Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea(pia)

I will admit to you that even though I am a horrible at spelling, I do know that sepia is not spelled “seapia”; so I am stretching this week’s photo challenge of sea a bit.  But wait, there is more!  I took this picture at the Bay of Fundy, which is also taking some liberties with the challenge.

ISO 640 135mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1600

I shot this photo in color and I have, in the past, edited it into a black and white version.  I wasn’t crazy about the outcome.  This week in my Photoshop class we edited some black and white photos into sepia, and that is where I got the idea to revisit this photo.  There are many different ways, I am sure, to create a sepia image using Photoshop.  For this workflow, you start with a black and white image.  I had my black and white image in Aperture and so I imported it into Photoshop.  Then I used Levels (cmd L).  In the dialogue box under “Channels” you can change the Red,  Green, or Blue values in an image.  Under the Red, I moved the middle slider to the left. Then in the Blue I moved the middle slider to the right.  The result is the sepia tone you see above.  Then I sharpened the image and cropped it a bit.

Here is the original:

ISO 640 135mm 0ev f/5.6 1/1600

The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia is a beautiful place.  We spent several days in the area but this photo was taken on a whale watching trip.  I had a really good time taking photos.  Having said that, I also put my camera down for awhile, just to enjoy the larger experience.  I think sometimes when I am taking photos, I get so involved in taking photos, that I forget to enjoy what is going on around me in other ways.  Did you know that humpback whales smell of rotting fish? makes sense when you think about it, but it is hard to photograph.

Have you ever taken so many photos that you forgot to enjoy the experience? What do you think of my sepia version? I’ll be honest, even though I like the tone of the sepia image, it is the color version that really speaks to me.  It reminds me more of the actual trip.  What do you think? Do you have a preference?

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Benches

I read that benches was the theme for this week at Where’s My backpack?  and thought of this picture:

ISO 200 50mm -0.67 f/4.5 1/8000

There is a bench there!  This was taken at the end of the day at Fort Anne in Nova Scotia.  This photo was taken from the Perimeter Walking Trail looking over the Annapolis River.

I had been taking photos in the late afternoon and messing around with my settings quite a bit.  Then I did something that as a photographer you are “never” to do, I took a picture without checking my settings.  So, I can tell you that this photo is all “wrong”.  I like it though.  I could have fixed it up later, but chose to leave it as is.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Roads

One of the things that I love about the travel photo challenges at Where’s my backpack? is that it makes me think about all the things I haven’t taken photos of.  This week the theme is roads.  I don’t really think about roads all that much I guess; at the very least I don’t take many pictures of them.  Here are a few I came up with:

ISO 100 20mm 0ev f/11 1/160

ISO 100 9mm 0ev f/7.1 1/100

ISO 640 100mm 0ev f/5.6 1/40

That photo taken on a ferry features our car, the green one loaded down with bikes, headed from Kingston to Wolfe Island for a lovely day of biking. Wolfe Island is part of the Thousand Islands in Ontario Canada.  Windy but beautiful.  The street sign photo I took walking around Toronto on a rainy day.  The deer making a dash for it is an example of many blurry photos like it that I have of wildlife trying to survive amid the roads that we build.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Bridges

The theme this week at Where’s my backpack? is bridges.  I’m not a huge fan of heights as I have written about before, so usually my focus is to just get across the bridge and be done with it.  I am happy to say that there was one time at least where I took the time to appreciate the bridge.  It was at Fundy National Park in Nova Scotia.  If you happen to click on that link to the park, you will see another picture of this covered bridge:

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/5 1/80

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/5 1/80

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Mountains

This photo has a bit of a bittersweet story behind it:

ISO 100 135mm 0ev f/6.3 1/250

It’s the Canadian Rockies as seen from a train.  We were on a lovely trip from Toronto to Vancouver on the train.  This was one of the last photos I got before my camera broke.  I am sure you can imagine that I was quite upset.  Two of the prongs (wrong word I am sure) were bent and the memory card would no longer work in the camera.  I spent the rest of the trip using my point and shoot camera.  Here is the point when you would be right to note that I am lucky enough to have both a point and shoot and a DSLR.  Also, I was able to get my Canon 50D fixed.  So, I’ll concede it wasn’t a total disaster.  But still.

The Canadian Rockies are beautiful and so this is my entry for this week at Where’s my backpack?

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Shadows

This week at Where’s my backpack? the theme is shadows.  I thought I would do a little bit different of a take on shadows.  In this case I am talking about shadows of the past.  I enjoy taking pictures of graveyards.  These are a few I took in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

ISO 200 50mm 0ev f/4.5 1/40

ISO 250 135mm -0.67ev f/5.6 1/30

ISO 250 70mm -0.67ev f/5 1/40

I enjoy walking around, looking at the markers, and appreciating the quiet that cemeteries usually afford.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Walls

Quebec City has walls.  So you would think that I might have taken a few pictures of the walls when I was there.  I didn’t though, and here is why, I was to busy taking pictures from the top:

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/11 1/200

It was the view from the wall that I couldn’t get enough of.  So even though the theme at Where’s My backpack? is walls, I am posting this photo.  You can even stay at that huge castle (haha) Details here.  Quebec City is a great place to visit, but come ready to walk, because that is the best way to see it.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Up

If you visit Canada’s Museum of Civilization, make sure you have plenty of time to look around but don’t forget to look up.

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/4 1/50

ISO 400 44mm 0ev f/4 0.6s

ISO 400 90mm 0ev f/5.6 1/10

ISO 1600 75mm 0ev f/5.6 1/60

With all these photos, I had to look up, and that is the theme this week over at Where’s My backpack?

While I did take all these photos on one trip to the museum, it is one of those places that you can visit again and again.  If you are thinking of a trip to Canada’s Capitol Region, this museum is worth a visit.  If you are not familiar with Ottawa, and are making your first trip, don’t let the fact that this museum is in Gatineau throw you off, geographically these areas are very close, just across the river!

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Near and Far

The tides at the Bay of Fundy say “near and far” to me so for this week’s photo challenge here is a shot:

ISO 100 f/8 1/800 28mm

If the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia isn’t on your bucket list, it would be a place worth adding.  Take your camera, because with tides like this there are new landscape photos to be taken hourly.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple

Purple.

Purple Haze, that is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the topic for the Weekly Photo Challenge that WordPress puts on.  Here is my purple haze:

ISO 400 28mm f/4.5 1/1000

This a picture I took on a train of the passing Canadian landscape.  I have taken some liberties with the color in post-editing.

Here is a more “standard” purple:

ISO 100 4.3mm f/2.7 1/125

Cheers!