How Hard Can It Be To Do Macro Photography?

I have been quite fascinated with macro photography lately and have been trying my hand at it. What I mean by “macro” is the ability to take a picture of a subject at very close ranges, you know, like shots of insects and flowers and water droplets. Having no dedicated macro lens of my own, the most I can do is shoot subjects at the closest that my lens would allow and do some cropping later in Photoshop. Even then I find it not that easy and the experience made me respect the skills of macro photographers even more.

Here is a recent attempt I did. This was taken out front where weeds are growing in earnest. There was no breeze this morning so it was easy to take pictures:

This one was taken a month ago at a restaurant here in Calgary. They are obviously fake, but I still like how they came out:

Read Full Post »

Victoria Day Long Weekend Vacation

We had a long weekend from May 16 to May 18 and decided to go and spend it at Fairmont, B.C., roughly a five hour drive from Calgary. It was a great trip as I had a chance to finally take a long overdue break and vacation with my wife.

There was so much scenery on our way to Fairmont. Our first stop at Lake Louise in Banff always offered some fantastic view, no matter what the season is. Here is Lake Louise in the middle of May:

There was so much to see just looking out the window of our moving vehicle:

We stayed at a villa in Fairmont, B.C. Right beside it was the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort which has a trail that afforded me a capture of this bridge:

There was a hot spring mineral water fall in the resort:

No matter what the weather was, the view was always spectacular to my eyes:

The highlight of our trip was the chance to see some wildlife! We found this beastie grazing at the side of the highway. We had to pull over to the shoulder so I can take a photo:

Out of the several shots that I took, this was the only decent one that came out as my hands were shaking in excitement! Now I understand why photos of UFOs or Bigfoot were so blurry.

Another wildlife that we were able to chance upon. There was a wild Elk in the same spot where I took this photo. We were driving so fast that we almost missed it but when we turned around to take another look, the Elk was gone. Luckily, this little cutie stayed behind:

What a great trip it was! My wife and I were well rested and really enjoyed our short get away. I am not one who likes to travel around, but this experience sure changed my mind about it!

Read Full Post »

Finding Beauty Within The Undesirable.

Spring has definitely taken hold of Calgary. The trees are slowly getting some leaves back. Most of the lawns around the neighborhood are turning back to green. We don’t have landscaping yet, so the only green that I can see anytime I look out our front door are the green color of weeds. They may be undesirable, but I think there are some beauty that can be found there.

Here is an example of some of the things that grow out front:

It was raining a bit the couple of days, but when the sun came out this morning, I found these:

It was a good overcast day so I decided to take my pet Dinosaur out so it too can enjoy the Springtime:

Nature surely is amazing!

Read Full Post »