It was quite the spectacular show. I was able to visually see the green and purples that came from the lights and it was just beautiful. I was lucky enough to not have to work the next morning so here were my adventures that night.
It all started around 2am. I went down to the stables where it was darker so I could see if the lights existed after getting a red alert on my phone via Aurora Watch. This was when the moon was still peeking out from behind Mt. Victoria. The picture above shows the moonlight on the left versus the northern lights on the right.
I then proceeded to walk down the path from the staff accommodations to the Chateau Lake Louise. That was when I started seeing purple on my photos and realized that the activity of the lights were increasing.
Then we get to photos like these where you can actually see the northern lights even with the Chateau's artificial lights somewhat overexposed.
Finally you get to this picture where I'm simply admiring the lights with a guest's Ferrari parked outside the Chateau... Definitely an interesting experience.
I eventually did something that I had a hard time doing as a photographer... I dropped my camera gear off at home and went back out without a photo-taking device so I could admire the lights with just my eyes. After watching the Secret Life of Walter Mitty during my flight to Hong Kong a month ago, a quote stuck with me. Spoiler Alert: It was when Walter asks Sean when he was going to take a photo. Sean answers:
"Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it".
That's what I did. It was hard, but enjoyable. =)
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I recently came back from a trip to Hong Kong. It was primarily to visit family, but of course I also wanted to explore the city as well. In the two weeks I was there, I just couldn't get enough of it. The mix of old and modern buildings, the delicious food, and best of all doing all of that with friends and family makes me speechless. That's why I will mostly let the photos do the talking.
The City
Hong Kong is just full of life... probably because there are so many people. I sometimes wonder how full the streets would get if everyone inside the buildings came outside... it would be insane! For a city just packed with buildings though, it's nice to find a park or garden to relax in.
The Attractions
Not only is there Disney and Ocean Park for the kids (myself included... heh), there are plenty of museums around to provide history lessons for tourists like me. I never liked History as a child, but now that I'm older I find that I appreciate it more. Hong Kong is also pretty close to Macau so there is tons to see and experience everywhere!
Above is the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense. I found it surprisingly interesting for some reason.
Why are the Hotels in Macau so big?!? I can literally spend just a day at one hotel! This just blows my mind.
One of my life's goal is to go to every Disney in the world. Two down! Three more to go! I think.
Ocean Park! I haven't been here since... 1999? A lot has changed apparently. I wouldn't know since I don't quite remember, but now I have this memory! So we'll see how much it changes the next time I come.
That is one big buddha. This is the Tian Tan Buddha after taking the cable car. It was a nice hike up a lot of stairs.
Noah's Ark! There was a lot of history on what scientists have been doing to find the real ark. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood to read a lot that day. Still interesting though! And hey look! My relatives... which leads us to the last section.
The People
I haven't seen my relatives for 9 years until this trip. It's amazing what changes in 9 years. Everyone is more mature, but still knows how to have fun. Being away from family a lot makes me appreciate and really cherish the time I have with them when I can. This section is by far the most memorable part of my trip... (yes... it even surpasses Disney for me). It is what separated me from the rest of the tourists. I felt like I was visiting a new place, yet it also felt like home. It was a weird feeling that still confuses me today.
This blog post might not have been as informative as it should have been. That's mostly because I was on vacation and not in work mode. I do regret not taking more photos or videos during this trip, but I think that's what makes me hold on to these memories even tighter; because most of the memories are in my head. This is by no means what Hong Kong is truly like. I'm sure a lot of what I saw was for tourists to experience. How the locals see the city is currently beyond me, but maybe sometime in the future I'll go back and experience a little bit more of the local life for myself.
Until then, it was a memorable 2 weeks. I enjoyed every last second of it... even the times I felt jet lagged and had no appetite (though I wish I did have a bigger appetite... so much good food wasted). Hope to post something again soon. Summer gets busy at Lake Louise.
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Here's Jerome on the gondola. He might be in his 40's, but my goodness is this guy fit. The years have definitely worked to his advantage because I have trouble keeping up with him in any outdoor sport.
It started with the 3 of us, but my good friend and ex-housemate, Mathieu, would eventually join us (you'll see him if you scroll down this post. This is us riding to the top of Larch. Beautiful view of the mountains there!
I had my camera set on 3D autofocus to see what it can do. It wasn't too bad! These were all mostly shot at 1/4000th of a second, f/4, and ISO 100-200 depending on clouds. I made sure I would freeze them because these guys mean business!
Of course, Jerome returned the favour by taking photos of me as well. This was on Marmot whereas the others were mostly taken on the Lookout trail as it was Jerome's favourite run. Photographers can have fun too!
It goes without saying that Mathieu is a very talented athlete as well. This man is just the most outgoing and friendly person I know who does everything from base jumping to rock climbing, and ski/snowboard instructing. This is the man who taught me how to snowboard! I owe a lot to him, and hopefully I'll be taking some better pictures of him in the near future because apparently he was not impressed by his airtime even though he was only going at like 10km/hour for this picture.
Finally, here's Francois. It was his first time coming out to the ski hill this year even though he bought the full season pass. His body still remembers all the mechanics and motions though!
It was a great, clear, sunny day today! I hope to go out to do more shots of different activities. It's a nice change and definitely a different challenge from posing clients as I have to strategize and position myself so I get the best photo. The composition, whether the subject is left or right handed, where the lighting is, it's all up to me to move because there's not much the subject can do but just look good. There's just not too many opportunities like this that come by unfortunately.
Anyways, hope you all have a great day!
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This was taken at the Fairmont Paliser in the heart of Downtown Calgary. Wasn't a bad place, and definitely a convenient location. We stayed here the first night after I picked him up from the airport.
The next day, we took to the streets to grab a bite to eat and also to tour around. You have seen these places before during my Calgary series, but it's nice to have someone else in the photos this time.
This is the room we stayed in at the Banff Springs Hotel. They graciously upgraded us to a bigger room with a view. We didn't enjoy the view too much though because we were out most of the time, and it was also snowing a lot! Definitely a beautiful place to stay and they honestly have the best pool ever!
One of the few pictures I took with a tripod so I could be in the picture too. Just a gorgeous view of Banff Springs at the surprise corner. The sight of a castle-like hotel in the middle of the mountains is simply breath-taking. No shops or buildings around it; just the hotel and nature... and us.
Next stop was Lake Louise. I did not document too much here as I am quite familiar with this place. I took a lot more pictures with Henry's camera phone than with my dSLR. It was, however, a good chance to take some action photos using a 14-24mm lens. Not the most appropriate choice for a lens, but I wanted to get a lot of the scenery in as well. It worked out ok! This was Henry cross country skiing. He was not use to the altitude and the amount of physical activity involved so he was exhausted by the end of this.
Here's another picture. This time, Henry is downhill skiing at the Lake Louise Ski Resort. Since I made him use his body to the limit during cross country skiing, downhill skiing was equally exhausting as his legs just did not want to work. He still made it through a couple runs though! What a trooper!
He especially loved the view. Definitely worth coming if any of the readers are deciding where to go for their next vacation! The scenery sells itself.
Thanks for reading through the blog post! See you all soon!
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So lets take a look at what my journey has been so far with my northern light encounters. To date, I've only photographed 3 events, but only really visibly seen 2 of them. Lake Louise is north enough to see them, but not enough to view them the way you will see them in pictures. They are typically duller, but that does not change how beautiful they pulsate and dance above you.
This was my FIRST picture I took of the aurora ever... and it was a "mistake"! It was a mistake because my ISO was higher than i originally wanted it to be, but it turned out great! The trees are all lit up by the Chateau Lake Louise beside me on the right, but this must be one of my favourite ones still today. If only my foreground and mountains were tack sharp. Otherwise, this picture is definitely my favourite because it means something to me both the location and the fact that it was my first aurora borealis captured on my camera.
This one was the BEST aurora borealis display i have seen to date. I first spotted it during a drive back from Calgary with some friends. The whole time I was staring at a cloud in the distance because I was intrigued by how it was moving. We stopped on the side of the road to dispute something trivial, but when we got out i also noticed that the cloud was not a cloud, but the aurora! It was just dancing and it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The only thing missing: my camera. So when we got back to Lake Louise, I went into my room to grab my camera and tripod and bolted back out to take pictures. When we went to the parking lot of the Lake Louise Ski Resort, we could see this light pulsating and dancing around. Definitely one of the highlights of my life witnessing this.
This was the Aurora down at the village. I tried to look for something to compose my picture and this was the best I could think of at the time. This was on the bridge going from the village up to the Chateau Lake Louise. Also would have been perfect had the trees and the buildings in the background been tack sharp. Zooming in to the picture... I found that it was slightly out of focus as is the trend with these photos. Beautiful photo none the less, but not good enough for me to be satisfied with it.
I loved this photo so much that it was my desktop background for a while. I didn't really have anything in the foreground that needed to be super sharp and I was able to capture the aurora. The only thing I would have loved is if there were larger mountains to compose my picture with. This did not give me a sense of location whatsoever. I could have been anywhere taking a picture of this. I was actually at the Great Divide trail or the old 1A just off Lake Louise Dr. It was a wonderful sight, but just nothing to anchor me in to a specific location not like the first photo of the aurora at the lake itself.
This was the most recent photo I took. This was taken about 3 days ago when there was a red alert for an Aurora Borealis. By the way, I just use the website and app from www.auororawatch.ca It sends yellow and red alerts through email when there is northern light activity up in the sky detected. Back to the photo, this picture was taken at the staff accommodations for employees working at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. All of these pictures were taken around ISO 1600-3200 at 10-15 seconds and most likely F/2.8 or in one instance f/5.6. The above picture was taken at ISO 1600, 10 second shutter, and f/2.8. Again, this was the first photo I took of the night. Of course the lights from the buildings were all blown out, but I recovered as much as I could using lightroom. It was definitely not the perfect picture, but it was the first time I took a picture of the aurora with my D800. All the other pictures were taken with my D5000 proving that you could do this with any camera that can use a long shutter speed.
I do not usually like leaving a blog post with no closure - a picture of the aurora that I was actually satisfied with. Sometimes we just need to keep trying and pursuing our goals. This post was more about the journey than the destination. I still have a lot more room to grow, and I hope that you will follow me on this journey as well!
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If I do take a good northern lights photo though, you will definitely know. I would not be able to help sharing it.
Take care guys, until next time!
-Gary
]]>Went snow biking with a friend today in Canmore, Alberta where there were many beautiful trails for bicyclists to travel through. Here are some photos of that tiring, but fun-filled trip!
That's me travelling down a hill we found.
There's my friend, Chris, travelling along the trail with The Three Sisters behind him. What a sight!
I tried something different just to get more techniques under my belt. I tried zooming out while Chris was coming at me to show motion which kind of worked. Hope to try more of these in the future to see if I can get the subject sharper. The shutter speed I believe was at 1/8 with aperture f/22 and iso 100. It was a bright day and my 14-24mm f/2.8 cannot put a filter on. If anyone has any tips let me know!
The next shot is a combination of 53 photos in one. Taken from a D800... that's a lot of information. It was my first try at the Brenizer Method which combines the compression that a telephoto lens provides with the wide angle view that a wide-angle lens would provide had I used one. The result of combining all the photos is shown below:
The result was not too great as you can see. It was still very visible where all the photos were joined together. I've used the automatic photo merge option in Photoshop CC before, but they usually came out better than this. It might be the amount of photos i took or it might be something else. If anyone has any tips on this as well, let me know! Next time I'll probably take less photos. I was just scared that it wouldn't turn out at all so I took more than I needed to.
After hours finding the right photos that would hide the lines, I used photoshop to mask the lines. To be honest, I'm not very photoshop-proficient so this actually turned out better than I thought it would. Most of the lines are gone except for a few because I couldn't find the right photos. This is still significantly better than the before photo though in my opinion. At least my friend's face is no longer disfigured.
If you have any comments or questions, write away! I'm just trying out ways to make my photography skills better so any advise is welcome!
Take care,
Gary
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The Devonian Garden had lots of Koi fish swimming around the pond. It was a very tranquil and serene environment to be in... unless you have kids playing off key on a piano that is located next to the pond.
These two are either BFF's or enemies for life because they were interacting with each other like the picture above for 15 minutes on and off. I wish I knew more about penguins.
This little guy was interested interested in something that was beside me, but I'm glad because I wouldn't have gotten this shot otherwise.
These guys were not as active as the tigers, but they did pose for nice shots! I wish I could say that he was roaring, but a yawn makes for a nice picture too.
This one tiger was just strolling around its territory getting some exercise in while all the other tigers were just lying around. Good for you, buddy!
All-in-all, it was a fun trip. Got to take a few nice photos as a tourist (even though I've been to calgary multiple times before this). Definitely still have more places to explore in Alberta so check back often!
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The downtown Core Shopping Centre is part of a chain of buildings connected to each other with plenty of stores to shop at.
I really lucked out with finding this garden. I was having lunch and searched the internet for things to do in the city. This gorgeous place came up and it turned out it was only a block away from the Fairmont Paliser. I instantly fell in love with this place when I finally found it after an hour of searching for it! A beautiful place to have a meal, work, read, or just have some quiet alone time which is exactly what I did in my selfie from the last post.
This panoramic shot of the city was taken from the Calgary tower. I hope to go back up here in the evening to grab a night shot with all the city lights (and if northern lights can show up during the shot too I would not mind at all!).
I stayed at the top of the Calgary Tower until sunset to see if I could take a nice sunset photo with the city and the Rocky Mountains in the background. It is hard to pull off a good clean picture due to the lights inside reflecting off the window, but it still shows off this magnificent view!
The view of the Fairmont Paliser and the Calgary Tower from across the street. It was a very convenient and beautiful place to stay.
If you search up the Lougheed House, the internet will provide greater history than what I will describe here. This was a beautifully designed house that dates back to the 1800's. Very important people like princes and princesses have stayed here in days past. There are now open house tours that I hope to participate in one day.
This pretty much concludes part 2 of the Calgary trip series. Come back in a few days to see the final instalment!
]]>However, until then I will post whatever I can. This is a three part series. First up are the selfies I took during this trip. I mostly traveled alone in my adventures, which means I have lots of photos of my surroundings, but none with me in them. It's sometimes frustrating as a photographer to not be in your own photos - but then again sometimes I prefer to just be behind the camera. If one does feel like taking a selfie with a heavy DSLR, you will quickly find out that it gets quite difficult holding the camera with one hand with a finger on the shutter button (especially for a skinny asian man with small hands).
The main advise is this: if your camera has an interval timer so you can create time lapses on your computer afterwards, use that function!
I find that holding a D800 with a 14-24mm lens gets tiring to hold up with my weaker left hand especially when my index finger has to stay on the shutter button.
I also find that putting the drive mode on timer means I would need to pre-focus if I want to take a whole body shot. Waiting for the timer is also a hassle especially for one shot because if it doesn't turn out, I would have to do it all over again and that just eats up time that I don't want to waste on myself.
Setting the camera on interval shots gives you control over how many seconds are in between each shot, how many shots you want to take, and how many shots at a time I would like to take at one time. I usually set the camera on 3 seconds between each shot with 4-6 shots and each time just shooting 1 photo. The first picture is usually a throw-away because you're getting into position, but after the camera will focus on you (as long as the AF-point is set on the position you will be in) and take several photos so you just have to worry about looking awesome. You can try different poses and pick the one you like most!
Anyways, that's my secret. Hope this helped someone out there.
]]>The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise just had a Staff Gala on January 6th. Free food, alcohol, staff all dressed up nice at an amazing hotel is just the recipe you need for fun yet classy photos. These were all shot with a Nikon D800 and my used-way-too-often 14-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens. However, some of these shots were taken by a 50mm f/1.8D Nikon lens.
This is a shot of a few banquet staff doing some last minute touches an hour before dinner started. What a place to eat for free... if you're staff!
The AV crew doing their final checks as well and having a few laughs. Not a bad place to work at all...
Here's a panorama of the banquet hall taken from the stage. With a D800, this 35MB jpeg took a while for my laptop to produce from my raw files, but you can basically zoom in and see what's happening out the doors. So worth it (at least that's what I tell myself).
Here's a photo with the banquet hall filled with staff and their friends and family.
And of course, the free food was amazing! Finally get to taste what hotel guests get to experience during their stay here.
Obviously the night cannot be devoid of selfies. With everyone else taking some, I thought I'd join in as well.
After dinner is when the party really starts. With a room full of hard-working staff dancing is definitely the best to do to shake off the stress! Hope they do the Macarena!
Oh yes they do!
And of course, I must mention this special girl. Maya, whom you've seen in my past post, was the star of the night. She danced with all the adults, even went up on stage to dance! She told her mom that she "felt like a famous person" here... and like a true celebrity she enjoyed the attention.
Hope you all enjoyed the post! I will try to post more often so check back when you can!
Thanks for reading,
Gary
]]>Hope you all having a an enjoyable holiday season. With so much going on at work, I find it hard to post some of my personal photo shoots I've done these past few months.
Luckily, my friend's wife and kids came to visit him for the holidays and it was both an honour and privilege to enter into their family during this time to capture memories of everyone in the Rockies. With all my family and friends back in Toronto, I'm very blessed to have been able to spend my Christmas eve, Christmas day, and will quite possibly spend my New Years eve and New Years with them. Here is a peak of the happiest time of the year in Banff National Park:
Chris has told me that he doesn't get many photos taken of him with his kids because he is normally the one taking the pictures. Here is one of him with his son, Matthew.
Matthew and Maya playing around as the family gets ready for their photo shoot
Here is a shot that we do for many of our christmas, resort, and portrait pro clients.
Here's Chris with his two kids just fooling around as they get set up for a Christmas portrait
They wanted to have a photo taken of them walking down the hallway of the Mt. Temple Wing at Chateau Lake Louise.
A picture that can only be taken a few weeks during the winter when the ice is thick enough for people to stand on. Here's a picture of the family with the chateau and the bridge in the background.
An entertaining family to be around with! Never a dull moment with these four.
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Photo 1: That's me setting up for a staff party photo shoot. The theme was 80's prom. I shot the group photos while my manager shot the candids. Fun night!
Photo 2: All rights to this image belongs to Banff Photography. Just a sample photo of what we took that night!
Photo 3: This is a photo of Bow Falls right behind the Banff Springs Hotel.
Photo 4: This is a photo of Lake Louise! It was cloudy that day. The lake thawed out a week later! It was an overnight change that surprised everyone. Will probably see more of the lake in the future =)
Photo 5: This is a photo of the staff housing that I currently reside in. Relatively cheap, there are no desks in these rooms. It's a warm place to sleep in though so no complaints!
I also decided to rent a D600 that weekend to play around with. My first time shooting with a full frame camera body... and it was AMAZING! Here are some shots from the night:
I used a mixture of my 14-24mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8 and shot at around 1/80th of a second at around 1200 ISO.
I was able to catch the second last day of the Game of Thrones Exhibition held by HBO at the Design Exchange in Toronto. For the fans out there, it's a pretty small exhibit, but showcases a lot of neat and interesting stuff on the show. Something that stood out to me was the wardrobe! So much detail! It's a free exhibit so everyone has one more day to visit.
The first two photos were shot with my 14-24mm f/2.8 at f4 1/25 and the last two were shot with my 35mm prime f/1.8 at f4 1/30
A Week or two ago, I had a delicious opportunity to help Jennifer Chao of Sweet Escapes take some high key pictures of her cupcakes! Check out her website and like her facebook page from the links below!
Website: www.jenniferchao.com
Facebook: Sweet Escapes
As I try to explore the world of photography, I like to take photos of inanimate subjects sometimes instead of people all the time to give myself some variety. I usually take my 35mm prime f/1.8 to the show because of its light weight and small size. This year, I decided to bring in my 14-24mm f/2.8 to change it up a bit! I tried to use the distortion that naturally comes with such a wide angle lens to my advantage.
The 14-24mm tends to make the middle disproportionately larger so I placed parts I wanted to emphasize in the middle. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
Excited to see what I can do with two flashes now! Time to duel wield!
It's been a few months since I decided to embark on this journey of being a professional photographer. From September until now, I've grown from just taking photography as a hobby to helping out Erin Woodgate Photography with an engagement shoot as a second photographer, interning at uniiverse.com as an unpaid photographer, and just recently being a photographer at Reptilia.
I look forward to helping my future customers and friends capture their memorable experiences!