I fell into the well.

I think stumbling, bumping into things and sometimes falling while paying more attention to the subject being photographed than things in the way isn’t that unusual to those of us that participate in the exciting medium of photography.

I was wet, but I was fine, the camera was fine, and the snowshoes were fine, and best of all, I got lot of great winter pictures.

I’d really like to read your comments.

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Enmanscamera's Blog – Kamloops

My impressions, feelings, experience and knowledge about photography.

Photographer’s Lighting Workshop

A road trip to Peachland.

March is a month of considerable frustration.

A photographer walks along the frozen riverside.

Why You Should Be A Photographer

Some Thoughts on Portrait Photography

Photographing an urban Still Life

Photographers – What is your studio lighting setup?

The In Camera or Post-Processing debate

A Short Walk on Snowshoes

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