Well it’s that time again…okay, truth be told it’s WAY past that time again but better late than never right? What’s new and exiting in the world of Those Two Photographers over the past few months? To start off, a photo vacation down to scenic Kalispell, Mt. over the New Year and it was absolutely perfect for the first day and a half. Midway through day 2 on our second leg of the drive between Medicine Hat and Kalispell we hit hurricane force winds that were topping 100 km and we all know what happens when you mix that mad combination of wicked winds and fresh snow …you got it… blizzard! After plowing through 3ft snow drifts in the middle of the highway we finally made it into safety and shelter that the ice covered mountain passes offered us. LOL. We did manage to crawl into Kalispell just before dark and headed strait to the liquor store to buy some much deserved beer to calm the nerves and plan the exciting and fun filled week ahead.
To give you the rest of the week in a nutshell: We received about 4 ft of snow over a 4 day period making taking any photos next to impossible as you literally couldn’t see the mountains even though we were right in the valley between them. Managing to get in 2 days of snowboarding lessons at Whitefish saw Rob proceed to dislocate his ribs at some point not making him a very happy camper to live with (hard to believe I know). On the second last day of the vacation it began to rain and not just the regular light rain that you get in the summertime but POUR rain…in the middle of January…in the mountains. We made a quick decision that morning to pack up everything as quick as we could and get the heck out of dodge a day early because otherwise we would be stuck in this valley indefinitely. Most of the drive was okay with the pouring rain following us all the way to Fernie, BC., then as we neared Medicine Hat of course said rain turned to freezing rain thus making us once again crawl into the city past the overturned 4x4 vehicles in the ditch... you know, those guys/gals with the all wheel drive suv's and big trucks who think they are invincible. ;o[  Our planned 1 night stay in the Hat turned into 3 wonderful nights in a raging blizzard that had the highways shut down…the end.

Wow, that was a crazy long narrative so now we better finally move on to some photos: {Once again, I, Rob Weitzel, will add a note or two or long-ass commentary here in these funny little bracket things.}
 
One of the rare days that we managed to get out and do a little bit of shooting. I kept waiting for a big wave to come along. {I got nothin to say here - RW}

Lens (mm): 50
ISO: 200
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter: 1/200
Exp. Comp.: +0.7

Holy cow I could almost see a bit of a mountain!
 
The way that the icicles formed below this tree branch really caught my eye.

Lens (mm): 34
ISO: 200
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/320
Exp. Comp.: +0.7

Rob chimping his latest and greatest shot
Lens (mm): 50
ISO: 200
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7

{Even though the light was a flat as a floudner, we drove all the way out here so had to shoot if for no other reason than to model our fancy new Cotton Carriers even though they aren't real visible given the colour of our outdoor getups. The following are my take on a very expensive venture to get a half dozen so-so photos. - RW}

Well at least she smiled when she looked up.

"shootin you shootin me..." there is a song here I know it.
Lens (mm): 190
ISO: 400
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/1600
Exp. Comp.: 0.0

Now you may ask yourself having perhaps lent an ear during one of our workshops, "why no exposure compensation?" Answer, look at the amount of white area in the image and the amount of dark area in the image and then average the two together, pretty good chance you will end up with 18% mucky green which equals 18% grey which means... I need not say more.

Now if I was to pick this image apart a little bit I would say "good looking smiling subject shown appropriately positioned within the frame/environment with the exception of where the water meets the land cutting off the top of her head. Shot again I would recompose ever so slightly to move the horizon up a wee bit." One may also tell the model to put the sunglasses on the toque a little straiter.

Without a CPOL (photo geek talk for Circular Polarizer) there was no colour or for that matter visible rock in the foreground of this image.

When the sky refuses to help out, shoot tight and take advantage of the lack of shadows.
Lens (mm): 12
ISO: 200
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter: 1/80
Exp. Comp.: +0.3 (because the reflection off the water was shutting us down a bit)

You've all heard us preach about the strong foreground element and the having things enter in the corner of images.

Frozen Springs - This is a fairly common sight where we were traipsing around, problem was parking anywhere near them and not having someone pile into your vehicle. At some point I will get back and spend a lot of time shooting around these. I blew off the on-camera flash ever so lightly in order to pop the green on the twigs in the foreground.

My daughter is big into volleyball so every once in a while I pull out my camera (or force Rob to) and get some action shots for her... mine first:

Lens (mm): 104
ISO: 1600
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/500
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
 
A few more of some other players:

Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 1600
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/800
Exp. Comp.: 0.0

Lens (mm): 126
ISO: 1600
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/500
Exp. Comp.: 0.0

{At this point I am going to speak to the importance of image selection and being friendly to your subjects - RW}

Brooke with perfect setting form and a little expression of exertion on the face just prior to full impact.

Now with 8 and 10 frame per second camera bodies chasing this "moment of impact" is no longer much of a chase. Fact is, quite often the body and face distort so much at this point that actually publishing the image without some attention to detail can be doing the athlete a dis-service if you will. Have you ever examined the leg and for that matter the rest of the body of a person whose foot is making impact with a soccer ball... not nice. For that matter the most perfectly fit runner photographed at the point at which their leg first impacts the pavement creates an image of said leg no self-repsecting athlete would ever want published and no self-respecting photographer should ever publish it.

Keep your images to the point just prior to or just after impact at which time the body is or has returned to its good looking state. The couple that follow are what I mean by choosing good frames. I always have frames of all these young ladies that non of them would be happy to have their future boyfriends see. Those frames always hit the round file.

The image 1/10th of a second after this was not real nice.

Due to the bitterly cold temperatures we had to postpone our original date for the WinterScapes 2011 fieltrip but we did manage to get out a few weekends ago. Even though the weather did not 100% cooperate as we had no sky to speak of as well as quite a bit of snow we still managed to have a fantastic time.
 
Terry after showing the rest of the participants how to fall over sideways in snowshoes

 
 
Rob instructing the group on how to shoot some slower shutter speed images of the running stream

Lens (mm): 47
ISO: 250
Aperture: 6.3
Shutter: 1/2000
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
 
Terry managed to right himself to get some very nice images of the creek

 
This image was in fact Bill’s idea but I thought that it looked cool nonetheless

Lens (mm): 38
ISO: 250
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter: 1/2500
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
 
The way that the snow covered half of the trees really stood out as we walked up to the clubhouse.

Rob decided to create a bit of action for the participants to shoot. Here he appears to have bit off a bit more than he could chew and managed to fill his pants with snow! {Photography just is photography without a little action - RW}

As always, there needs to be a semi-formal group shot for our field trip.

{Thanks again very much for taking the time to read this. Sorry the wheels have fallen off the podcast train but there are only so many hours in a day and I'm sure you can appreciate that we all need to choose our battles. That said, I already have several images ready for the next blog... keeping them as if these blogs were to get too long you may choose other reading battles and we don't want that to happen. Don't forget to "Like" our Facebook group. Comments, questions, concerns and credit cards are always welcome. For convenience, please subscribe by clicking on the "Subscribe" Button on the Main Page of this blog... a mechanism that will provide you with notification each time we publish a new blog. For information on photo workshops and field trips please visit http://www.thosetwophotographers.com/Classes.html
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