Reviewing my photos from Canada, I noticed I’d passed a milestone without any fanfare.

So, with much fanning of fares, here is the ten thousandth picture I’ve taken with my Canon 400D

You’d think a milestone shot would be better.

I’m playing around with photoshop again, thanks to a book a friend (yes, the turd commenter) loaned me. I’ll discuss the book in more detail another time, for now I just want to show you the impact of some of its suggested workflow.

Original Image

Final Image

I’m kind of curious what people think. Does the final image work better than the original?

There’s a “Flora & Fauna” competition next week and it sent me scurrying into my photo library to see what I had for entry.

I ended up stumbling upon the pictures in this post:

The Automatic Rose

Now at the time, these pictures caused dissention, slit families, drove wedges between nation states…. (OK, a friend in work and I disagreed about whether they were any good). But since I liked it, I decided to use it for the competition.

But, being one of natures fiddlers and having seen some amazing stuff by a local photographer called Stephen McWilliams I decided to see if I could improve on it.

Here’s my new version:

Essentially, there were changes to contrast and vibrance, as well as an edit in photoshop to perform the selective colour element.

I quite like it, but my friend (yes, I too am amazed I can call him that after he was rude about the original) made the immortal comment -

“it doesn’t matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd”

Humph.

I’m in danger of turning this blog from photography to “My Holiday Snaps”, so I promise there won’t be too may more Canada pictures here.

However, this picture kind of summed up one of the issues that I find most frustrating with photographing landscapes.

You travel 4,000 miles to some of the most majestic scenery i the world. You spend three or four days in the place. You wait and you pray…

And not once does the sky clear and give you the light the scene so richly deserves.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just not good enough to make a grey sky day seem amazing (and trust me the views were still great). Sometimes though, I think you just have to shoot and be dammed.

So I did.

This was the first holiday I’ve ever tried using an SLR in snowy conditions. The temptation for the camera to over expose was really compounded by the fact I was wearing sunglasses a lot and so when reviewing pictures they always looked dark.

One of the interesting challenges on this trip was definitely shooting pictures from inside a dogsled while rattling along a really bumpy trail.

Here’s one example

(Oh, and for reference. These dogs don’t stop when they need to piddle or poop – they just kind of go on the run. So, if you’re ever in this position, make sure you watch out for flying poop!)

Yesterday I mentioned the animals in Elk Island being happy to pose. Well, none more so than this little chap.

When we spotted him in the tree, we all jumped on cameras thinking it would be the shot of a second. But, I kid you not, this little guy was still hanging around and posing 5 minutes later.

In fact, I’d swear when we turned away he started complaining!

Here’s a few other shots.

Oh, the little white flecks on his coat aren’t issues with the camera, they’re little snowflakes – there was still a lot around. I may clone them out if I print one of these though as out of context they are a little detracting.

And no, I don’t think he would have let me brush him down…

(Oh, I was told this was a Red Squirrel. In the absence of other contradictory evidence I am assuming this to be correct)

Whilst in Canada we had an opportunity to visit Elk Island National Park to look for Bison.

Sadly the Bison decided it was too damn cold and snowy to hang out near the places where humanity might catch a glimpse, though we did see them in the distance.*

Still, the other locals were happy to pose.

In an effort to be prepared when leaving the house, I’d lifted out my 10-22mm and my 55-250mm lenses from my camera bag. By habit, I’d mounted the wide angle lens. It was only as we entered the park and I looked at my friends camera I began to get a niggling feeling I’d made a mistake.

Yup, animals tend to be skittish, landscapes less so – so if you’re in the same situation, mount your zoom lens in case an animal pops up. They probably won’t hang around while you change lenses and reset the camera.

*I’m kind of glad they were in the distance. Having partook in the eating of some of their friends in the preceding days, I felt guilty enough without having to look one in the eye. Funny thing, I’ve never felt that way when encountering a cow or a pig.

Sorry for the recent bout of silence. I was off to Canada to visit friends and get in a bit of skiing.

Rumours of Yeti sightings in Banff and Lake Louise can probably be explained away by me covered in snow.

Pictures and such will follow, but for now…

It’s absolutely amazing the difference 10 minutes can make. 10 minutes earlier and the sun would have been much nicer.

Mind you 10 minutes before that it was chucking it down.

And 10 minutes after I took this it was pitch black and chucking it down.

The Irish Marine Institute, Galway Bay.