Whychus Creek Adventure

Even with a good guide book it can be difficult to find places that are a bit off the beaten path. Roads may have changed, descriptions are often not quite right, and distances may be inaccurate. Usually a bit of back tracking and second guessing is involved to make it to your final destination. Such was the case with getting …

Looking for Horse Thieves

It’s easy to imagine a gang of horse thieves hiding out at Horsethief Butte—the high basalt walls form a natural fortress and there are a number of narrow entrances into the interior of the butte that would make it easy to defend from a posse of lawmen. Horsethief Butte in the warm morning sun. I visited this Washington state park …

A Slow Morning Down at Little Qualicum River

The grey days of winter on Vancouver Island can be excellent for photographing rivers and waterfalls. With the cloud cover, the light is even and flat so you don’t get the high zones of contrast between the dark sides of the river bottoms and the sunlit trees on the ridge above. I’ve organized a “Slow Photographers SIG” within the Comox …

Sandstone and Water

I returned to the Oyster River this week with a small group from the Comox Valley Camera Club “Slow Photographers SIG” to photograph the surreal landscape of rock and water on this part of the river. Again, I was limited by the fixed focal length of my Fuji X1oos (Nikon D600 still in the shop for a second servicing for …

Ice and Sandstone on the Oyster River

When I’m photographing landscapes, my tendency is to anchor the scene with a foreground object and then go wide to show the expansiveness of the land. Last weekend I was without my full-frame Nikon D600 (still with Nikon Canada being serviced a second time for oil and dust problems—looks like I’ll be without it for at least another week or …

Oyster River Bowls

Photographing moving water has been a theme for me this year and I’ve really been enjoying experimenting with neutral density filters to slow down the shutter speed and blur the flowing water. It’s also been a good excuse to get out and visit new locations. Sandstone Abstract #2 This weekend I followed up a suggestion by George Bowron and checked …

Triple Falls in Errington, British Columbia

Sometimes the best falls are the ones that are a little bit off the beaten path. They don’t have to be spectacular drops, but they should be a little harder to get to. The extra effort makes it worthwhile. This weekend I joined a group of Comox Valley Camera Club photographers on a day trip to the Triple Falls on …

Down at the Brown’s

Brown’s River falls have been on my “must visit” photography list for a while—the problem was that I really didn’t have a clear idea of where exactly they were. The Comox Valley Camera Club did a field trip there earlier in the month but I had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t attend. There are a couple of different ways to …

Trent River Falls

Last fall when I hiked up the Trent River I met some people who told me about a spectacular waterfall on the downstream side of the Inland Island Highway. At that time I did a bit of research on-line and talked to a couple of friends who had been into the Trent River falls—it sounded like an easy walk (aside …

Kennedy River Cascade

Looking downstream from the rocks near the main falls on the Kennedy River. ISO 100, f/16, 1/30 sec – Nikon D600, 16mm It is a popular stopping point about half way between Port Alberni and Ucluelet/Tofino and a place to take a break before Highway 4 begins to wind its way down to Kennedy Lake. On the west side of …