Friday, June 15, 2007

Spirit Island, Canadian Rockies



This image is a scan of an old photo, taken on my ancient - but brilliant - Olympus trip film camera. This was my first camera ever, and it was (is) great. For more info on this little gem, see here. For info on Spirit Island, see here.

I love this picture; the slight ripple on the lake, the reflection, the little rock off to the right (just breaking up the emptiness), the wonderful peace and tranquility of Spirit Island and then the grandeur of the mountains flanking the lake. All wonderful. It also reminds me of a great trip to Canada, going from Vancouver, via Banff/Jasper then on to Toronto, Quebec, Ottawa.

It's also useful to see this because I took it in 1995, so it shows my attempt at a serious landscape shot from 12 years ago. I may have taken the same shot today in the same way, since this clearly works (for me). I would also have taken many others, as I think I only took this one and one other...Many of my shots from 12 years ago were snap shot in nature, but I did occaisonally try to take "proper" images. This is one of them.

Thoughts and comments on the image, the comparison from now to then, or anything else welcomed.

Note: the colour reproduction is not great, due to it being a scan of a photo that itself was developed at Boots or something, and - due to the limitations of the camera - there are some exposure issues too. I have tried to rescue as many of these issues in Photoshop as possible, but there are limits. That said, I did try this about 5 years ago on PS 6.0, when I knew less - maybe I should dig out the photo and try again....

Cheers
Ivan

1 comment:

Critical Light said...

Hi,

The colour is off but again I will ignore that.

Its a shame because this is a really nice image. Lots of interest everywhere. Great reflections in the water; nice and subtle. The water feels clear and cool. The mountains in the background provide a feeling of grandeur and one can imagine looking at this sight in awe. The sky has wonderful clouds. Great composition with the tree lines coming in on both sides.

My only dislike, and it is not a heavy one, is the bang centre placement of the island with the trees. It very much dominates the image due to its placement and yet doesn't provide lots of interest. The tree are quite tall so it hides some of the interest behind. However, I am not sure how one could deal with that.

The more I look at this image the more I like the colour. The image feels like a painting and that might be a quality to enhance.

Damian