Finalist for Highline Magazine ‘Oh, Snap’ Photo Contest

I’m excited to announce that two photos I submitted to Highline Magazine’s ‘Oh, Snap!’ Photo Contest have been selected as finalists. Winners will be chosen from the highest number of votes on their facebook page so please check out all the images, and if you like my two images, then please ‘Like’ them.

The two photos are from my ‘Landscape & Nature’ and ‘Adventure & Travel’ collections currently available on this site. Here’s a bit more information about each photo:

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If anyone remembers the summer of 2010 in the Rockies, it felt more like winter on Canada’s west coast – wet, wet, wet! But the price of all this rain paid for some of the most spectacular Fall colours ever to coat an already sublime landscape.Having been cooped up inside the tv studio and edit suite for months, I was relishing the opportunity to take a break and explore a new area when a friend suggested a trip to Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park.

Packing my Nikon D700, Nikkor 24mm, 50mm, and 70-200mm and a steady tripod, I drove west to Castle Mountain and then south to Marble Canyon, at the heart of the Tokkum Creek Forest Fire of 2003. I was immediately in awe of the landscape – a contradiction of scarred trees and new growth, charred wood sprouting amber hues everywhere. After shooting the waterfall at the end of the canyon, I hiked back and wandered off into the woods. Inspired by a friend’s image of flora, I thought I’d have a go myself and so setup for some top-down shots. After setting on a decent exposure, I played around with HDR, capturing several different options to play around with at home.

Now I must confess, I’m quite the procrastinator when it comes to my own post production work, mainly because I spend most of my day shooting or editing video for clients and often need a break in the evening. But after a few weeks we finally hit shoulder season and I took a day to edit the photos. The result is a combination of editing in Photomatix Pro, Photoshop, and Color Efex Pro 3.

 

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I’m not sure there’s anything I’d rather be doing than cragging at the back of Lake Louise. If the sun’s out, my friends generally assume that is where I want to climb. And so in typical fashion, Sam, Matt and myself headed out to the back of the lake. Both at least a decade younger than me, several pounds lighter, and significantly stronger (and more talented), I knew my time on the wall would be limited and so I packed my camera gear. Climbing in pairs doesn’t really give me an opportunity to shoot, but with a team of three, I could enjoy a few climbs and capture the action later in the day. Sure enough, Matt and Sam wanted to head to one of the steeper walls, Liquid Sky. After a few burns on the classic routes, my arms were toast and so I hawled myself up one final time with my camera gear and parked myself at the top of the route.

This shot of Sam on Mistaya captures the moment when he starts the crux – a series of fingery and balancy moves that were well beyond my level. It was a joy to watch someone else move through this section with relative ease and I was grateful to be positioned at the top of the wall. (And I think my fingers were thanking me that the only thing left for them to do was click the shutter.) Once again, the post production was done with Photoshop and Color Efex Pro 3. I think only thing I would do differently is bring a more comfortable harness for shooting from above – I can still remember the tingling sensation in my legs.

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