I mentioned Dan Pichette’s photographs in my previous Midway post. He and I went down to the grounds together and had a great time wandering around. He’s a fine photographer and I really love the focus he has put on individual subjects in many of these photos. His images with the fireworks playing in the midway scene are fantastic.
I’m glad to get out with Dan whenever we can, it’s always a lot of fun.
Thanks for sharing Dan – great set!
This year the Stampede started its 10 day run with a lot of cold, wet weather. I made it down to the grounds with my good friend Dan Pichette on the Thursday before the big final weekend. We picked a good night as it was warm, there was a great sky in the evening and the grounds were busy but not packed.
We brought the tripods for the purpose of playing with long exposures on the lights of the rides, games and kiosks around the fairgrounds. Here is some of the work I came home with. Dan made some dynamite images and I’m bugging him to let me throw a couple of his images up here too. Not yet, but maybe soon.
I always have a lot of fun at the Stampede whether it’s watching the rodeo, checking out the art exhibit, listening the outdoor concerts or roaming the fair.
When I’m down there with a camera, I have yet to not get inspired by all of the commotion and excitement.
I found myself in Cochrane waiting for repairs to the wagon a few days ago. The sky was blue and the wind was blowing so it felt like a good time to take a walk. With gear in hand, I wandered the back streets of the town and ended up playing around the tracks (don’t tell my children, they might think I’m talking about real play, not shooting).
I’m endlessly fascinated by motion and trains with their history, power and shapes always draw my eye.
Throw in the rusted boxcars waiting on the secondary tracks and I happily filled an hour down on the rails.
Right across Highway 22 from my house is the location of the annual Tsuu T’ina nation’s Rodeo and Pow Wow. What an incredible event to have in the Bragg Creek area.
Yesterday, I spent the day on the grounds photographing the Pow Wow Grand Entrance and then the evening’s rodeo events. The people working, competing, dancing and enjoying these events were great to talk to and extended great warmth and friendliness to me. I feel very honoured to have been able to enjoy these festivities with our local Tsuu T’ina band members and the people from other nations all across North America.
I will have more photo essays up but wanted to get a quick post up with images from the Grand Entrance. This ceremony sees all of the first nation people who are dancing in the Pow Wow enter into the Beaver Lodge. This is an large pyramid open all sides with a two tiered roof sloping upwards resembling a beaver lodge in a general sense. Moving in a steady procession, the center of the lodge is soon completely packed as men and women, boys and girls of all ages circle around the main column in the middle. Easily a couple of hundred dancers pulsed inside at the height of the ceremony.
They were carried onwards, dancing with little break for up to half an hour, by the drumming circles from different nations attending. The drums and accompanying singing was incredible, powerful and charged the atmosphere. It was a mesmerizing scene to be in, around and a part of.
Here are a few more images from my first look through the images I made (click on the photographs to see larger images).
As a footnote, Tsuu T’ina means beaver in their language although I do not yet know how they came to be called by the name. Much to learn about my neighbours across the road, I better find time to do so as I’m very interested.
Darwin Wiggett and Samantha Chrysanthou led a group of photographers to the Bar U Ranch historical site just west of Longview, Alberta. This was one of 1111 groups comprised of over 33,500 photographers participating in Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk. It was fun to be a part of the Bar U group and neat to be involved with such a huge international group.
I had not wandered through Bar U previously and was interested to see what subjects would pull my attention. The ranch is set up in the style of its heydays when it was one of the largest ranching operations in North America. That puts the time at roughly 1882 – 1925. There are period costumes, decorations, equipment and sundry items – all of which lend themselves easily to becoming a photograph.
I really enjoyed the walk, meeting some of the other photographers, sharing a laugh and scouring around for images to make.
Thanks to Samantha and Darwin for a smooth operation and a fun walk.
” Picture The Cure” is a not-for-profit community based organization whose mission is to raise the awareness, bring dedicated people together and honour cancer survivors and victims.
In Calgary, in association with The Camera Store, they held an auction at the end of June which included over 40 pieces of artwork. I contributed a framed 20×30 print of the Nuns at Prayer in Myanmar. Angelo Avlonitis, the owner of Art Country Canada in Bragg Creek, donated the glass and frame.
I am very happy to have been able to contribute to this very worthwhile project.
Evelyn Drake, the organizer who I worked with leading up to the event, is walking 60 km in The Calgary Weekend to End Women’s Cancer – I hope you have a great experience!
On Sunday afternoon, I was down at the Calgary Stampede photographing the rodeo finals.
Thanks to a conversation with the media accreditation manager at the Stampede along with a call to, and a letter from, Roy Anstey, I was able to get media credentials for the event. Roy is the editor of the Bragg About the Creek magazine that I have been working with for a few issues now. Armed with the media pass, I was able to tour the stocks before the rodeo started where the animals were waiting to march into the fray.
When the rodeo got underway, the events came shotgun style as the cowboys and cowgirls competed to get into the final round. The action was incredible and I have to say no one takes a bigger beating in sports than the bull and bareback riders.
Fred Whitfield as he jumps off his horse to pick up the calf and time it up. Whitfield, a Texan from Hockley, tied Matt Shiozawa in the final with a 7.4 second run. They rode one more time to determine the winner with Shiozawa taking this hotly contested tie down roping event.
Sue Smith from Blackfoot, Idaho came in 3rd place with a time of 17.88.
Gabe LeDoux from Kaplan, Louisiana had a great run here but finished in 6th, 0.4 seconds back of 1st place.
Jim Berry from Rocky Mountain House, AB riding Knife Money in the qualifying round. Berry placed 3rd overall.
Lindsay Sears riding hard for the finish line. The Nanton, Alberta barrel racer finished 2nd with a 17.31 second ride, missing 1st by 0.06 seconds!
Chet Johnson of Gillette, Wyoming leaping clear after an 85.50 point ride in the qualifier. Johnson was later bucked off in the final, placing 4th overall.
After a couple of hours of hard riding, the finals were set for what the announcer billed as the “Richest Hour in Rodeo”. As each winner of the saddle bronc, barrel racing, bareback, bullriding, steer wrestling and tie down roping takes home $100,000. Second nabs $25,000 with third at $15,000 and fourth walking (or limping) away with $10,000 . The crowd was roaring, thunder clouds were looming off to the south and the animals were fired up. When the men and women started performing the energy in the whole place exploded. Every event was close and they kept coming with only a short break for the winner before the next group got started. It might have been a bit longer than an hour when it was all over but it felt like five minutes.
On this ride, Matt Shiozawa posted an incredible 6.5 second run and tie down. A well-earned championship for this cowboy hailing from Chubbuck, Idaho in the Tie-Down Roping event.
Boxholm, Iowa’s Wade Sundell rode Lynx Mountain for a 90.50 in the qualifier. Here Sundell is just out of the gate riding Mata Fact to an 88.50 and title in the championship round of the Saddle Bronc event.
Savannah Reeves of Dublin, Texas posted consecutive rides of 17.25 seconds to win the Barrel Racing event. She beat Lindsay Sears whose home she was staying at during the Stampede – nice house guest 🙂
Will Lowe from Canyon, Texas won the Bareback event with an 87.50 point ride on Mad Money.
Calgary’s own Lee Graves in the middle of grappling his steer on the way to the Steer Wrestling champion title with a time of 3.8 seconds.
Here Duncan Douglas “dismounts” from Wranglers Deja Vue after completing 8 seconds astride the beast. Douglas, hailing from Alvin, Texas, won the Bull Riding event by one point over Beau Hill with an 88.0 on this ride.
What a great event! I will be going to some of the local, feeder rodeos around Southern Alberta through the summer and I can’t wait for next year’s Stampede. I had a great time working at this event and can’t believe how much fun it is shooting from the rails.
I tend to only display photographs that are relatively close to the way that I saw them when I was in the moment, making the image. I enjoy images of all kinds, be it HDR, Orton Effects, duotones, composites, etc. It just seems that of the work I do, I prefer the “realistic” look for the images I display. Behind closed doors, I spend all kinds of time processing some of my images with the previously mentioned techniques and others. A lot never see the light of day but now and then I like the results of this play.
In the photograph above, I manipulated the final look in Adobe’s Lightroom program. Working in the Develop module, I pulled the recovery, fill light, vibrance, contrast and clarity sliders all the way to the right (100) and black to 40. This resulted in a really garish look and the trick was to use saturation to reduce the color to suit your taste. I then tweaked all of the above sliders and the white balance to match what was in my head.
Give it a try if you are looking for another way to look at one of your images, it might work for you. This treatment works well on buildings and machinery, particularly when they are weathered. The effect on people is a bit of a wild card so it definitely doesn’t work for everything (or anything depending on what you like!)
For reference, above is the original photo with only an increase to contrast from the original RAW file out of the camera. I like this image and it has the look that I usually display. I’m actually pretty evenly split between these two versions of the photograph. The vivid one brings the temple more prominently into the scene and makes the story about the people and the temple. The “normal” version has the father and son as the primary subjects and the story is about the two of them together in the canoe. The temple serves as a great backdrop but does not demand attention. I would love to hear your thoughts on which works for you.
Just to highlight the impact of this treatment on buildings, here is another normal and vivid comparison. The photograph is also from Inle Lake.
Above is the normal version and below is its vivid counterpart.
Storm over Springbank as it heads to Calgary
When the Prairies get wet it is usually due to some pretty impressive storms. The first couple of weeks of July have been heavy with rain which seems to be about a month later than the last couple of years. The weather may not lend itself to days on the beach, it makes for some great photographic possibilities. With the wet comes saturated colors and, using a polarizer to cut the glare, you can create images that almost glow. The dark skies reveal the texture within the clouds and make beautiful backgrounds to landscape photographs.
I felt a bit bad watching these cows inside my car as the window and their backs took the brunt of the wind and rain.
So, I ventured out to get a couple of portraits and was rewarded with stern glares from the models and raindrops on the lens.
I liked this fellow’s optimism with the shorts. Prudence must have taken hold as he walked out the door with the toque and the long sleeve shirt.
A view of the Trans-Canada Highway looking westward as it disappears into the storm. Photograph made from the Springbank overpass just outside of Calgary.
The Shwe Dagon pagoda in Yangon is central to the people of Myanmar and their faith. It is a major place of worship for Buddhists in Myanmar as it enshrines relics of four Buddhas. The history of and details about this golden pagoda are incredible and the Wikipedia entry is an interesting read.
My last evening in Myanmar coincided with the full moon of Tabaung Festival. The festival is celebrated on this full moon in the lunar calendar and it is one of Myanmar’s largest celebrations. Within the grounds surrounding the pagoda there are Buddhist rituals, family gatherings, water and fire offerings and many other celebrations that I was not able to learn more about. I walked around from early evening, through sunset and into the night and the crowds continued to grow. Incredible scenes of chanting, prayer and offering were everywhere all held together with a feeling of a shared experience with city people, monks, nuns, children and others from every stripe of life.
Here then are a few of the images that I made under a full moon in the Far East…
Thank you for taking a quick walk around Shwe Dagon with me.
The McDougall United Church is just east of Morley, Alberta. It sits on a bluff above the Bow River about midway between Canmore and Calgary.
The church was built in 1875 by Reverend George McDougall who was a missionary bringing Christianity to the people of the Bow River valley.
This church draws the eye if you drive the Bow Valley Trail (Highway 1A) between Cochrane and Canmore. It has been restored and the fence is far from original but it is a beautiful spot. The building stands out against the rolling prairie and has a lonely yet resolute feel.
I have shot at this location many times and when I was last there, in early evening, I shot this image with a black and white print in mind which would allow the separate elements to each stand out. I used an approach that Ansel Adams pioneered of exposing the blue sky as a deep black. The result is a graphic depiction of the building within the detailed prairie grass and fence posts.
I like the result – your mileage may vary.
The June rain has settled into a hard, steady rhythm today. As I drove through Bragg Creek, I thought this dog expressed everyone’s sentiments best.
The forecast is for sun by the weekend – fingers and toes are crossed.
This faithful friend seemed resigned to the weather, I’m still a little bitter. It is great for photography though.
