Another Cathedral Grove Pic

One more picture from our walk through Cathedral Grove a few weeks ago.

For this image, I used a cross processing action and then converted it to black and white. I did a little bit of work to tone down the blown out highlights a bit on the bridge railing and cross beams. I like the look.

I think it's time to find another place to walk and photograph.

Another Picture from Cathedral Grove

Here's another photo from our walk through Cathedral Grove a few weeks ago. Interestingly, the Grove is currently shut down to visitors so that they can do some removal of dangerous limbs and such.

This picture is of a wooden walkway that leads up to a kind of patio type place with some info about the grove. I used an action suggested by DIY Photography that mimics the Dave Hill look to a small extent. Check out Dave's site for some awesome looking portraits.

Weekend Picture - March 15

Though the idea of a picture of the day or a weekend picture is to get me to go out and shoot pictures, I haven't yet had the opportunity this weekend. I thought I would post another picture I like from last weekends photo shoot.

The beauty of Cathedral grove is in its majestic Douglas Firs. I saw these several (I think there are five in the picture) trees standing majestically. I did a conversion to black and white but I had to come back to the beauty of the green. Often, my wife and I comment that God's favorite color must be green, at least in our part of the world, because there is just so much of it in a rainforest.

ISO 100, f4 at 1/10 sec (handheld), 24 mm lens focal length.

Weekend Pictures Finally

After talking for several weeks about getting out on the weekend and trying to do a photo a week type project, I finally did it yesterday. Rena (my wife) and I went for a drive and stopped at Cathedral Grove which is about twelve miles out of town. Though we live incredibly close to a major tourist attraction, it has been years since we stopped and walked through this treasure of huge and old Douglas Fir.

I was looking for a shot that was a bit different, not just pictures of big trees, and I actually captured a couple of shots that I am posting here. So, two pictures this week.

This first one is just some branches, full of moss, that kind of resemble a large, bony hand reaching out. The vivid greens are fairly reflective of what it really looks like in our temperate rain forest, at least to my memory, and I added a gaussian glow action to give it a bit more feeling.









The highway actually runs through the middle of the grove and on the other side of the highway we found a road that led us to the west end of Cameron Lake where I took this shot.


I especially like the glassy surface reflecting the clouds and the trees but also allowing some of the stuff underneath to show through. I double (maybe triple) processed this shot to brighten the trees up a bit and keep the rest of the shot looking natural. I also darkened up the reflection of the trees a bit so the junk underneath was a little less obvious. There was also a fisherman in his boat that you can just see on the left side motoring away from me.

All shots were handheld. I hauled the tripod around but didn't use it for the first shot and so I put it back in the car. I could have used it for the second, but it's still okay.

Weekend Failures

I have absolutely no excuse for not going out shooting this weekend except laziness and a lack of inspiration. I am only posting here because my son asked "Where's the weekend picture" in a comment on the previous post.

I did throw the camera and tripod in the car when we went shopping in Nanaimo on Friday night because we thought we'd stay overnight and I would have gone looking for some shots on Saturday, but we came home and I spent all day yesterday at the computer.

I have been wrestling with what printer to buy. There isn't really one out there within my perceived budget that is perfect but I am leaning toward the Epson 2400. It is older and requires switching between photo black and matte black cartridges depending on paper use but it has gotten fairly favorable reviews and currently has a $100 rebate offer. Of course, as soon as I buy it they'll announce the upgrade printer but that's okay, I kind of don't want to wait the 4-6 months between announcement and availability.

The picture above was a weekend picture, taken in January on the west coast of Vancouver Island, part of the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet.