Tag Archives: night photography

Magic in the Sky and a Train (Winnipeg Nature Photography)

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Last night the sky gave us the most amazing light show. It started very suddenly around midnight when the sky literally started to dance with light.  The lights  twinkled and sparkled and danced above us, in front of us and behind us.  It gives me shivers even thinking about it. It was impossible to capture the majesty of it with a lens because a lens cannot easily take the whole entire sky in one frame. I was shooting at 12 mm and that’s about as wide as most people have.

We started out near a cemetery West of the city and I got these images:

The orange lights are from a hydro plant.

The exciting part of the evening (actually by now it was 2:00 a.m. so it was technically morning!), was when we went to the grain elevator in Meadows. Our driver and chief said on the way to Meadows, that it would make for a perfect picture if a train came through while we were there. Well, Vic got his wish.  We got our train. At the first train whistle I headed over to the gates at the road and set up by the tracks. I wanted to get a shot of the train as it came towards me. (You might want to stop reading now Diane.) I got my shot but OMG, that train went by about 3 feet from me and the wind from the train almost knocked me over. I managed to hold onto my tripod so it didn’t fall down and I stayed in the wind tunnel for almost the whole 30 second exposure but my good sense told me that if I didn’t move the train might just knock me and my camera down. So I moved. I think it was a good thing but it did result in some blur in the image.

Here is the grain elevator before the train.

Here’s the train coming towards me. If you look closely you can see the other people with their tripods in the field.

And here is the train whipping by at an unbelievable speed.

What a night! I got home at 3:00, got to sleep at 3:30 and had a phone call to wake me up at 8:00. (Don’t worry about waking me if you are reading this, I had an 11:00 meeting today.)

It will be hard to beat last night’s excitement. And I didn’t even need to leave the province!!

Night Photography (Winnipeg Landscape Photographer)

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The last theme for competition for Manitoba Camera Club was low light/night. I had mentioned this in an earlier post but did not post the actual images that I entered. Well, judging has happened and so here are the entries:

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So how do you think they did?

The sky view of the Exchange District finished as first BUT as I labeled it incorrectly it was disqualified.I will be entering it again in the annual Open, which is in April, and I will be SURE to label it correctly.

The traffic lights got an Honorable Mention and would have placed higher, except for the fact that I left a flag in one of the office windows. The judge had a problem with some elements of the lane picture, which I have since removed. I will be entering that one in the Open as well.

I’m not giving away all of my entries into the Open, but this is a real favorite. I took this at a place out near Anola, MB. This sweet little girl was a joy to photograph. She was not one bit awkward or self conscious in front of the camera and loved all of her pets, and there were a ton of pets; horses, goats, dogs, cats, ducks, and more. It still is one of my all time favorite shoots!!

 

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The eyes really are the window to the soul and this image draws you right in with both of their eyes. Talk about a beautiful cat and girl!! It all just works sometimes, and this is one example of everything coming together in an amazing way. Makes this photographer’s heart soar.

Till next time,

Christina

Calgary, Winnipeg and China

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I’m off to Calgary tomorrow to visit our son and his family. Best part is that our son and his wife are going skiing so I will have my grandson to myself. Ashton is 7 and in grade 2. I timed the trip to coincide with his Parent Teacher Interview. The teacher in me wants to know. lol.

Been out doing a lot of night shooting in the last couple of weeks; in the exchange and at the train station. We actually got out onto the tracks at the station while an engine came in. It happened so fast but I did get a shot. The theme this month at Camera Club is night/low light, hence the night pics.

Also, taught a couple more photography classes at Ralph Brown School. I wish that I could post some of the pictures that the kids have taken but since most of them are pictures of each other, I am not able to. I’m so proud of the great job that they’ve done. Turns out that holding the camera still is their single biggest challenge. We worked on that quite a bit and there was a big improvement.

Other than that I’ve been working on setting up a friend’s website.  Check it out: www.digital35.ca. Tse Li Luk is the name of the photographer and he will be having an exhibition at the Millenium Library for the month of May. All proceeds from the exhibition will be going towards the Chinese Cultural Centre to celebrate the Chinese community having been here for 100 years. The images are all from the Chinese countryside that Tse Li took on a recent trip to China. This exhibition is definitely worth checking out. I am by no means a website designer, but know how to see up a site at www.smugmug.com , because  they are the hosts of my 2 sites;  this one and www.studio86.smugmug.com.  The customer service at smugmug is simply the best and keeps me there.  I don’t do a lot of work on the studio86 site as my www.chrismcwilliamsphotography.com site keeps me busy enough. Anyways, I will post one of  Tse Li’s images for a sneak peak at the exhibition.

That’s it for today. The sun is shining but winter seems to be back. When will it end? Or rather will it end? Who knows. One can only hope.

These are not the images that I will be entering this month. I will post my entries after the judging night. I also have changed the resolution and size of these images.

Here are a couple of images from my night shooting and then one of the images that will be on exhibition at the library:

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I’m sure that you’ll recognize these spots if you’re from Winnipeg.

And now one from a place faraway with mystique and beauty-China:

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Isn’t that a beautiful image! Mark May on your calendar and come down to the Millenium Library to see more of  Tse Li Luk’s work.

That’s it for now.

Christina