Night – heath ofee dot com

April Fools

Heath OFee — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:10:46 +0000

Mother Nature played a nice April Fools joke on us Calgarians last night – she gave us a light dusting of snow that remains on the ground this morning. Great way to start off the spring

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Heath OFee — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:10:24 +0000

As I’m sure most of my readers know by now, I met up with a great bunch of photographers while I was in New York City for a ridiculous day of shooting around the city. The morning began just across the East River in Brooklyn, and as the sun was setting we made our way back to the same spot – but on the Manhattan side. From this long walkway one is afforded great views of both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges – both of which you can see in the image below.

On a processing note, I decided to go against my usual workflow of Lightroom -> Photoshop -> Phototools -> Lightroom and edited this image exclusively in Lightroom. It was nice not leaving the one interface, and I don’t feel like adding those extra steps would have added anything extra to this image. I may be trying more of this simplified workflow in the future.

Oh, and as for the title of this post – I couldn’t get that song out of my head during that entire day of shooting

Equipment:
– Canon EOS 5D Mark II
– Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L

RW2

Heath OFee — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:10:17 +0000

Since this shot got such a good reception over on G+, I figured I’d post it here on the blog as well to let the rest of the world see it!

Everybody, this is Rich. Rich, this is everybody!

Equipment:
– Canon EOS 5D Mark II
– Canon 50mm f/1.4
– BlackRapid RS-4 Camera Strap

Pinwheel

Heath OFee — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:10:41 +0000

It’s that time of year here in Calgary. The self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth’, The Calgary Stampede, is tearing up the city this week. For some, it’s a week of actual stampeding…bull riding, chuckwagon racing, steer wrestling, etc. But for most of the city it’s an excuse to dress like a cowboy for 10 days and drink your face off as often as possible. I try to stay away from either extreme, and if I could, I’d be away on vacation every year during this time. I’ve been in this city for over 25 years and I enjoyed the Stampede for a good number of them…but now I’m just sick of it all. So, since I’m still in the city for it this year, I figured I’d do Stampede my way: with a camera and a tripod

I made my way down to the grounds two nights ago, did a bit of candid shooting before the sun went down and then pulled out the tripod for a few long exposures of the midway. I was battling rain after sunset, so I didn’t get as many shots as I’d have liked, but I’m satisfied with the few I did get.

Millennium Bridge

Heath OFee — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:10:42 +0000

I decided to dive deep into the archives for my shot today. In 2007, I took a 12 day trip to London shortly after I had purchased my very first digital SLR. I took an obscene amount of photographs while I was there, but looking back, I didn’t come away with a whole bunch of what I would now consider ‘keepers’. Obviously, this is to be expected when on one’s first journey with a new piece of equipment…plus it gives me a great excuse to get back to London so I can shoot it properly

Of the good photos I did manage to take while I was there, this is hands down my favourite (even though it is quite a ‘touristy’ shot). The juxtaposition of the ultra modern with the extremely old is something that is present almost anywhere you walk in London, and this shot is no exception. Millennium Bridge set against St. Paul’s Cathedral. Awesomeness.

Canon Rebel XTi, Tamron 28-80mm, 51mm, F 8.0, ISO 100, 8 sec

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Heath OFee — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:58:22 +0000

Well, it’s Christmas Eve…and I can’t believe it’s here. I’m pretty sure I say this every year, but this year with the December wedding and all, Christmas really has snuck up on me! I knew I wanted to do some sort of Christmas post, so I’m glad I was able to get a Christmasy shot while I was in Mexico. Santa and his reindeer were stuck in the ground here the day before our wedding was to take place on the exact same spot! We were stressed out for a while, but were assured that he would be removed for our big day…and he was.

I want to wish all of my amazing Twitter friends and loyal blog followers a huge Merry Christmas! It’s been a blast getting to know all of you this year, and I can’t thank each and every one of you enough for the daily inspiration you give me. I’ve grown immensely as a photographer this year, and I know for a fact it is due to the amazingly generous photography community I’m glad to call myself a part of. So, Merry Christmas to you all, and I wish you nothing but the best through this holiday season!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 12mm, F 7.1, ISO 400, 5 Merry Exposures

Pure Random Experimentation

Heath OFee — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:56:48 +0000

Here’s some total abstract randomness for a fine Sunday evening.

This photo is the result of leaving the shutter open for a full 30 seconds while walking downtown with the camera on my tripod slung over my shoulder. I’m sure this has been done many times before, but I thought I’d share this random image since I think it’s kinda cool. That is all.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon TS-E 17mm f/4.0L, 17mm, F 8.0, ISO 100, 30 Seconds

4-3-2-1

Heath OFee — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:57:08 +0000

I need to start shooting urban landscapes at night more often. The man-made light can make for some very interesting shadows and the darkness just adds an extra dimension of drama. I was out shooting two nights ago and had an absolute blast, plus I came back with a whole bunch of keepers…always a good thing.

I almost kept walking right past this scene on my way to the older, grungier parts of this alleyway, but I stopped myself to compose this shot. Those numbered grey loading bays and the contrasting yellow pillars were just begging to be bracketed

Canon EOS 50D, Canon TS-E 17mm f/4.0L, 17mm, F 11, ISO 100, 5 Exposures

Harvest Moon

Heath OFee — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:41:03 +0000

In my previous post I alluded to taking some shots of the super harvest moon that we got last week, so I thought I’d better share one of my images before everyone forgets about the occasion. I’ll be honest, and tell you that I wasn’t terribly impressed with the whole harvest moon thing. I guess I was expecting to see a giant moon rising over the horizon, and although the moon was full, and appeared quite large and bright, it wasn’t quite as epic as I was expecting. Despite the bit of disappointment I was feeling, I still convinced myself to rattle off a few brackets to see what I could come up with.

Unfortunately, the disappointment didn’t end with the harvest moon itself. After unloading my images and sifting through them, I found that I wasn’t particularly impressed with any of the shots I got of the harvest moon. I ran a couple sets of brackets through Photomatix and was still not very happy with the results…so, what to do? I knew I wanted to post a harvest moon shot, and now it was almost like a challenge to make at least one of them work. Maybe not the best exercise, but it forced me to get the creative juices flowing a little bit. I decided to throw a texture onto a single exposure (-2 ev) to add a bit of extra interest. After a few other local adjustments and a global saturation shift, I ended up with what you see below…and I’m actually quite pleased with how it all turned out in the end. Moral of the story? Not really sure…be persistent? Stubbornness sometimes pays off? You be the judge

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 102mm, F 11, ISO 100, 1/30sec

St. Mark’s Square by Night

Heath OFee — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:07:49 +0000

When I first stumbled upon HDR early this year, I didn’t jump straight on the Photomatix train, I actually tried out a Lightroom plugin called Enblend/Enfuse. I spent quite a bit of time going through some of my old RAW files, splitting them into 3 pseudo-brackets and running them through this plugin. Some of the results I achieved were actually quite good considering I was working with single RAW files. I rarely use this plugin anymore as Photomatix is my go-to HDR creation/tonemapping software, but today I’m going to share one of the images I processed using this plugin.

This is a shot from the brief time I spent in Venice during my visit to Italy last year. I was in absolute wonderment the entire time I was there…I couldn’t even believe a city like Venice could exist and there were unbelievable photo opportunities around every corner and along every tiny, cobbled street. Getting lost in Venice was probably the most fun I had on my Italy trip. Weaving through the shaded streets and then stumbling out into one of the countless squares was a joy. I’d love to go back one day.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 11, ISO 100, 10sec