Welcome to The Vine Studios' Blog - Chasing the Light.
Here you'll find updates on our adventures & travels, new images we're excited to present, as well as our take on all things photo, video, and media in general.
Thanks for visiting!
While in the midst of wrapping up editing and sorting our images from the summer, I came across a series Amy took (stitched together when she got home to make the above image) while she was up in Canada for her grandpa's funeral.
It's funny how we think of images because of when they were taken or where they are. This to me says a lot about life's beginnings and endings, the dark of death, and the hope of life - with some whimsy and mystery thrown in by the rising fog. There is also a deep peacefulness in the scene, that still of the morning that can only be experienced.
I have a few more to share to wrap up the summer, and then I will be (time permitting!) posting some of our work from last month and the fall colors. Till next time.
A_Summer12-7936
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This picture is like our life at the moment, bounding off into the waves, outcome unknown. A metaphor for photography trips too :-). |
I'm slowly getting back to the blog and photography - I've had every intention of sitting down to write something and share a few pictures of our adventures over the last couple of months, but somehow it just never got done.
We've got plenty of images to post, now that I'm done post-processing them, and we also picked up some new gear that I'll be writing about. But for now, enjoy these images from our Canada trip!
Jesse_Summer09-0219
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Someone walked a mile in someone else's shoes?
Found these abandoned on a beach, just like you see them here. |
We're headed to Canada for a week!
Amy is originally from Vancouver Island, BC. During her summers growing up, she and her family would live out at their families lake property. We've been several times, and done some photography of the island, but never with the cameras we have now, and never for very long.
Next week, we will be there again, but this time we'll be doing some specific photography expeditions, and we'll have a little over a week. It is still mostly a trip to visit family, but I'm hopeful we'll come back having seen some of the sights and captured some unique experiences. Stay tuned!
Jesse_Summer09-0050
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A small part of Englishman River Falls,
a location we'll likely visit again this trip. See
the old granny face in the rocks? |
Driving home on I-5 a few weeks ago, we noticed how pretty the sunset was. So we started looking for a place to pull over so we take a few pictures. We found this field of still-green wheat near Salem, after wondering on backroads for about 20 minutes. These were taken on a tripod, with our 5D MkII and a 17-40mm lens. I wish I had had a graduated neutral densit filter to allow me to darken the sky and lighten the wheat in camera. Fortunately the 5D MkII has such a great dynamic range in its sensor that I was still able to get the exposure I wanted after I developed the image digitally.
For me, there is something spectacular about a wheat field. Maybe its that I love those shots of Maximus running his hand through the wheat in Gladiator, or maybe its the fact that wheat gets made into the flour that makes pastries and bread possible. Either way, I always find wheatfields fascinating, and it was fun to get to take a different view of a wheatfield rather than the classic field of gold.
Late last week, Amy and I took Titus and started out on our evening walk. As we walked along we realized the light was really changing and becoming unusual, and as I looked at the clouds I had a sneaking suspicion we were about to see some lightning. Sure enough, off in the distant I caught sight of a flash and we decided we'd better head back and grab some cameras!
This first image we got driving out to a field where we thought we'd have the best chance to capture the sunset and the lightning. Because it was raining, the sunset light was reflecting in all the rain droplets, and so the sky all around us lit up that brilliant orange color.
It pays to know your surroundings in photography. I was able to get this image because Amy had explored months ago, and knew of this field that had an uninterrupted view of the coast range and Mary's Peak. While we were out here, the thunderstorm was continuing to drop lightning - we saw several big horizontal strikes out above Mary's Peak that were simply spectacular. And how I wanted to capture it in the camera!
Unfortunately, because it has been so long since I've shot lightning (we don't get many opportunities for practice here in the NW), I had the camera setup differently than I needed to get the lightning. So use your imagination, and pretend there is a brilliant fork of horizontal lightning above Mary's Peak in the above image :-). We saw several flashes like that while out, and even one vertical one that came down almost exactly on the top of Mary's Peak.
By the time we'd driven out to the field, setup cameras and tripod, and then taken some pictures, it was nearly dark. We needed to take the baby home, but I was still desperately wanting to capture some lightning strikes. Alas, it was not meant to be. I knew we had some good photos already, so the trip was worth it - but I wanted lightning! I took a few super long exposure images just as we were leaving, hoping for a big flash to drop into my frame. But it wasn't to be.
However, when I got home and began to do my work in Lightroom, I was able to do a black and white conversion on one of the last images. It made the movement of the clouds come alive, as well as enhancing the detail in the hayfield. This produced a unique image that wouldn't have happend otherwise. I love photography for just this sort of thing, you set out to capture something, but you may come back with something different and unexpected, but no less wondrous.
J_Summer12-9846
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