Telephoto Landscape Photography in Banff

have you ever wondered what landscape photographers do to keep themselves amused whilst waiting for the light to change its dare - we've come back to bollock in the hopes of getting some help and load some good light but the only difference is there's a lot less snow on the trees and there was yesterday which doesn't have that winter wonderland feel about it so we're gonna keep an eye on the sky and just see if anything happens if it opens up and then we'll get back out there and have a second shot at it well we waited a while but it never did quite open up again so we decided to hit the highway and head further north to see what we could find [Music] well hello so we were just driving through here on Saskatchewan River crossing and then the sky lit up and then we know it's this beautiful bit of very reflective ice here on the river on the Saskatchewan River we just have to stop so we're gonna get down and do a bit of bushwhacking probably up to our knees in snow so you can get on the ice and shoot towards the light maybe get some nice mountain reflections so made it down to the river just in time to get a little bit of that alpenglow that you can see up there and the colour that's hitting those clouds are getting these nice little pink hues and a crackle quite happy with this little ice shelf that you can see in the foreground there but on the way here I passed some quite lovely patches of smooth very reflective ice so I'm going to go back upriver see if I can get a composition there and there's also nice bubbles and cracks a little swirls that the wind has made as the ice freezes so I'm gonna head back up and try and get that as a first shot of the day not too bad well I'm glad I went back up River just in time cause the lights getting really beautiful right now God just bit of alpenglow there I'm quite fascinated by this little snowdrift here because it kind of looks as if the whole ice sheet has had snow settle on it but then the wind that's blasted through from the I think that's the West and because there's a rock there embedded in the snow it's kind of created created this shadow of snow where it's it's been able to keep a hold on the ice which I find quite fascinating yeah the Alphen glow is really sad to kick off now so this is this is quite beautiful and this is why I love the The Canadian Rockies so much I mean I hate faffing around with you know face masks and ice cleats and multiple layers and gloves it's such a pain but when you get out here on the ice and in the snow when you get alpenglow like this the mountain has just come alive and everything looks so spectacular it is a winter wonderland [Music] really quiet in love with this scene the closer I get to this beautiful snowy ice shape from our interesting it gets and the lower I get the less of this central area that you have the only thing that I kind of struggle with with this shot is that line if trees they're like if it was covered in snow that would be a lot more beautiful and a lot more sort of winter wonderland scene but it's still fantastic I have no complaints but yeah I'm gonna adjust the tripod a little bit get even lower and trying to feature this a little bit more but what I want to be careful of when I do that is that this little shape here doesn't outweigh that epic mountain range that you see in the background because then you kind of devoting a little bit too much frame space to a an admittedly beautiful object but it's all about those peaks okay so now that I've got super low I'm very very close to this now and so and when I have to focus stack it in order for this whole image to knit together and that's going to be quite an easy thing to do because it's got a lovely deadzone in the middle you're not going to see the seams where the foreground shot is knitted together on top of the background shot so I'll focus on this icy object here and then I'll also focus on the mountains I'm a focus in the tree line in the middle but I probably don't need that with this lens at f/8 if I focus on the mountain it's pretty much sharp until I get very close to this icy Rock here so that's why it needs that separate focus but a very easy stitch in Photoshop [Music] [Music] I don't know if you can see these mountains in the distance there but that is my favorite kind of light where you get a very bright peak that's lit up by the the alpenglow by the Morning Sun contrasted with dark slate gray almost steely blue clouds just behind it you get that lovely contrast sadly I smashed my meta bones adapter the other day so my long lens my long Canon lens will not fit on this Sony but I'm going to suck up to Nick page and see if you lend me is big telephoto [Music] well it's official Nick page is the nicest guy in photography he was kind enough to lend me he's very precious what is this 100 to 400 G master just for that I'll give it a Polish for him both ends no understand so here's the shot that I captured with Nick's 100 to 400 telephoto lens and as you can see it's very different to my usual style of photography there's something very empowering about being able to fill your frame with an amazing scene that's happening many miles away it changes the way that you look at things and that's a way that a new gear purchase can really enhance your photography or at the very least add a new dimension to your skill set only problem is now I've got a buy one oh there's uncle is spotted me he wants to know what I've been shooting with this long lens I'll tell him it was crap I guess I'm good shucks oh I got a shot likes always difficult to judge how good your panels gonna be yeah because you can't it's difficult to visualize properly you can't look at the panel on the back of your monitor for example but when I was down there this morning Oh like sweeping snow lines like curvaceous snow lines leading through the scene with the glass River reflecting the trees all leading it down and funneling into these mountains and gorgeous paints at least soft light did you get a good shot okay wow I was terrible and then I went down to where Thomas wasn't I stole this competition so yeah I got an excellent competition all right it was nice it down there cuz it opened up a little bit yeah there's those those very very subtle reflections they're not in-your-face reflections you know they don't dominate the scene they just support it so nice yeah you get like if there's color and the peaks you'll get the color in the reflection but you can't necessarily see that it's a it's a reflection of a mountain it's just colored text you know I think we got some pretty juicy light this morning against all odds right I would say this today this morning has been typical of what landscape photographers experience which is it's kind of like misery and ernõ the lights rubbish the worthless crap and then an instant turnaround this condition has changed in a split second and everyone's just Scott gone we're off yeah so I went from from being at bow lake this morning cold gray and depressed thinking god another crap day in the Rockies and then 20 minutes later we're here I'm going to be dancing around them a half your stuff you know you know it's like it's like misery panic joy yeah and if you I'll take all that crap if I can get the job I must admit winter light is probably some of the best oh by far I love the pastel blue like I'm in that peak back there right now oh you mean this one yeah the blues but it's really hard to maintain that when you processing the images because sometimes people tend to overdo it with the blues and yeah it just doesn't it looks too much oh I hope you don't mean like this Gavin was photographing that mountain for a beautiful pastel painting Lee like on it because I need more contrast with it Oh do you mean like this no no not really that's that's actually an abomination if I ever process images like this please punch me in the face well I'm a I've really got to say thanks a lot because that was so generous of you I got some beautiful pictures I couldn't have got that without you it's pretty it's pretty awesome right really well thanks for the loaner okay yeah thanks by the way if you fancy coming out and shoot in on location with me I'm leading a workshop in the Faroe Islands we'll be shootin spectacular waterfalls of par off of dramatic cliffs into the ocean coastal seascapes they're just gonna blow your mind [Music] cultural historic landmarks endless mountain vistas surreal island landscapes with lots and lots of green hope to see you there okay back to the video oh and like and subscribe if you would so all-in-all it's been an absolutely fantastic there on the downside which is kind of a poor Cyprus downside is now I know that I have to have this lens I have to buy this lens but yeah what an absolutely fantastic morning I'm overjoyed that we came out here and that these guys came all the way up here with me to come and shoot this it's it's wonderful to share my my years of experience shooting here and to show these two other guys who has seen it for the first time it's and I'm kind of living vicariously through them and experiencing it for the first time like earlier on Tom was just like whooping and whistling because it was so fantastic and new and fresh to him so that's that's quite a privilege to see these guys get super excited about something that's been a very important place to me for years I think the moral of the story here is like I've said before always have a plan B and even if you don't actually have a plan at least have that willingness and that that attitude of yeah I'll keep going I'll keep trying even in the face of defeat because especially in a place like the Rockies you you can drive half an hour and it's completely different whereas half an hour before it was a whole person it was sucked in and there was no chance of any good pictures just keep on trucking and it's difficult because you do get demoralized when you've got you your heart and mind set on a particular goal and then there's just no chance of it you get deflated and you feel forget it I'll go home but if you just stick with it and follow it through and maybe keep traveling and look around you might just find something it was even better than what you first started out with so this is what you get for leaving your bottle of water in the car overnight in Banff when it's minus 12 frozen solid I'm glad I'm not thirsty [Music] now even though we had a multitude of world-class landscape photography locations to visit during our very limited time in the Rockies Adam and Tom were desperate to go and check out this hillside full of ugly charcoal sticks so Nick and I settled in for a subzero chat while patiently waiting for the grumpster x' to enjoy their alone time so what is the very best picture do you ever took it's probably a way of shot yeah not one that I like yeah dude that made me feel so smart because like when I got one of my portfolio images is when I happen to be doing a vlog and usually you know how flogs works like you're doing a vlog and it's almost like jinxing yourself like you're not gonna get crap that day but that day I actually got some my best stuff yeah I love that show that's inspired me to not only go and start shooting waves but get a nice big long lens with which to do it yeah yeah and that's the cool thing about shooting waves is like every shots unique yeah nobody's gonna go out and comp stomp a wave because it's never gonna happen again but what I like about that shot is is the background there's there's enough all the stuff around just it's not just a wave that's isolated yeah there is like where there is all the birds like swarming the wave and that gives us scale I love the birds in there yeah it gives you a motion Photoshop to everyone but yeah and that's so it's so cool about that stuff is you're you're in no control over anything and as well as a photographer that's nice yeah because most time you're sitting there trying to like micromanage everything and it's cool to just be like fly-on-the-wall just trying to react to what's happening and then when you get it it's so rewarding yeah and there's no guarantee you're gonna get it and when you finally do that's it's like ah yeah sweet so we're sat here near Saskatchewan River crossing we're in for Gibbs and Heaton because they wanted to go and take pictures of burnt charcoal yeah I mean I'm really into healthy forests not so much dead ones I don't know it's kind of cool then it's like contrasting and stuff but it just looks like more work than it's worth it looks like an absolute pile of crap but you know what's gonna happen do it yeah they're gonna get an awesome shot I gotta walk out there with an award-winning shot so we went to Abraham lake the other day we were all shoot in the classic ice bubbles cracks sunset lovely clouds the stuff that you go to Abraham Lake to shoot and Gabe's is turning his camera around face in the opposite direction or I like those crappy trees over there my dude you waste any time this is where it's at anyhow I was totally wrong yeah he's sharing a shot that he got there and it's like awesome to true Adam Gibbs fashion it's like awesome and unique and you me and Thomas we're probably going to come away with very similar images in each other and Adam got the one original shot because he was on the wrong side of the river it was a very juicy busted typical typical grim Gibbs grumpy gamers bloody grumpy this shot it takes a lot to get that guy excited like it he you know on his YouTube channel he he puts a pretty positive spin on you know that's him animated that's that's him with like a gallon of coffee that's super super excited about life in general but you know way I would not want to have a forest photography competition with Adam Gibbs know he would destroy me but now that you've said that that's gonna be my new goal forest photography you know it always says when you when you go out shoot into something you'd be shooting together in a beeline well I'm finished now okay let's go and then you'll show him you shot and I'd be like oh okay I'll do a bit more shooting don't to be outdone he's very competitive but that's also what makes people good usually I mean you can definitely take that too far because you know it's not a competition but yeah it kind of is social media makes it a competition unfortunately yeah man I hate social media it's except for YouTube it's its YouTube social media law yes it is media and it is social mm-hmm but it's not like it's not to me YouTube isn't like Instagram or Facebook where your friends and family go there to see what you're up to in life it's people who go there specifically to see what you create what what's your latest creation you know yeah yeah whereas those those people that want to watch your creations probably don't care that your dog's just had surgery maybe they do that yeah the cool part about YouTube is that like you're sharing more than just you know you're sharing an entire story and people try to do that on Instagram and on Facebook but nobody actually reads that crap usually it's just a bunch of crap that they're making up just to have something to post with their pretty photo yeah or like they're you know they're Sophie or they're they're they're mirror selfie where they're all they're really doing is showing off their butt yeah but then they try to put some poetry to it make make it right but on YouTube you're actually telling a story or you're actually teaching something yeah the content has some value they should do anyway it should but it's still social media it's just a different breed but this is what I love about YouTube is out of all of those platforms it's the only one that pays you to create content you actually get paid I mean it's not huge it's not much but whereas Facebook if you want to reach the audience you spent years building well you better cough up yeah what I like about YouTube is that when you follow people and especially getting to meet people like this guy and like Thomas and like Adam you by the time you watch all their videos and you to meet them for the first time you feel like you already know one yeah like you hang out and you're like well it's yeah it's just seamless because you already know what that person's like you don't have to have any of that awkward like so what'd you do last week because I mean no way he did last week and but that's cool and but it's it's cool when it's mutual yeah because I don't maybe he watches my video and I watch the video but but when somebody knows a lot about you and you know nothing about them then then that's weird I like that video you did with the again with the waves you were out there and you didn't on a tripod right you would just handheld yeah yeah my best my best shot I've ever taken was handheld and shot in auto ISO yeah the exact opposite of what we do most of the time yep exactly but that was just such a cool morning and what's crazy about my very favorite shot is that my buddy Majeed bad is that again try saying that three times fast he was standing 10 feet to my right and he got the exact same shot like within a millisecond of each other we got the same wave same composition the only way we can tell our shots apart are he has a couple birds that are overlapped and I don't Wow and that's the only way and so I posted mine first and then he shared his afterwards and everybody was emailing me I got like 50 emails saying this guy is like stealing your photo and and everybody just blamed him for trying to steal my photo but it was actually his shot but it's crazy now I definitely want to where was that that was at Cape Disappointment it's the mouth of the Columbia River on the organ actually on the Washington Post right and I mean people go there to shoot waves a lot but what they don't do is zoom in on the waves there cuz there's a lighthouse there and that typically people are shooting kind of wide and including the lighthouse with the waves at the base of it and I shot some of those but my favorite shots were when I actually zoomed in and photograph just the wave is that was to me the action the most interesting in the most original part yeah was a killer shot and was that so there was in that video that I saw there was a guy with you who you got this also a disagreement like he didn't like the birds in the shot and you did is that the same guy yeah that's my dude that's me he was actually he was just being joking yeah it's gonna say cuz for me like the birds make it like oh absolutely frozen moment in time of action and I've been there probably six times the photograph waves that never got conditions like that because the hardest thing about shooting big surf is trying to get light at the same time as that big surf because when you get big surf and big waves typically it's in conjunction with like you know big storms and rain and wind and like clouds but the the clouds broke just just soon enough for us to like get those waves and get some actual backlight so you're shooting a low is odes and we had all the light we need to phrase the action that's not that's not always the case what is the most spectacular place you've ever been to oh that's spectacular that's like the the place that you when you came back from that you were just telling everybody you've got to go to this place it blew my mind like what was the well okay what was the last place that absolutely blew you mind and don't say if this place this place you know Iceland gets bad rap like it because of the tourism and how heavy the tourism is people are kind of starting to be like yeah dude Iceland is a photo photo a target-rich environment like there's so much to shoot there and it's so different and whether it can be so dynamic there I loved Iceland I also loved kawaii Hawaii every time I go there I try to move there

Channel: fototripper

Views: 63,936

Keywords: Nick Page, Thomas Heaton, Adam Gibbs, Fototripper, Banff National Park, Landscape Photography, telephoto lens, winter, cold, snow, ice

Id: nqcfhx-93QM

Length: 22min 43sec (1363 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 03 2019