Category: <span>Photography</span>

Published October 22, 2017 by

Photographing Snow Is Really Photographing Wind

Avard Woolaver, snow, winter,
© Avard Woolaver

Photographing Snow Is Really Photographing Wind (Day 22 of 31)

There are different ways to photograph snow. One of the most interesting is when it’s blowing. When fine granules are blowing across a road or roof, or over the ground, it’s one of the few ways you can see the shape of the wind.

Smoke and clouds give us ways to “see” wind sometimes, as do sandstorms. But smoke and clouds move somewhat differently from the way snow does. (I imagine sand blows around more the way snow does, but I have never seen a sandstorm.)

The phenomenon I’m talking about is one illustrators use, as well as photographers. You see it in, for example, children’s picture books about snowfalls: the snow curling and eddying, blown about by the wind.

In eastern Canada, where I live, it’s not time yet for the first snowfall of the season. That’s not the case in parts of the country that deal with a lot more of it than we do here; the North is already seeing snow on the ground. For the rest of the country, it’s partly something to be dreaded and partly just a simple fact of life. Doing whatever we can to enjoy it more—like getting out to photograph it—makes the long winter more bearable.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver snow winter

Published October 21, 2017 by

Small Events Are Our Lives

Avard Woolaver, events, memories,
Brooklyn Station, 1977               © Avard Woolaver

Small Events Are Our Lives (Day 21 of 31)

Small events are great. I’ll never forget my older daughter’s first snowman, which I helped her build the winter she was, I think, two. I’d been telling her about snowmen, describing beforehand what they were like and how much fun we would have building one. When the snow arrived, we were ready. She and I made it right by the back door, at the top of the steps; it was about nine inches tall.

It’s a treasured memory, and one that still makes me laugh. My tiny daughter, patting little handfuls of snow in place to make this mini guy. The whole operation probably took four or five minutes, and then we were done.

If I could go back to that house in Toronto and stand on that back porch, it would give me profound pleasure to be at that spot and say, to her and to myself, Here’s where we built your first snowman.

Small pilgrimages—the tiniest, the most local—are not to be underestimated. Here’s where the porcupine was. This is where you got stung by the bee. Here’s where you slept outside in the tent for the first time.

These small events are our lives. These places are where our lives happened, and are happening still. In the words of Gord Downie, “No dress rehearsal, this is our life.”

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver events life memories

Published October 20, 2017 by

Had My Camera; Saw a Deer

deer, Avard Woolaver, backyard, Nova Scotia,
© Avard Woolaver

Had My Camera; Saw a Deer (Day 20 of 31)

I had my camera in my hand. It was twilight time. I was in a brushy sort of meadow area a few miles from home, taking pictures of a dead tree with long, interesting branches. Suddenly a deer reared up—a large buck, snorting at me and leaping in place. (Deer ordinarily seem so gentle, but this thing was seriously frightening.)

It’s the kind of unusual situation I love, far more fascinating than the tree I’d come there to photo. I was holding my camera at that moment. So how many photos was I able to get? You guessed: zero.

It just happened so quickly; the deer reared up intimidatingly, not far at all from where I was standing, and it made itself so big and was acting truly ferocious. The noises it was making—I’m not kidding; I was scared, and not just because it had startled me.

We miss all kinds of great shots over the course of a lifetime. That day I learned that you can miss them even when you’re right there in the moment, actually taking pictures at the time! But it was such a brief moment—five seconds, perhaps? Not much more. The deer snorted with rage a couple more times, then spun around and disappeared into the woods past the meadow.

(The deer pictured in today’s entry isn’t the one I’m talking about. It’s a deer that wandered into my backyard on a different day.)

It was a great moment, one I often think of when I drive by the spot. No photo captured it, but that’s okay; I have the memory.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver deer

Published October 19, 2017 by

For Night Photos, Use Your Headlights

headlights, Avard Woolaver, snow, winter, Nova Scotia,
© Avard Woolaver

For Night Photos, Use Your Headlights (Day 19 of 31)

All kinds of lights can give your photos interesting effects at twilight or in the dark; car headlights, which are intense and directed, can be especially effective. You can use them to create mysterious, fairy tale-like effects, because they can brightly light one patch while darkness seems to press in from all around it.

It’s a fun activity to fool around with when you’ve got some extra time. (The long evenings of autumn and winter are a great time to try this; and frost and fog, combined with the strong light, can give you even more interesting possibilities to explore.) Check out the differences between how your high beams and low beams look.

My backyard includes a small hill, about a five-foot rise, with trees at the top, and I’ve gotten some intriguing shots by parking the car so that the headlights shine up into the wooded area.

Just don’t, whatever you do, lose track of time and let your battery run down. (Been there.)

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver headlights

Published October 18, 2017 by

Think of What’s in the Foreground

foreground, composition, Nova Scotia, New Topographics,
© Avard Woolaver

Think of What’s in the foreground (Day 18 of 31)

Here’s the one photography lesson I clearly remember learning from my father, one of the many photo tips he gave me: Pay attention to what’s in the foreground of your shot. When he could, he always included something in the foreground.

My dad was interested in the composition of his photos, and he was a really good amateur photographer. He read some books on the subject, and he enjoyed learning and applying new techniques. It gives me great pleasure, now that I’m older than he was at the time of our conversation, to have that link to him so clearly etched in my memory.

And it was a solid piece of wisdom; the book he’d read had steered him right. When I was doing my photography degree (at Ryerson, in Toronto) and learning about composition, this was something we discussed quite often.

When an object or person is included in the foreground the photo has a greater sense of depth and dimension, and may give an indication of scale. Lines in the foreground can lead your eye to what’s important in the photo. A sign in the foreground can help you remember where a photo was taken, or add a splash of colour.

Photographer Lee Friedlander welcomed foreground obstructions such as poles and trees as a way of creating visual interest. He explains, “Somebody else could walk two feet away to get those poles and tress and other stuff out of the way, I almost walk two feet to get into it, because it is a part of the game that I play. It isn’t even conscious; I probably just drift into it… its like a found pleasure. You’ve found something that you like and you play with it for the rest of your life.”

It’s something to keep in mind when you’re out wandering with your camera, exploring the world.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver composition foreground