Wow, Summer 2018 is shaping up to be absolutely an amazing season! We are still in the middle of June and I already have a few “firsts” and a bunch of adventures to write about.
A Photography Workshop
In celebration of my most recent birthday, I was gifted a ticket to a workshop on “The Art of Editing”, taught by Paul Zizka. Given that all I’ve learned in photography until then was gathered from a variety of webpages in a somewhat unstructured way, this was a great opportunity for me. Paul Zizka is indeed a great photographer and teaches with a strong dose of humility and simplicity. He was very accessible and made this a very enjoyable day.
Time to do some networking
It was a great coincidence that Christian Hering-Junghans, another very successful photographer, was visiting from Germany and travelling around Banff National Park on that same weekend. He used to live in Edmonton and I had met Christian only shortly before his return to Germany last year, so this trip was also a great chance to see him again and catch up on photo talk.
After learning invaluable tips to improve my use of Lightroom and Photoshop (as well as other tools of the trade) from Zizka in Banff, I met with Christian near the Silverhorn campground. He had already done the footwork and scouted out a nice place for us to photograph the sunset. Christian introduced me to a couple of other great photographers from our region, Shane Turgeon and Leonard Bevaart. We spend a nice couple of hours working different compositions and talking shop.
mt weed
Ram Falls
I still had plans before returning home. I had seen a beautiful shot from Ram Falls on my Instagram feed, and had placed that remote provincial park in my list of priorities for this Spring. As I shared my plans with the group that evening, Leonard (who is from Lacombe), was very kind to share specific directions on how to get to the Ram Falls, without which I would surely have missed the exit on the highway. I arrived at Ram Falls Provincial Park around 1AM to find an empty campground, parked at a clearing and fell asleep rather quickly, only to dream of magical sunrises and waterfalls.
Next morning, I was up at 4:30AM. Luckily the distance between my parking spot and the falls was rather short. I quickly got to the falls and set up my camera before the sun was up. I was very happy to once again be able to successfully execute a plan and create some images that are truly more than pixels, like this one below:
