Winter Wonderland

Outside Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada This beautiful sight was greeting me on a very special winter day. The air had enough moisture in it to form crystals of snow and ice on the trees. Later the snow fell so lightly that it all got stuck on everything it touched, making the tiniest twig expand to 10 times it’s normal size with the marshmallowy snow stuck on it. The tiniest breath of air or shake of a tree would dislodge any snow from this delicate landscape.

Photographic Details: The most important factor was setting the aperture at f/14 to get this landscape photo as crisp as possible. Everything is sharp but the simplicity of the image takes away from the distraction that a lot of detail might bring to it.

1/100s f/14.0 ISO100 35mm Every photo in my smugmug is now 50% off until Dec 25th with the code: WELOVEWINTER

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Arctic moonrise

Canadian high arcticfrom the blog http://www.kylefoto.com

Later in august the sun will start setting below the horizon only to pop up a few hours later. The land of the midnight sun is no longer that and darkness begins to take hold again. The moon was a poignant highlight in the sky this night as we looked across the desolate arctic landscape.

Photographic details: Being so dark out I had to use a slow shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. The expanse of this landscape called for a wide angle lens, making the slow shutter speed easier to handle as a tripod was out of the question standing above the vibrating engine room of the ship.

1/30s f/5.6 ISO200 35mm

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Put people in your landscapes

Put people in your landscapes Too often photographers go to great lengths to ensure there are no people in their photographs. This is often something difficult to do especially when on holidays and in touristy places.

Why not get the people to work with the landscape? How can adding a person or two improve a photograph? One of the most helpful things a human figure can do in a photograph is create a sense of scale

I was trudging along the shoreline in Antarctica, scattered with beached pieces of ice berg left by the waves and tides when I came upon this lovely scene. It was missing something, and I was alone, so I decided this was a good job for the 10 second timer on my camera. I stuffed my tripod into the snow, ran into the landscape as far as I could, and did my best to “look into the scene” in time for the shutter to release. Running back and forth was actually pretty good exercise, and pretty fun! I encourage you to try this environmental self portrait in your next sunset or interesting landscape shot, I’d love to see them if you do!

Technical facts: It’s important to note, on my particular lens (Canon 16-35 f2.8 L) and many other lenses, that when I stop down to f/16 I get a beautiful star shape out of bright objects like the sun. The number of aperture blades employed in the lens determines how many points you see in the star, even more reason to go with the “sunny f/16 “ rule!

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This is a blog post originally posted on http://www.kylefoto.com, if you like this be sure to check out the Antarctic Worlds Gallery here!