Once again, the RBF lesson

I did a fun family photo shoot yesterday. Today I had some help in narrowing down the photos. I reviewed and marked the ones that I thought I would show a client, but we didn't look at those first. I had them scroll through and apply star ratings. Eventually we ended up with 46 getting 2 stars (meaning this was the short list for getting printed), and 92 more they liked, but didn't quite rate 2 stars, but thought other members of the family might want to see.

Let's just say there was lots of overlap between my picks and theirs, and almost complete agreement on the best shots. Still there were ones they scored as 2 stars that I didn't pick up on. Some were really close. Some not.

Which gets me to the RBF lesson. (You may know this story already.) I had taken a photo of a friend at a triathlon. She was part of a team, and wanted photos. I had one of her walking into transition, looking around for her team. Let's just say I didn't think it was a flattering photo. I debated if I even wanted to show it to her, and if I did I was expecting her to tell me to delete it. NOT! She loved it! She wanted a print. She called it her resting bitch face.

We found this great calm pond to shoot along the Dempster. My problem was that I only had my really wide lens on the camera, and what was really wanted was something longer, and no time to go back. Trying to make the composition work anyway by draping myself over a fence.

Here's a pair of fun shots from the trip home from Eagle Plains. We snuck into a closed campground for a picnic lunch. The birds were certainly eager to help us eat!

This is a shot from my second camera pointed straight up from Sun Dog Retreat, edited while I was there, but not blogged through a bit of a mixup.

Peony of the Day

Driftwood of the Day

Yes, I've started, just barely

Yes, I've started working on the Yukon photos, but nothing edited since I got home. There should be 3 time-lapse movies of some pretty fabulous aurora, and one of STEVE, coming soon. You'll love them. Plus many photos, of course. Many photos. To hold you over, here's some aurora photos edited while in Yukon, but not posted. These are all shot from Sun Dog Retreat during my Yukon trip with Neil Zeller. For new readers, these are shot with a Canon 6Dmk2 with a Sigma Art 14mm f1.8 lens.

Another busy spell done. Lately it seems everything happens at once, or very little is happening. There was a busy patch around Globalfest, then a week off, then Yukon. I'm still decompressing. This retired life isn't for sissies. Curtis is happy now that he is back on track for cuddles. In spite of careful explanations, cats do not understand calendars.

There will be a couple more Flowery Fridays happening, since the garden is still going strong.

The fun part of today was this woman and her family in this location, and some other places nearby for a family shoot. They're going to like what they see.

Peony of the Day
(July 25)

Driftwood of the Day

Post Dawson day

Dawson to Whitehorse. It turns out that reservation computers think it's important to spell your name consistently, and it wasn't just me. Who knew? Which meant a bit of time for the Air North people to sort out, which they did. Air North is awesome and will get my business anytime I need to fly one of their routes.

Whitehorse to Calgary via Edmonton. A routine flight, except for the lady that tried to kick Susan out of her seat. She was insisting up and down that she had the window, dragged in the flight attendant to do the dirty work, and then hardly looked embarrassed when her boarding pass said seat E rather than F. Then she talked Susan's ear off the entire flight like they were best friends.

We got home about 10:30. Curtis was more interested in getting fed than getting cuddled. Sigh. The next morning he was up for the cuddles, but I was out of the house assisting at a pre-dawn photo shoot. That was fun.

Home. Unpacking. Running everything through the wash. My main computer is migrating 7950 photos into the home computer. Actual editing will probably start tomorrow. My eyes are still tired.

I'm thinking of trying a different way of presenting the best images from the trip. Two ways, actually. One is a printed book. The other is a Spark page. This is a web page that gives me a bit more flexibility with images, and the text that you all love to read. At least some will still show up here, as will a link to any other site I might use. Stay tuned.

Whereupon the flowery parade continues. I've got at least one more of these flowery Fridays to go. Did you guys like that feature? Too many flowers? Too concentrated in one dose?

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Peony of the Day

Driftwood of the Day

The last Dawson day

There was a plan to put up some more of the photos I'd edited but not published. But like so many things in the north, there needs to be some flexibility built into the plan. Yesterday was a smoky day in Dawson so the photos are muted. I wandered along the river valley and got some nice shots of distressed wood. One of them will come out looking like dragon scales. I think. One never knows till you see it on the computer.

The problem is that I have tired eyes that are burning from smoke. Plus my laptop is being pissy about Lightroom. Plus the Dawson intertubes are being slow. So you get two photos this morning, with the promise of more kind of soonish. After a photo gig Friday morning, major Curtis cuddles the rest of Friday, and an important photo date on Saturday. Really important. Stay tuned.

There's a ferry in this shot.

Flowers! Don't ask.

Peony of the Day
(July 25)

Driftwood of the Day

Dawson is beautiful

Yesterday was a recovery day after 2 days on the Dempster Highway. Now, some of you may have a mistaken impression because of the word highway. What we have is a 2 lane gravel road. A very rough gravel road in places. It's 371 Km from the start of the Dempster (that blue bridge in yesterday's blog) to Eagle Plains, which is half way to Inuvik. The arctic circle is about 38 Km north of Eagle plains.

You may be thinking 4 hour drive. NOT! It's closer to 7.5 hours. A tough drive, dodging lots of big trucks that have a place to be. Plus we were stopping for photos. And lunch. And pee breaks. Something about all the bouncing around stimulating your kidneys. The scenery is out of the world, but that road gets old soon. Our driver says that the tour vans last 4 or 5 seasons and are done.

We spent yesterday sleeping in a bit, then going on a city tour, then a gold fields tour. Dredge 4 is fascinating, and the clouds of black flies take advantage. Near there are some ponds for reflections.

I panned for gold at claim 33 and now I can say I'm a gold miner. This might get me a cup of coffee. Watch for a good macro shot of these later this fall.

Across the ferry and up to the overlook. You might see this photo again, since the camera was showing me lots of colour in that plume of smoke.

This is some of what you see from the overlook.

Today is a stroll around Dawson day. Easy, relaxed. Fly home tomorrow.

Peony of the Day
(July 25)

Driftwood of the Day

The Dempster in somewhat more detail

Here we are. Some shots along the way. This is mostly landscape stuff. Animals and reflections and aurora and some people shots are later. There are some other landscapes with HDR or panorama shots that will show up when I process them at home.

This bridge is the start of the Dempster highway. We caught up to those guys on the bikes later, at the Arctic circle. The photos are taken along the way. Not that there is any other road.

This is not our van, so you don't need to worry that they left me behind.

Big wide open spaces. This is actually a side road leading to a radio tower. We walked on the tundra. It's very difficult.

A repeat shot, just because I'm so pleased by it. And you might have missed it yesterday.

In case you wondered what sunset at the Arctic Circle looks like.

Shortly later was moonrise. It never got much higher than that. Later during the aurora storm I was trying to get the moon and aurora in the same shot, but it went below the horizon.

The finest establishment in Eagle Plains.

Just some random views along the way.

It looks like the road is going through a lake, but it's only a puddle a few inches across.

Our awesome guide Sandra noticed this cloud rainbow.

 Along the way back we ran into the smoke from a forest fire from 100 K away. It's really smoky now. This is that same bridge, and we are done the Dempster.

Peony of the Day
(July 20)

Driftwood of the Day