Transitions, Transformations and a Little Photography
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Camera Settings and Life
This post started out being a technical post about exposure and the use of exposure compensation, however when I started to write the outline I realized that there are some very interesting parallels to wellbeing and living a balanced life, so here goes….
We’ll start off with a bit of technical stuff and I’ll try not to make it too dry. Our cameras are designed to measure the amount of light in a scene and to try and come up with a balanced exposure so that there are not areas that are too bright or dark - the camera is programmed to see the world at neutral or “middle grey” in order to not over or underexpose the scene. This is an important limitation to understand in cameras because it helps to identify when it’s a good idea to take control and use manual mode on a camera to get the exposures that you want.
Working with a Bird Photographer Mentor/Coach
I’ve been into photography now for almost 10 years and over the course of that time I’ve taken a number of courses, workshops and just generally learning things through practice and experimentation. I really love photography and the I can get lost in flow (losing track of time while immersed in an activity) when I’m out with my camera.
I feel that I’ve progressed and accomplished a lot of what I set out to do - even exceeded my expectations as I had no idea that I’d be using my photographs and my love of reading and writing in this blog, however I’ve been feeling like there is something missing - not quite coming together the way I’d like. I take some amazing images, and yet they don’t quite turn out the way I’d like or the way I envision them - or it feels a bit “by luck” or “by chance” that I get an amazing image.
Haida Gwaii Naturalist Perspective - Birds and Plants (part 2)
One of the many things that I enjoyed about our recent trip to Haida Gwaii was being able to visit a number of abandoned Haida villages which are hosted by Haida Watchmen and also having the opportunity to get off the boat for kayaking and nature walks. There was so much to see and learn during this trip - I felt like a sponge - in a good way! The coastal islands have such a diverse ecosystem with their rock and sand beaches, shear cliffs, old growth forests, natural hot springs, protected inlets and bays, fresh water streams and bogs.
Bogs you may be wondering - why would she be so excited about a bog? Well our most learned guide, Danny Katt
Haida Gwaii Naturalist Perspective (Part 1)
Some of us are predominantly visual learners while others are auditory learners and still others need to be hands on to fully grasp concepts and ideas (likely the way we all cement concepts with actual learning is through practice), or a combination of all three. I find that I need all three to really get my head around new ideas and the older I get the more I need the visual and hands on portion to really cement things.
We have recently come back from a trip to Gwaii Hannas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site (Haida Gwaii) and we were fortunate enough to have a biologist/retired Parks employee/university professor/naturalist/birder/comedian guide as part of the crew (Danny Katt) on the Afterglow.
Liminal Spaces
I’m not sure if that is actually an accurate heading - I am exploring some new directions photographically, but they are places I’ve explored previously - I’m just doing this exploration in a slightly new way. What I mean is that I have joined forces with a group of three other photographers who I originally met in the AYWMC Group (A Year With My Camera ) and we’ve decided to challenge each other and work on a collaboration together. The group consists of Heather (Nova Scotia Heather ), Fiona and MZ. They are a rather formidable group of creatives with very different styles and approaches with a primary emphasis on abstract and multiple exposure images. I’m like the Sesame Street song (One of These Things Is Not Like the Others) with my primarily bird and nature images.
Visit to Haida Gwaii - First Impressions
We’ve just returned from a week aboard the Afterglow and a wonderful trip with Jenn and Chris from Ocean Light Adventures and I can honestly say that we could have easily spent much more time exploring and learning about the Haida culture and beautiful landscape. This trip came in the middle of our home renovations and we couldn’t afford to be away any longer than a week, so I’m glad that we went - it was a much needed break and with no cell service for most of the week - a wonderful time to be unplugged. Amazingly the world did not end and no significant renovation event occurred because we were not available.
The Creative Voice
I’m being a bit facetious, however I feel that while creativity is something very personal, I see the term tossed about with little care for how unique and personally expressive it can be. To me it is the intersection of motivation, curiosity and play and each of these components are required for it to come about. There are many times when I’ve been curious and playful, but have taken no action on the thoughts - hence no creative output. I’ve also found myself motivated to take action and curious, but it seems that I can reach a roadblock very easily as judgment and self criticism quickly causes the curiosity to stall. I believe that the playfulness is a key component as it is what drives past the barriers and self imposed constraints to exploration - it allows me to experiment and fail and learn and try something new.
Gadget Stacking
When we started training our cat Roxy to be able to walk outside on a harness and leash we occasionally came across situations that she’d been exposed to before which caused her to have a meltdown and get totally stressed out. It was difficult to witness as we only wanted her to have positive experiences and join us in our love of the outdoors.
I had a breakthrough when I learned about trigger stacking which is when a dog or cat experiences multiple stressful events (positive or negative) in a short amount of time, without time to calm down between each event. This can lead to increased excitement, anxiety or aggression.
A situation that on its own would be fine could result in a heightened emotional outcome for her if it was paired with one or more emotionally heightened situations - trigger stacking.
Fawns and Flash Heros
Full disclosure here - I’m not great at surprises - as soon as Kory mentions that he has a surprise for me - I’m all over him badgering him to tell me what it is. I hate the suspense of not knowing. While I’m at it I’ll just ‘fess up to hating scary movies or movies with intense scenes - I’ve honestly never made it through the movie American Werewolf in London and it took me a whole weekend to watch Aliens. Maybe it’s a defect or it’s an internal protection against being blindsided or startled.
That’s a long prelude to letting you know - no fawns were injured - it will make sense shortly.
We’ve come to believe that we live in a mini version of The Wild Kingdom because in the year that we’ve lived here we’ve seen such a variety of wildlife from deer, coyotes, moose, black bear, skunk, jackrabbits and ring necked pheasants to name a few.
Mountain Bluebird Nestbox Monitoring
Nestbox monitoring is a made up of a network of people who volunteer their time to ensure that migratory birds who are cavity nesters (i.e., they make their nests in hollowed out structures like trees) such as mountain bluebirds and tree swallows have suitable habitat available during nesting season. The need for nestboxes became apparent when declining numbers of Mountain Bluebirds were observed in the early 1970’s - this was due to the decline in woodland areas when suburban development accelerated.
The Calgary Area Nestbox Monitors Society ( CANMS ) consists of over 100 monitors looking after over 70 trails with over 5000 nestboxes. Their website contains all sorts of interesting and useful resource material about mountain bluebirds and monitoring a nest box trail.
Re-establishing Habits
2024 was a tough year with a lot of disruption to routine due to travel, buying a house, selling a house, moving and renovations. Looking back it is hard to believe that we have done all that we have. The house is looking good and the HVAC system is working well - life is good! (update: It looks like summer 2025 is going to be another challenging time as we take on the kitchen and bathroom updates, but this time it will be with the help of a project manager and the last of the big changes - thank goodness!).
I made some conscious decisions about habits that I wanted to continue through all the turmoil and ones that I was willing to put on hold until things settled down - I knew that trying to keep up all of my good self care habits would overload my system and lead to failure. This was a good compromise and I felt that after several years of these habits that they would be easy to pick up again after the crazy year that was 2024 was over - was I in for a surprise.
Trees
I can recall my first favourite tree - it was a weeping willow tree that we planted in our backyard when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I was given the job of watering the tree and I took this role seriously - well for a few weeks at least! I can recall posing for photos in front of that tree over the years and watching in amazement as it magically seemed to grow taller - it’s arching branches seeming to envelop and protect all within its reach.
Trees have always had an important role for me - their symbols of strength and resilience - outstretching protection and unwavering shelter and shade.
We had a huge park near my home where I grew up - it must have been about 10 city blocks and filled with trees - huge maples, elms and oaks. We followed the paths leading through the (at the time to me) giants and felt that nothing could ever find us there.
When I returned to that park some 20 years later on during a visit to see my parents I was surprised with the changes
Investing in my photographic passion
Short answer - no! Despite my continuing obsession with backpacks (I still haven’t managed to sell any - see myGot Gas post) I am not one for accumulating gear or buying the latest and greatest gadgets. I much prefer to get familiar with gear until it becomes more of an extension of me rather than keep changing things up and having to relearn functions and buttons. I’m definitely more about seeing gear as tools rather than the focus of my hobby. Photography is the focus and expressing how I feel and see the world.
I tend to use the tools that I have until I find there is something that I’d like to be able to do that is blocked by lack of a feature or the way my current tool works doesn’t fit with my workflow. Once I identify a gap I will monitor how frequently this comes up and prevents me from capturing an image I’d like or the way that I’d like. This helps me to understand if bridging the gap is a need or an occasional nice to have
Backyard Visitors
We had an exciting backyard visitor a couple of weeks ago and the way we stumbled upon him really demonstrates the need for being fully present and noticing unusual behaviours.
Here’s the backstory - we were walking Roxy in our backyard as the weather has been so lovely and above 15C (mid 60’sF). We’ve spent time meandering and really following her which means slowing down for a full scale sniffari - animals are so great at really being present and using all of their senses to scan their environment for things that don’t belong.
Kory noticed that some birds were making a commotion in a group of evergreens in the back corner of our property. We headed over and I used my bird app to identify the bird sound - (Merlin eBird is a free app and a wonderful way to identify birds from photos or sounds) - red breasted nuthatches were the noisy ones we heard which made me wonder because they are not usually that vocal.
Seasonal Changes
The last week I’ve started to feel the shift in the seasons again - that slow realization like the soft tick ticking of a clock that slowly worms its way into your consciousness. That’s how spring has felt to me - watching the sunrise coming earlier each day by 1 - 2 minutes and noticing the sun sink behind the mountains a little later each day too. Those minutes are stacking up and shifting our daily routine just slightly each day.
I’ve also noticed that the quality of the light is changing as the days get longer - the duration of the sunrise and the sunset seems to extend longer to bookend each day - like it can’t wait to get started and then is loathe to let go and fall into slumber.
The warmer temperatures are melting the residual mounds of white stuff and any new snow doesn’t seem to stick quite as long on the ground.
Photographing exotic locations aka my backyard
The title of this post is a bit tongue in cheek, but I got to thinking about this as I was debating about planning a trip to some wonderful location for photography and while I think that there is nothing quite as exciting as capturing images in a new location - a trip just didn’t seem to be coming together. I either didn’t like the timing or the itinerary or something else just didn’t seem quite right.
Lately I’ve been going through my old photography catalogues and looking for images that I overlooked for one reason or another and it’s interesting to note that I have been finding all sorts of great images and a lot of them are from photoshoots close to home. This makes sense as the majority of my images are from locations close to where I live and it also makes sense that I should be seeing progress over time and this would be reflected in the locations I shoot frequently.
Revisiting old photography files
I find that when I do a photoshoot I tend to process the images within a few days - sometimes even right away, but I’ve found that recently I’ve moved away from doing this in order to gain some perspective (ok full confession - I was forced to do this recently when I forgot my card reader when travelling and so I couldn’t download images until I got home).
I’m thinking that this is a good thing to do though because if I have an exciting shoot and either capture some bird or wildlife or scene that I didn’t expect or the light or conditions were amazing - I can be too emotionally tied to the images and not able to really assess them effectively.
Curiosity
A recent visit from Kory’s mum, Anne was a great opportunity for us to connect in person and also to share new experiences as well as favourite traditions. I have to admit that growing up I never heard of the Bonanza - A Ponderosa Christmas Special (trust me this is old with Lorne Greene and Michael Langdon - search YouTube if you’re curious to know more), but it was a tradition in Kory’s family and so we listen to it each year which is fun.
This year we introduced Anne to a new tradition - Ted Lasso. I may have mentioned that I have a bit of an obsession with this series - I really appreciate the subtle leadership nuances and team building as well as gratitude and just feel good moments (ok and Roy Kent’s fruity language). I think that Anne is hooked now too as we watched several episodes most evenings.
Wordplay
I have always loved language and words - one of my earliest memories was sitting on my dad’s knee at the breakfast table picking out words in the newspaper as my mum cooked breakfast. She was always playing words games with us when we went for walks - memory games where we’d have to remember long chains of words or come up with definitions. This fed my innate love of words.
Confession time - my love of words, reading and learning new things led me to read the Encyclopedia - does anyone remember those huge volumes of information? They were the first place we went to when researching term papers for school. I used to particularly enjoy learning the meanings of new words or rather where they came from. It is still something that tickles my grey matter.
Persistence Pays Off
I was lucky enough to have a second shot at photographing snowy owls this year after doing a return road trip with Kory’s mum, Anne. She’s such a great co-pilot and the eight hour drive goes by so quickly with our entertaining chats. One of the perks of coming to see her is the ability to do snowy owl photoshoots at this time of year.
When I tried before Christmas I wasn’t very successful due to weather issues (snowy owl blog post), but I did get to see a lot of amazing wildlife and landscape scenes. It was not a disappointment at all as I’ve come to learn to manage expectations and not count on things like birds, weather or even my abilities coming through when and how I want them to. I try to enjoy the time that I spend looking for these amazing owls and if I get any images that excite me then I’m happy.