I’m a little bit embarrassed to say that that is my first weblog publish since June 2023. What can I say, I’ve had a number of private stuff and different pursuits take precedence over writing weblog posts. I’ve all the time been a proponent of following your coronary heart and doing what you need at any given time in your stay, and after recovering from shoulder surgical procedure final summer time, I used to be far more into driving my mountain bike than sitting at my desk writing weblog posts.
Nonetheless, I’ve missed it. I really love writing, and whereas I’ve been doing different kinds of inventive writing through the previous 12 months, I’ve missed this common inventive and psychological outlet that has happy an enormous a part of my stay through the previous 15 plus years.
So, I’m again at it right now with some model new images. I lately spent three weeks in upstate New York, which kicked off with a day journey to Niagra Falls. I visited this place as soon as earlier than once I was a child, and even then it was a spectacular sight. Think about the identical child 50 years later, however with a digicam.
Strolling round all day, on each the American and Canadian aspect, I shot a whole bunch of images the Fujifilm X-T50 physique {that a} pal loaned me, and three lenses, the 16m f/2.8, 35mm f2 and 70-300mm. I liked utilizing the X-T50, (right here’s my first look overview of the X-T50), particularly the devoted “movie simulation dial,” and that trio of lenses was an ideal combo. I usually say that for any journey or images outing, so long as you’ve large, center and lengthy, then you definitely’re coated for absolutely anything. No want to hold greater than you want, proper?
Nonetheless, while you’re at a spot like Niagra Falls with tens of 1000’s of different individuals, and you’ve got only a few distinctive vantage factors, and there are already hundreds of thousands of images of the falls, how do you provide you with one thing distinctive, or at the very least intriguing to your individual eyes and artistic mind?
That is the place lengthy lenses actually shine. Other than letting you remove all the opposite vacationers and buildings in your images, you possibly can zoom in and compose on particular parts of the falls. Certainly one of my favourite compositional strategies in images is the idea of abbreviation, the place you pick bits and items of the principle topic that recommend the bigger scene. This strategy labored rather well right here, and I’m happy with the images I used to be in a position to seize.
I additionally loved taking part in round with the completely different movie sims, which additionally provides quite a lot of distinctive creativity to your photographs. The picture above was shot with Basic Neg movie sim, whereas this one under was ACROS black and white. General, this can be a very monochromatic scene, however the completely different coloration palettes add a slight distinctive high quality to every picture.
I’m fascinated by the geological side of the of the falls, and of your complete Finger Lakes space, the place we spent most of our trip. When the huge ice sheets that after coated this space retreated about 10,000 years in the past, the left behind a panorama full of mountains, steep gorges and quite a few giant lakes, together with the Nice Lakes themselves, which comprise 20% of the world’s recent water, all of which flows over Niagra Falls at a charge of over three thousand tons of water per second.
Dwelling right here in Alaska, we now have glaciers only a few miles away from our doorstep, and I discover them as usually as I can with my little Cessna bush airplane. After all, even with more and more hotter temps yearly, it’s nonetheless going to take a really very long time for all of our glaciers to soften, however once they have completed carving up the panorama up right here, what’s going to it appear like? Attention-grabbing issues to ponder…
Some of the memorable side about at the present time was capturing images of different individuals having fun with their go to to the falls. After watching one couple awkwardly making an attempt to take a selfie, I provided my companies, which started a 15 minute session of me capturing portraits of individuals and {couples} with their telephones, some at my very own providing, and some others who watched kind the aspect earlier than garnering up the braveness to ask me for his or her flip. It was enjoyable to share my expertise on this method, realizing that theses strangers will go house with an important picture of themselves in entrance of this wonderful pure surprise.
Anyway, I hope you get pleasure from these images. Thanks for studying and on your understanding throughout my lengthy absence from the weblog. I promise I gained’t let that a lot time go once more earlier than my subsequent publish.
