Newsletter No. 103: February, 2014
© Chris Harris. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS:
1. The Canadian Nature Photographer: Featured Photographer
2. 2014 Photographic Seminars & Workshops: A Chance to ‘ Learn & Leap’ into the world of Creative Photography
3. Custom Seminars, Workshops & Tours: friends, clubs, students, etc.
4. 2014 Photographic Tours: Unparalleled Photo Opportunities
5. The Fraser River Photo Safari: A Landscape and Cultural Celebration
6. Camping along the Fraser River at Night: There is little time to sleep!
7. The Story Behind the Image: A Sense of Pictorial Space
Hi everyone,
As always, I am excited to share the creative process. Throughout the year I will continue to take you out on my photographic journeys of discovery; discussing the visual, creative, and technical aspects behind the making of each image.
As I mentioned in my last Newsletter, I am offering a series of seminars, workshops and tours this year to assist photographers in taking their creativity to a new level.
Please look at the offerings. I hope many of you can join me.
Our goal at the Chris Harris Gallery is to share the creative process. Please share this Newsletter with friends. Thank you.
Chris
1. The Canadian Nature Photographer: Featured Photographer
Red canoe at dusk
During this month of February, I was the featured photographer on the well known and highly respected Canadian Nature Photographer website. This is a wonderful and informative website for all interested in photography.
The article I wrote and the images I shared describe a particular journey, initiated by my mom and dad.
I hope you enjoy it.
2. 2014 Photographic Seminars & Workshops: A Chance to ‘ Learn & Leap’ into the world of Creative Photography
Workshop in action
This year, I will be offering a series of one-day and three-day photo seminars based out of the Chris Harris Gallery. They are designed for the beginner, to advanced intermediate.
In photography, we express ourselves by the arrangement or juxtaposition of compositional elements, the techniques which our camera’s allow us to use, and our interest in the subject matter we choose to photograph.
Illustrated lectures, in the field experiences, and critique sessions will help us recognize and create stronger compositions.
By the end of each day, you will see the world around you differently, and you will have become a more creative photographer.
Please review the seminar and workshop options and choose one that is designed for you.
Descriptions of these seminars and workshop as well as how to register are posted on my website.
3. Custom Seminars, Workshops & Tours: friends, clubs, students, etc.
If you are a group of friends, families, a club or organization, or a class of students, and you would like a customized seminar, workshop, or tour designed for your particular group, please contact Rita in the office.
We would be pleased to discuss your unique possibilities, and design a course just for you.
4. 2014 Photographic Tours: Unparalleled Photo Opportunities
There are three photo tours to three very distinct landscapes and there are a limited number of places still available on each. Please review the following photo opportunities and make plans to join us on the adventure of your choice.
BC Fjord Lands: 6 Days & 5 Nights of Endless Photographic Creativity
seascape
Three seats remain on this spectacular journey into the glacial fjord lands commonly known as “The Great Bear Rainforest”. Landscapes include hanging glaciers, granite walls with towering waterfalls, estuaries and lagoons, white sand beaches, and abandoned villages.
Wildlife opportunities include grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, and mountain goats on sheer cliffs above the ocean. We will have a good chance to photograph pods of killer whales, surfacing dolphins, and breaching Humpback whales. Dining includes fresh fish daily.
As with all of Chris’ trips, this one will be for the sole purpose of getting these images; unique, spectacular, remote, and adventurous.
A comparative trip with more luxurious accommodation, costs well over $9,000. Our trip is a steal in terms of a personalized itinerary, with personalized photographic assistance and opportunities.
For more descriptive trip details visit my website.
For pictures of the MV Nekhani, complete trip details, and registration, visit BC Grizzly Tours.
The Rainbow Mountains: A Horse Supported Photo Hike
rainbow image
This trip is a “go” with four participants signed up. There is space for two more.
With horses carrying our food and supplies, we are free to hike leisurely while photographing geological and cultural history.
We will deeply penetrate the colours of the ancient volcanic cones; we will sleep in the darkness and silence of an unaltered landscape, and we will walk with ‘patterned ground’ under our feet as witness to the history of the planet.
Led by Leslie, the Dorsey family will again take us out into their land where they and their ancestors have always lived and traveled since the beginning of human history in the region. This is the land that First Nations peoples have lived at one with the land, using its volcanic bounty – obsidian for spear points and red ochre for paints and pigments.
Please join us. For complete trip details visit my website.
For other trip details and registration, visit Rainbow Mountain Outfitting.
5. The Fraser River Photo Safari: A Landscape and Cultural Celebration
There are some spaces still available on this extraordinary trip through the Mid-Fraser River Canyon-Grasslands.
Operator Douglas Green is of the Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) Nation, and together, we create a rare cultural and artistic experience, in a remote and mostly inaccessible area of staggering beauty and biodiversity.
For five days, we seek the beauty in the landscape and then take our time maneuvering on the river, or going ashore, to capture it with our cameras.
At times, the landscape is seen as sheer canyon walls.
At other times, the gentle grasslands reach down to the water’s edge.
Sometimes the grasslands are seen butting up against colossal rock faces of unparalleled beauty.
Our campsites are chosen to offer photographic opportunities through the evening and early dawn light. I will be there to assist you in the creative capture of light.
An Isolated and tranquil campsite along the Fraser River
Some campsites at inaccessible locations offer untouched sandy beaches. You will only hear the symphonious sound of the river. You will photograph where few have.
View from another campsite; one used for thousands of years.
Some campsites have been used for thousands of years by aboriginal peoples. In this powerful location, for example, you will see ancient petroglyphs.
This trip will have a cultural emphasis as we are taken to pre-contact village sites, petroglyphs, and pictographs. Doug will also demonstrate dip-net fishing for salmon, and share the feast in traditional fashion. Few people have seen or experienced what Douglas will share with us, and full permission will be granted to photograph every aspect. From a cultural perspective, we can photograph a fascinating aboriginal story.
Douglas sharing cultural stories at a petroglyph site
Douglas dip-net fishing for salmon
“My 5 day tour down the Fraser River with Doug Green at the helm was beyond my wildest dreams. Photographer Chris Harris showed us how to ‘see’ the river, in the always changing light. The imagery, the stories, and the food were second to none”.
– Dennis Robinson
Please join us. For complete trip details visit my website.
For other trip details and registration, visit Cariboo Chilcotin Jetboat Adventures.
6. Camping along the Fraser River at Night: There is little time for sleep!
To me, there is nothing like camping out under the stars along the Fraser River. Firstly, there is no one there (bring a friend if you don’t enjoy that aspect). It is quiet, peaceful, and contemplative. There is no light pollution, only natural light emitted from the celestial universe.
The Big Dipper appears amidst a burst of light
Notes on composition & technique: It was September at 10:30pm; it was getting dark. I made this capture during a 121 sec. exposure, long enough to capture the Big Dipper and several other stars. The ambient light lit up the foreground.
EOS 5D Mark III; iso 100; shutter speed 121sec.; f-3.5; 16-35mm lens; tripod |
Everything seems timeless. I can enter the imaginary life ( and as a photographer, this is the best state to be in!). This landscape that I photographed, was once nothing like what you see here. This landscape will also become nothing like what you see here.
Full moon over Churn Creek and the Fraser River, I
Notes on composition & technique: I tried several exposures at varying lengths. Each rendered a different feeling to the softened highlights of Churn Creek. At the time, 36 seconds seemed just right.
EOS 5D Mark III; iso 100; shutter speed 36 sec.; f-4; 16-35mm lens; tripod |
As the sky clouded over and a full moon began to appear from beyond the canyon walls, I mover down the beach. In the darkness of night, a time exposure reveals the highlights of light emanating from Churn Creek.
Full moon over Churn Creek and the Fraser River, II
Notes on composition & technique: I was intrigued by the river boulders in the foreground as they began to reflect the light of the rising full moon. With my lens at 16mm, I was able to include them, as well as the moon.
EOS 5D Mark III; iso 100; shutter speed 36 sec.; f-3.5; 16-35mm lens; tripod |
Moving downstream to where Churn Creek empties into the Fraser, I make another time exposure. As the moon shows itself, it is harder to control the light. I am fascinated by the rocks which seem to take on new meaning under moonlight.
These are but a few of the photographic possibilities as we camp along the Fraser River on the above mentioned photo tour. I can help anyone interested in long-exposure image making.
7. The Story Behind the Image: A Sense of Pictorial Space
Along with Rita, her daughter Teresa, and Mike Duffy, I flew by floatplane to Ape Lake, a remote lake in the Coast Mountains south of the town Nimpo Lake, in the West Chilcotin.
Ape Lake is a fascinating lake from a geological perspective, but I had come to explore the surrounding landscape. I had come to hike and to photograph.
As we hiked, Rita began to realize that the vegetation at our very feet was the first generation of vegetation in well over 30,000 years. We were looking at a landscape that had been covered by glaciers and was only now, with climate change, beginning to reveal itself.
Sensing a dramatic story, I switched to the widest angle lens I had with me on this trip, a 16-35mm lens. Wide angle lenses are story-telling lenses. When weight is not an issue, I also carry a 14mm lens for this purpose.
First vegetation in over 30,000 years
Notes on composition & technique: To help tell this story I used f-22 and focused 1/3 of the way into this image to capture the greatest depth of focus.
EOS 5D Mark III; iso 200; shutter speed 1/60 sec.; f-22; 16-35mm lens; handheld |
In the image above, the story was compelling. On warm days, tiny rivulets of water and nutrients would flow from the source, out over the vast moraine. Along the route, seeds would germinate, and a new generation of vegetation would begin.
People who live their lives in cities, may never see the horizon. They may not be able to grasp the sensory overload in this image, the sense of distance and scale may be incomprehensible.
I love the sense of endless terrain; the thought of hiking toward the distant horizon, the water’s birthplace, and discovering all the visual treats along the way.
I hope to return here this summer. It’s a landscape I really enjoy, and if I pay attention to detail, there will be many more stories to capture and share with the world.