Educator | Communicator | Photographer

Tag: photography (Page 1 of 8)

Calgary’s Flourishing Heavy Metal Scene

It’s no secret that I have a soft spot for Calgary’s local music, particularly heavy metal. I was invited to shoot photos of local acts: Detherous, Red Cain, Hazzerd, and Osyron who all performed at Dicken’s Pub on Friday, November 3rd 2017.

Calgary has a rich and talented music scene, and it needs your support!

Check out the full gallery on my Flickr page below:

Heavy Metal in Calgary

Chasing the Milky Out Near Bragg Creek

Funny story, I’ve never been to Forgetmenot Pond during the day. It’s my go-to place for night photos especially considering that it’s only a 45 minute drive from Calgary city limits.

I was having some trouble with the exposures of my photos until the friend I was with asked if I had my UV filter on. I quietly removed the filter and carried on with the night. Lots of shooting stars!

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Benevolent Like Quietus

Calgary has a vibrant local music scene, and part of that scene is a band called Benevolent Like Quietus (BLQ). I’ve seen this band a few times and they keep getting better and better. I’ve shot photos of them three times before, but this was a special night: on April 8, BLQ was the opening band at the Gateway at SAIT for Caspian and show headliners, Katatonia.

Super proud to call these guys friends. Congratulations to BLQ for this awesome milestone.

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

BLQ at the Gateway

City of Colour and Shadow

Announcing! My new journey in photography!

City of Colour and Shadow is an exploration of light through black & white as well as and colour photography.

Let me know if you want to participate as a potential subject!

Ara

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Nature Photos in Jasper

Canada has some stunning scenery, and we’re extremely lucky as residents to have access to it whenever we like. All we need to do is jump in the car and pick a direction. Go Northwest for a few hours and you’ll find yourself in a truly remarkable place: Jasper National Park.

I don’t have a great deal of experience in nature photography, and when I planned a camping trip with my parents (both elderly) I didn’t have a lot of room for camera equipment. I packed my Nikon

D610, a Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 and got out to shooting.

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The challenge with shooting photos in heavily touristed areas is trying to find the ‘special’ little subjects: the little pockets of texture and colour that people tend to pass by in favour of the big Post Card photos ops. I found myself falling into my urban photography habits and started looking around and outside the typical tourist photo-sites.

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Easily my favourite part of the trip was having a chance to channel my inner Ansel Adams and take a crack at black and white photos.

The objective when shooting black and white with a digital camera is to find subjects that have a lot of texture, tone and variety of light. Ansel Adams had a whole philosophy in his technique with tonal range, and he put a lot of work into shooting photos that had an aesthetic quality in it’s lights, blacks, and shadows.

My approach when I shot these photos was to use the rule of thirds (if you haven’t heard of it, go ahead and search it in Google). However, I didn’t just apply the rule of thirds to the subjects in my frame visually; I made sure that the mix of tones of light and dark in my composition had a deliberate attempt to follow the rule of thirds. The beautiful thing about this is that I could have a totally dirty lens and it somehow improved the vintage look and feel of the photos.

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Lastly, my father had brought along his 150-500mm Sigma lens. He didn’t have a chance to use it so much, but on a windy day, my parents and I took a trip on the Jasper Gondola. I attached his lens to mine, found a spot to prop it up and waited for the clouds over Mount Robson to clear up.

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Some of the black and white photos have a bit of colour tone to them and I think it looks just fine. I’m an advocate of using Lightroom and Photoshop to process and adjust photos, the only trick is to make sure that the photo you bring into the software is of a visual and technical quality to be able to work  with.

The entire gallery is available here:  https://flic.kr/s/aHskHE2Pou

Ara

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