Photo editing news

The 8 rolls of film came back from the lab. I'm part way through scanning them to digital. There are a few disappointments, of course, there always are. But the winners! Holy Doodle! And that's just in the first 4 rolls. Later today I'll do another couple rolls at least. It's fussy and painstaking work, so there's no point in rushing. Once done, I'll figure out how to present them, but they're likely to be on my other blog.

Believe it or not, I'm still not done editing the digital photos from the Yukon trip. There's only so much of this sort of work I can do at once, then I need to take a break. 

So what shall I show you today? Here's what Whitehorse looks like, in case you had ever wondered. This is from the top of a bluff across the river, left to right.

1. I can't quite tell if the steamboat (see below) is just out of frame, or is hiding behind trees.

2. The tallest building in Whitehorse is an apartment building. 

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5. I had originally thought to try to assemble these into a panorama, but this photo defeated me the first time around. And the second, and the third. Aiming into the sun is always tough.

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8. And further around to the right. There actually isn't a proper pullout here, but there's not a lot of traffic.

9. Sharon, hard at it.

10. The bluff behind us, with ever optimistic plants trying to grow.

11. I've photographed this steamboat on other trips, so I got out of the van mainly to stretch my legs, and look to see if anything changed. Then I noticed the light!

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Of the Day

Driftwood

Yes, this is really wood, not the remains of a bird.

Flower

Peony

Lily

Landscape

Tombstone

The Dempster Highway on the way to Tombstone. This is a paved racetrack compared to further on.

Green Fools

A Bouffon poetry reading.

Film

Main street in Burstall Saskatchewan. It's a more happening place than you might think.

Tombstone Panorama, go big or go home

We had two days on the Dempster Highway, mainly to be within Tombstone park. By now you've heard the planned helicopter trip didn't work out because of weather. However, that made for some dramatic cloudscapes on top of dramatic landscapes.

And by golly, Tombstone and much of the rest of Yukon is as dramatic as anyone could wish for.

I've edited about 200 photos from the park, and I've been dithering about how to show them to you. Some are quite similar, aside from the ever changing dramatic light. This is on top of about 50 film negatives that I just got back from the lab yesterday afternoon.

And then there's the panorama photos stitched together in software. With digital it's easy to create panorama photos. With Tombstone it's hard to know where to stop the panorama. (There was also a lovely river reflection panorama here, 15741 x 6056 px, in case you missed it.)

So what I'm going to do is give you the panoramas up front. If you're looking at this on your phone, just stop now. No really. Maybe finish reading the text, if any of you do, but make an appointment with yourself to look at the photos on a on a big screen computer. You might need to tweak the image size to take full advantage of screen width, or even go full height and scroll. Thank me later, and keep in mind the image I see in Lightroom is even better than these. The blog images are all 2048 px wide, but various heights to maintain the aspect ratio. I'll give you the actual px size, then you can divide by 300 to get the size of a high quality print in inches. Just in case you want a big landscape print.

1. 13557 x 6241. I think this is the view from the pullout where we were supposed to meet the helicopter. Technically, I don't think we're actually in Tombstone yet.

2. 9217 x 6240

3. 21458 x 4191. I'd like to do something about the blown out clouds, but that was right into the sun. If I really had to, I'd go back to the original photos and play with them, but the odds are not good for seeing cloud detail. I suppose I could go into some of the other photo apps and simply replace those clouds, but that really goes against the grain for me.

4. 1936 x 6112.

5. 11022 x 6074. The overlook just north of the visitor centre is not to be missed. There will be lots of photos from it.

6. 32901 x 4068. I was waiting for the light to show up on the hills. And waiting. And waiting. I would not be surprised to learn there are photographers who live in a van and wait for the light. Chapman lake, right at the very north end of the park, looking east.

7. 14584 x 6240. Near the north end of the park.

8. 18921 x 6149. From the visitor centre looking south.

9. 17575 x 4139. Ok, this is not Tombstone, it's Carcross Desert, looking towards the little town.

I'll probably do another blog of mostly Tombstone, then they'll show up as part of the Of the Day feature. There's a few readers that asked to see these photos. If you'd like notice of when I blog so you don't miss any, send me an email to keith at nucleus dot com and I'll add you to my mailing list. These people sometimes get little extras.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower

Peony

Lily

Landscape (Hailstone Butte)

Green Fools, clown accusations

Film, I just got back 8 rolls of film from the Sand Hills and Yukon trips. Stay tuned!

Tombstone, the beginning of random selections from the many edited photos.

River tour, selected photos

The original original plan was to have the helicopter ride first day in Dawson. On the way up that plan changed because of weather. The boat ride down the Yukon River to 40 Mile got bumped up. This was one of the oldest towns in Yukon, established in 1886, and was the happening place until the famous gold rush started. It was a First Nations settlement for generations out of mind before that because it's where the caribou cross the Yukon River during migration. It's now a historic site, and kind of tough to get to unless you own or rent a boat, and know where you're going.

The problem here is that there are about 100 edited photos of the tour. Some are misty tree and river hillside photos. Some people photos. Some historic bits of overgrown metal. Old buildings and stuff. A wrecked steamboat. Water reflection photos, including a panorama that would print out 5 feet wide or so. Fall colours. I don't know whether to present them in the order taken, group them by topic, do it in random order, or what.

Our tour and boat ride was done by Tommy Taylor of Fishwheel Charters. A fishwheel is an interesting device used to catch fish. (Duh!) I had never heard of it before, but it's remarkably simple in operation. It uses the current of the river to turn a pair of nets that scoop up fish and dump them into a hopper to be processed.

1. So let's begin where I begin, which is part way through the day. The reflections were stunning, so most of us spent some time capturing them. I'm sure there is a wall somewhere that would love to have this 50 x 20 inch panorama hanging on it.

2. We also spent some time enjoying them. That was part of the entire trip for us, to enjoy the scenery with our eyes, and not just through a camera viewfinder.

3. Once Tommy dropped us off, the only noise was what we made. It was a bit weird, being dropped off quite literally in the middle of nowhere, by a guy we didn't know very well, trusting that our driver Kevin would be able to drive down roads he'd never been on before, to deliver us a picnic lunch, and take us back to Dawson.

4. This is Kevin, confirming the directions, and reassuring us that he'll be able to find us. He had about a 100 Km drive on gravel roads to find us. After that, it's about 1.6 Km easy walk from the parking area to where we got dropped off. Carrying picnic supplies for 12 people.

5. The info sign. I like taking photos of these to remind me where I'd been.

6. Tommy leaving us. It got very quiet. The last time it was this quiet for me was in a fjord off Doubtful Sound, where they turn the boat off, and ask people to turn off their phones and not talk or move around. All you can hear is seabirds and waves splashing the boat. This was quieter than that. Any birds were quiet. There was no wind in the trees. The nearest mechanized vehicles are more than a mile away through a dense forest. This might well be the quietest place I've ever been to.

7. A couple abstracts for you.

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9. Some of the overgrown stuff. Once upon a time there was a dredge operation here, given the buckets, but there's no other evidence of it.

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13. An old building with old stuff inside. I was regretting not bringing the film camera along. (News of which, I haven't seen the developed negatives yet.)

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19. One of my buddies working on a photo.

18. Flo is a short woman. I would have to duck quite a bit to get through that door.

19. Enjoying the view and silence.

20. We came back along the Top of the World Highway. 

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23. At the end of the day we crossed the ferry into Dawson itself. I like watching the ferry go back and forth. It's not a cable ferry, it's piloted, free form across a river with a stiff current, and grounded on a gravel bank on either shore.

24. Oh, and the promised fish wheel, with Tommy operating it. Not that it takes much supervision if there's no logs and no fish.

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27. My favourite misty forest hillside photo.

28. I forgot I promised the wrecked steamboat.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower

Peony

Lily

Green Fools

Bouffon, entertaining the audience, such as it was.