Sorry, but I’m going to backup a bit here. I had prepared a couple of images earlier that I forgot to post so bear with me as I rewind to a picture from last (Canadian) summer. The timing of this image is the same rainy morning as the canoes that I posted last week. It was a very grey, wet, dark morning; not the kind that normally encourages me to get my camera out, but I’m glad I did.

 

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. I’m very much enjoying the break and a little bit of time to finish sorting out my images from last summer in Canada. This one is from the same place as my last post (over a month ago!), Algonquin Park.

This was a particularly wet, rather cold morning. My brothers and I agreed we’d get up early unless the weather was bad. I decided it was bad, they didn’t and practically had to drag me out of my cabin! I got going quickly and here are the fruits of my labour.

So, these are the same canoes as my last post, but from a different angle. Which do you prefer?

You might think I’m not here any more with the frequency I’ve been posting and commenting, but the truth is that I work long hours in an office environment these days and find myself reluctant to hop back on the computer in the evenings or on the weekends.

The fact is that, at the moment, technology consulting is my primary focus. I took a luxurious, self-indulgent couple of years pursuing photography full-time and while I found my photography skills improved immensely, my earning potential and my CV took a serious beating. Not discounting everything I’ve learned about making better images, the biggest thing I actually learned was that I have no desire to be a full-time professional photographer. I’m incredibly thankful that I took the opportunity to try and now I know that it’s not for me. I’m not cut out to be a full-time creative.

By no means should you take from this that I’m giving up photography or giving up blogging, but I am re-prioritising. Photography is back in hobby status. I’ll still shoot, I’ll still blog, and I’ll still look for opportunities to sell and exhibit my work, but it’s not my full-time gig any more. It’s back to the rat race for me. I’m commuting an hour and a half every day and working 9 to 11 hours and I’m loving the challenges, the brain-strain, and the many, complex relationships that make up a busy office.

Stay tuned and keep checking in. I’ll re-balance soon enough and start picking up the camera again. Hopefully, you’ll even start seeing images from Australia soon. For now, though, we’ll have to make do with pictures from this past summer in Canada. This image is from Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada. These canoes had clearly seen some action. Despite appearances, they’re still roadworthy – I enjoyed many hours exploring the lake with anyone who was game to go out for a paddle.

 

While I do love shooting early in the morning, it’s always such a close competition between getting up and sleeping in.

I forgot all about Lake Powell. Many of my recent posts showed shots from Upper Antelope Canyon which sits just outside Page, Arizona. The bigger attraction in Page is actually Lake Powell. Lake Powell, the second largest (in terms of total capacity) artificial lake in the United States, was formed with the development of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1966. The Dam restricts the flow of the Colorado River with the purpose of producing hydro-electric power.

We only over-nighted in Page, so this is as close as we got to Lake Powell. The lake, for the most part is not readily visible from land. If you really want to experience the lake, you have to get out on the water. As you can see in the distance, boating is very popular on the lake. For the experienced Lake Powell visitor, it seems the right approach is to rent a houseboat for a week or two, or maybe even for the whole summer.

If you really want to explore the lake, you’ll need to set some time aside. The lake is nearly 300km (186 miles) long and has 96 major canyons to explore.

While at this time of year, it would seem reasonable that the picture above is that of a frozen lake, but the wide brim hats and the short sleeves seem to suggest otherwise. This is, in fact, a salt lake and the ice is actually a thick crust of ice that has formed on the surface. Our guide happily took us out for a walk on the lake. Hailing from Northern Ontario and knowing all about the dangers of thin ice, I should have wondered more about how safe it was to walk on the salt crust and yet, it never occurred to me to ask how thick it was.

Walking on the surface of this salt lake, you’d be easily forgiven for thinking that you’re walking on ice, except, of course, this is the Northern Territory and while the nights are chilly, there is no chance of ice forming.

Squatting on the ice is my family as they chat with our guide about a branch that has become entirely covered with salt.

I clearly misunderstood the guide at tourist information. When she suggested we do this very pretty, easy walk at Lake Louise, I thought we would walk around Lake Louise, not across . As you can see though, this popular walk goes straight out across the lake. There are no signs marking the trail save for one. That one sign simply says “Caution Thin Ice”.

One thing you should know about me is that I tend toward being a cautious person, especially when I have my kids with me. And yet, here I find myself standing there looking out on this large frozen lake with a well-worn path stretching out across the lake. Large groups of people are strolling across without a care in the world, but at the same time, there’s this sign. And it’s warm out. It’s a nice Spring day. It’s not t-shirt weather, but it’s above freezing. Everyone else is walking past this sign like it isn’t even there. A lot of the tourists were speaking languages other than English, so perhaps they couldn’t read it. But I could. And it said in big, bold, red letters that there was “Thin Ice” and that I should take “Caution”.

We had just driven an hour to get here from Banff. Do we hop back in the car and head back or do we follow the crowds like mindless sheep? Well, apparently I’m part sheep (or perhaps not as cautious as I thought) because we joined the throngs and set out across the lake. Even so, my ten-year old was pretty sure we were about to plunge through the ice and partake of a disturbingly cold death in the dark, cold waters of Lake Louise. I pointed out to her that we were a small, fairly lightweight party of three and as long as we stayed well clear of the large groups of adults wandering along in packs that we would likely be okay. She seemed to buy that.

I still felt better when we finally stepped back onto solid ground.

Processing notes: This is an HDR image generated from three photos shot handheld. I combined the images using Photomatix and then edited them in Photoshop using Nik filters. Using Viveza, I increased the structure and contrast in the rocks in the snow covered ‘V’ in the lower middle part of the image. Also in Viveza I brought out the orange colour in the rock faces. In Color Efex Pro, I used the Tonal Contrast filter to enhance the details in the image. I also used the cloning tool to remove a couple of partial people who were chopped off at the bottom of the image. As usual, I added the frame with Silver Efex Pro.

During my time in Australia (from 2004 to 2010), the state of Victoria was suffering from a persistent drought. In Melbourne, we had significant water restrictions in place and on-going campaigns to reduce water usage. Thankfully, the drought seems to have broken in the past year.

In 2007, in the thick of the drought, I drove a couple of hours north of Melbourne with the goal of photographing Lake Eppalock, a local water catchment. The lake, at that time, was at just 1.3% capacity. When I got there, I was astounded by the sight of this massive dry lake bed. I’d never seen anything like this before. All the trappings of lake life were still there. There were boat launches, picnic areas, signs with boating rules, and infrastructure for lake management. Of course, there were no boats and all the buildings were locked up tight.

The ‘lake’ had been reduced to nothing more than a narrow creek snaking its way through the middle of the lake bed. The tree in the above photo sits at the edge of that creek. The tree is there because the lake is man-made, formed by the damming of the Campaspe River. When the lake is full, it covers an area of over 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres).

I took this photo at the bottom of Lake Eppalock. Were the lake at full capacity, this tree and I would have been under about 50 metres of water. Thankfully, since then, the drought has broken and it has done so in force. The lake is now full again, and this scene is a thing of the past.