Chippewa Park with the Canon EOS R

I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and saw fog. Lots and lots of fog. I then proceeded to get dressed and washed up as fast as I could and catch it before it went away. I really wish I got up earlier but what can you do. As a photographer, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that foggy weather is among the best types of days to get out and explore. So I grabbed my somewhat new Canon EOS R and 85mm 1.8 along with a little Manfrotto tripod and nifty 50 lens and set off for the day.

I have actually been meaning to do a review of the Canon R but I just haven’t had time to do so. I already have at least 5 or 6 blog posts in queue prior to today, so hopefully I can catch up on those soon. Regardless, I’ll just say that it is such an extremely fun camera to use. Not just for personal photography like you see here, but also professional work which I will be sharing in the coming weeks.

The challenge with foggy days is actually deciding where to go, and rather quickly. Fog can go away at any moment so I didn’t know how much time I had. My first destination was obviously Starbucks to get some nourishment and coffee. Then it was off to Kam Park, which will follow this post. The second stop was Chippewa Park. I was just going there to see how the lake looked and maybe walk out to the boardwalk and some of the trails. I was so happy to see that all the rides were set up, although not functioning yet. That included the merry go round which is still looking for community support to keep going.

I spent about 20 minutes just walking around the very small amusement park capturing some of the details . The Canon R and it’s lovely flipout screen are just so perfect to use. I was able to get angles that I just simply couldn’t get before. My Nikon D750 has one, but it’s a bit slow and only goes up and down. Luckily, it was still extremely foggy there so the lighting was absolutely perfect.

For the entire day I actually used the 85mm lens which is one of my all time favourites. It’s relatively compact and beautifully separates the background. Unless doing landscapes, I’m always between 1.8 and 2.2 aperture. Once I was done in the amusement park, I headed down towards the lake and along the trail that goes out to the lookout point. At the end of the path there are a bunch of rocks which I have walked out onto many times. Well, today, I slipped and fell through two rocks and banged up my shin. It all happened an instant and what amazed me was that I held my camera high up above me and only managed to slightly bang it on the rock. I was embarrassed that I fell but proud that I managed to save the camera!

As I stumbled back down the path in quite a bit of pain I continued to take photos as the pain slightly went away. If anyone was listening to me they would have laughed. In between swear words and audible grunts, I was still commenting on compositions as I photographed.

As I saw the fog dissipating, I made my way towards the cabins and managed to capture a few more photos. It was such a fun and spontaneous day and I’m glad I was able to take some photos in my favourite type of weather. Thanks for stopping by!

Thunder Bay Marina in the Evening with the Fuji X100F

I have a few cameras, probably more then I really need but that is normal for a lot of photographers I think. It doesn't help that I constantly look at new cameras online and dream and contemplate. This means that certain cameras might not get used as much as others. Up until a few days ago, this was the case with my Fuji X100F. It kind of got pushed to the side for a while because of my Sony A6300 which I have been doing a lot of video with and also because I have been working full time which has eaten into my personal photography time. 

I had the original X100, then the X100S and now the X100F which is such an amazing little camera. Actually, looking back at some of my favourite photos over the years, and a lot of them have come from one of those cameras. So, over the past week I have been carrying it with me more and I soon remembered why I love this camera so much. It's fun to use. Oh, and it still has the best colours and tones, even on par with my pro Nikons. 

This evening, after I dropped my wife Anne off at her friends house, I decided to burn off those dinner calories with a walk around part of the marina and downtown. The sun was on it's way down so the lighting was perfect. As I do with most of my personal photography, I simply captured anything that caught my eye. There is no real theme to these photos, I save that for my professional work. Instead, these are simply little moments in time that I saw and captured during my random walk. 

They were all taken with the X100F and processed in Lightroom. The black and white images were edited further in Silver Effex Pro 2, which is my favourite program for converting black and white. It's hard not to just do every photo in black and white.... 

If anyone actually reads these posts, thanks for stopping by!

Kam Park Portraits with Anne

This past Friday, after we had some great food and a drink at ExCuria in downtown Fort William, I  decided to drag my wife Anne for a quick photoshoot in the rain over at Kam Park. It has been so long since I did this with her that I figured we could walk off some calories and get some nice photos in the process. 

I chose to go to Kam Park because I thought it would be a nice atmosphere with the boardwalk and the rain. It wasn't raining to hard but enough where it was kind of cold, so we only spent about 15 minutes walking around and taking photos. She was such a great sport and even though it was raining, we both had a great time. Of course she is a pro by now when I take photos of her since I pretty much do it every day. 

We came away with some fun photos but one of my faves was the where I got her to run down the boardwalk, making some of the seagulls fly away. All the photos were shot with my Fuji X-T1 and the 35mm 1.4. 

Kam Park + Westfort

I decided to take some time to walk around Kam Park and eventually Westfort the other day to take some photos. I brought my XT-1 with the 16mm. I'm still somewhat getting used to this focal length because I'm so used to using 35mm and beyond. It's really forcing me out of my comfort zone a bit and making me see different angles. As a photographer, I think it's important to use different lenses as it really opens up your eyes and it obviously lets you capture images that you might not of been able to before with a different lens.

So, the first stop was Kam Park. After taking a few photos of the boardwalk I concentrated on the old Via Rail Train. What I like to do sometimes is just focus on one subject, in this case it was a large one, and document it. Just like I would do with a wedding couple. If anyone was actually watching me they would see me walking around the train, studying it, looking up and down, and eventually taking photos here and there. It probably looked a little strange. But, I'm well past that point. Hell, I even get down on my stomach sometimes just to get different angles. Although, with the Fuji XT-1 it isn't really necessary any more due to the tilting screen.

With the train, I looked for colours, details, angles and I even stepped back a bit and had some fun with the train tracks. I almost treat it as an exercise, seeing how many unique photos I can get of one single object. 

The next stop were the elevators off in Westfort. I've been here many times before but I figured I would visit them again and see what I could come up with. With the 16mm, which ends up being about 23mm it was wide enough to allow me to get some nice wide angle photos. I just came away with a few photos here but I spent about 30 minutes there. A train ended up coming and I tried to get some shots of the motion with the elevators in the background but it just wasn't working. An ND filter would have helped immensely and of course a tripod. But I rarely bring either of those things with me. Ah well. 

I finished off my photo walk drifting around Westfort. Instead of studying a single object or place for a while, here I just did my usual walking around, taking photo and moving on. All the time looking for interesting things or moments. 

The last few photos are around the downtown area, as I had to drive Noah to his dentist appointment. So while I waited, I walked around outside for a few minutes. And that's it. more random goodness. All photos in this case were shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom using my usual style. Thanks for viewing!